Belfast Exposed was founded in 1983 as a response to concern over the careful control of images depicting British military activity during the Troubles. It occupies a small room on the first floor at 23 Donegal Street and contains over 14,000 black-and-white contact sheets, documenting the Troubles in Northern Ireland. These are photographs taken by professional photo-journalists and 'civilian' photographers, chronicling protests, funerals and acts of terrorism as well as the more ordinary stuff of life: drinking tea; kissing girls; watching trains.

Whenever an image in this archive was chosen, approved or selected, a blue, red or yellow dot was placed on the surface of the contact sheet as a marker. The position of the dots provided us with a code; a set of instructions for how to frame the photographs in this book.

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin have been collaborating for over a decade. They have produced six books which in different ways examine the language of documentary photography. They are the recipients of numerous awards, including the Vic Odden Award from the Royal Photographic Society and the 2013 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. (Publisher)
 

藝術家雙人組Adam Broomberg和Oliver Chanarin一起工作的時間已經超過十年了，站在紀實攝影的基礎上，他們可算是歸檔、重建社會資料的箇中高手，這本攝影集的製作與出版，充分展現出他們二人飽滿與敏銳的心靈。

書中的原始檔案來自愛爾蘭組織Belfast Exposed的龐大影像資料庫，50萬張的黑白攝影照片，紀錄了北愛爾蘭的族群紛爭與流血衝突，這些珍貴的資料影像來自專業新聞記者與街頭的目擊民眾，編年累目地記載了抗爭、喪禮、恐怖行動，也包含了尋常生活裡的片段小事，譬如說：喝茶、親吻女孩子、看著火車飛馳等等。

許多人檢閱過這些影像，學者或是匿名者拿著不同的彩色貼紙為這些影像作上標記，有些影像可能因此出現在報章雜誌或期刊裡，成了書頁裡的一部分，這些彩色圓點貼紙成了某種記號，暗示著前人曾經駐足、逡巡的目光，提供了Broomberg和Chanarin創作此書時的潛在架構。