Rave culture, riots and mass communion in Gareth McConnell's new book

Date
16 February 2015

Close Your Eyes, the newest publication from Northern Ireland-born and London-based photographer Gareth McConnell, is one of those books which seems to boil history down and to present it for inspection. Gareth describes it as a “frenzied reworking” of his accumulated archive; it brings together over ten years worth of photographs of rave culture, of civil gatherings and of riots, all of which is placed side-by-side with found imagery from the internet, shots from historical moments and personal and political perspectives. 

“This is … a frustrated meditation on the nature of human occurrence,” his publisher, Self Publish Be Happy says, “the power of mass communion in its many forms, and the delirious experience of losing oneself to hedonism from the view of someone who saw it from within.” The images are shot through with flashes of blinding light, kaleidoscopic colour and a dynamic off-beat energy which makes the whole book feel incredibly cohesive in spite of its fragmentary nature. “As an object, the book is an immersive experience,” they continue, and this certainly seems to be true – it’s the kind of book future generations might refer to to help understand the ineffable complexity of contemporary culture. 

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Gareth McConnell: Close Your Eyes

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Gareth McConnell: Close Your Eyes

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Gareth McConnell: Close Your Eyes

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Gareth McConnell: Close Your Eyes

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Gareth McConnell: Close Your Eyes

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Gareth McConnell: Close Your Eyes

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Gareth McConnell: Close Your Eyes

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Gareth McConnell: Close Your Eyes

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Gareth McConnell: Close Your Eyes

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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