3300 — Edited by Nirvana Heire

Synopsis:
 
Created on 17th and 18th of June 1996 — 3300 is 35mm photography as geographic exposition.
 
On Saturday 15th June 1996 the Irish Republican Army detonated a 3300lb lorry bomb on Corporation Street, city centre Manchester. The vernacular/found photographs of this edition — presented here as facsimile versions of the original prints — were discovered by Nirvana Heire during the electrical decommissioning of the Rylands Building, Market Street, Manchester in November 2022.
 
These thirty-nine granular, unpolished images possess a cinematic aspect: panoptic views of trashed cityscapes against close-up damage to shop fronts. While the abstracted, spare and repetitive nature of these snapshots offers a stark rumination on the structural defacement wreaked upon the metropolis. A lack of human presence throughout much of the work, allied to an absence of authorial background, impart a singularly uncanny tone.
 
The easy typological platitues of found-photography publications are jettisoned; 3300 is stripped back to its barest essentials. In an era of overwrought book design this work is sparse, angular and thoughtful.
 
Nirvana Heire is an artist living and working in Manchester. An electrician and founder member of the bands Handle and DUDS, 3300 is his first photobook.
 
 
Praise for 3300:
 
"A remarkable find, the book deals with the material in a straightforward manner, which I find reinforces the subtle drama of the pictures."
Jem Southam, author of The Harbour, Four Winters and The Moth
 
"An important and thought-provoking book. It is very well conceived. I appreciate the simple, honest way of presenting these found images and the succinct text. I like the natural beige cast that gives it such visual coherence. The mysterious provenance of the images adds to the eeriness."
Alison McCauley, author of Shimmers and Anywhere but Here
 
"This astonishing caché of photographs capture not the violent explosions of the ‘96 bomb, but its silent, eerie aftermath. Their stillness is akin to that of the eye of a storm, between the chaos of deindustrialisation and the speculative maelstrom of our own times. With cryptic origin, they are destined to become a cult touchstone for all who seek to understand New Manchester."
Isaac Rose, author of The Rentier City: Manchester and the Making of the Neoliberal Metropolis
 
"A new photobook, 3300, collates photos of Manchester city centre taken by an unknown photographer in the immediate aftermath of the 1996 IRA bomb. The series of forty 35mm photographs was found on the floor of the main office, where they must have lay for some 30 years. But the biggest mystery of all is: who is the photographer? The only clue is the small reflection in the top right corner of a photo of what was Debenhams. If you know anything, then let us know."
The Manchester Mill