Donovan Wylie - Maze (2 Vol.)

The Maze prison was opened in 1976, at the height of the conflict in Northern Ireland, and held both republican and loyalist prisoners in its eight identical H-blocks. Through its history of protests, hunger strikes and escapes, the Maze became an emblem of the Northern Ireland conflict. After the Belfast peace agreement in 1998, inmates were gradually released, but the Maze remained open until 2007. Between 2002 and 2003 Donovan Wylie spent almost 100 days inside the prison, absorbing the psychology of the architecture and recording each section as it was destroyed. He was the only photographer to be granted official and unlimited access to the site. Wylie then revisited the prison in 2007 to document its demolition. First published in 2004 to critical acclaim, this new slipcased edition comes in two hardback volumes--Maze 2002/03 and Maze 2007/08--and contains a supplementary booklet, The Architecture of Containment, with an essay and historical chronology by Louise Purbrick.