Bronagh Lawson is an artist based in Belfast who has written a blog about the vibrant local contemporary visual arts scene for the last ten years. Previously starting as a participant then manager she ran cross-community cross border development programmes for 13 years.
Originally from Portaferry and Strangford she is a Fulbright scholar and graduate of Winchester Achool of Art.
Bronagh is a co-founder of the Hydrangea project a Belfast — a Chicago collaboration which uses contemporary art underpinned with art therapy to act as a healing mechanism. Her book 'Belfast City of Light: Looking and Listening to Belfast Come with Me' is based on her experience as a non-churchgoer attending every church in Belfast for a service during 2019.
“We were born in a bubble of tragedy, where the murals on the walls kept us in. Our friends were going to Australia but were we were too scared so we put on our faces and went out.“
IT’S all about the Belfast Turner Prize nominees the Array Collective this week. I was delighted to see that the awards were being held in Coventry Cathedral which I visited recently. Unable to attend their annual peace conference in person, I attended online asking the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby what he thought about the importance of art in peacebuilding. “Art is one of the most important parts of how peace is done,” he replied. “With art you can say things without words that if people spoke they would argue about.” I asked could a proposed enhanced role for Coventry Cathedral be “helping England and Ireland get a more contemporary view of each other.” He replied that England's relationship with Ireland was trauma, upon trauma, upon trauma, a kind of letting out of the dogs of war to Quote Shakespeare.
On Thursday, Outburst Arts and the Belfast Ensemble in partnership with the Ulster Orchestra presented the world premiere of 'Mass We Believe' in the former Belfast Telegraph print works.
When I was involved in running development programmes, I remember a women from the lower Ormeau who said that when it was coming up to the holiday season she would take her son to the Ulster Museum and explain to him it was their holiday.
Teatime, what does it mean to you? R-Space Gallery in Lisburn has an exhibition that explores our fascination with tea, and its origins across world cultures. It made a public call out for proposals just at a time when I was working on some art work around my church visits.
Where do science and art collide? Who decided to pull them apart?
Studying textiles can be a very misunderstood specialism within the art context. The textile industry here has gone the way of cheaper production and further afield climes.
On arrival In Coventry, we asked at the visitors information outside the train station what might be on during that day. Mondays have a reconciliation prayer at noon with organ recital at 12.30pm in the Cathedral. As it’s beside the Herbert Art gallery where we were booked in at 2.30pm, we thought we would make our way there.
GOING to the slightly bigger island beside us, the island that I went to art college in and spent nearly seven years in, including a number of months in the Midlands, I wondered what became of that young woman if she had stayed there? How easier her life might have been, what events would she or would she not have instigated? Coventry is pretty easy to get to – £51 return flight Belfast to Birmingham, free skytrain to the train station and a £3.60 train ride to the city itself. Straight out of the train station is a newly-built kiosk for visitors especially for its designation as he UK Capital of Culture, where some of the confusion around the www.visitcoventry.co.uk website can be sorted out. As is usual with these cultural designations, it gives the city an opportunity to revisit its cultural offering and rejig things a bit. Coventry is a medieval city that was badly flattened in the Blitz, the most catastrophic raid taking place on November 14, 1940, “The most concentrated attack on a British city in the Second World War.” It has a weird combination of seventies buildings, medieval wooden frame houses and really hospitable people – and is easy to walk around. The reason for the visit was to see the Array Collectives submission for the Turner prize at the Herbert Gallery. Having looked at coverage so far, like all art you really have to see it to get something personal from it. I'm not sure the English papers coverage really get it. I went expecting something and got something else entirely. I walked into the space, ignoring the empty flagpoles, to the yurt-like structure which houses the sibín described as a “pub without permission’. As I walked in and sat down on the seats around the edges it was full of bewildered English people wondering what was going on. In one corner archive footage from Northern Ireland, in another a bar, familiar items from North and South of Ireland: Tayto crisps, fake fag butts laid out on cabaret tables from the Black box. The snugs all felt very familar, Stephen MIllar's painting behind the bar, visual gags about “themmuns”, beer mats and costumes that have featured in some of their activist work. On walking in to the familar space there is a three-screen digital piece on the wall that everyone was glued to. I arrived when the video piece was talking about the faeries and the Presbyterian Church. Okay, so were they talking about the Little People or the Village People, I thought? It became clear on watching it the second time that the faerie people of faith segment was referring to how gay people have been treated by faith communities: “The fairies and the fallen angels, not the mainstream Christian religions that lived in peace during the Troubles” among other snippets of how gay Christians met and received Holy Communion in the seventies. The video was recorded in the Black Box at the Druithaib's Ball, a wake for the centenary of Ireland's partition. Where Array invited a select costumed audience and performers, the results are edited roughly but are worth watching over a few times. It reflects contemporary creative reality in Belfast. Artist Phil Hession sings an achingly Irish tune, as do others – it was all I could do to stop myself clapping and giving out a yeeow! at the end of each piece. It seemed to show contempory mummers, Stephen Millar with his trumpet and improv band. There are strenuous truths in the video piece about ancient myths and bodily autonomy, even the Orange Order and the Church of Ireland get a look in. The explanation signage is in Irish and English. Just as the Welsh submission is also in Welsh, it was nice to see it included just as a matter of course and the English public seemed interested and intrigued. The feeling in the bar installation is familar and authentic, so much so that some people were just waiting to be served a drink. Looking at the bewildered visitors all glued to their seats I tried to remind them it was an art installation by walking around behind the bar and looking at the artifacts: the Stena Line mop, the ceramic chips, the knitted balaclavas. I stopped myself from reliving my barmaid days by shouting, “Who needs served next?” and “Time gentlemen, please” when I saw the bar bell. You can imagine the conversations and decisions that had to be made to bring all the different ideas together and the enormous voluntary work that was required to pull the whole thing off. On the way out there is a banner of one hundred years of solitude of the foot of Ulster, the imagery plays on the Red Hand of Ulster and subverts the foot as a symbol of oppression: “to a feminist and queer emblem, commenting on the underrepresented identities in Northern ireland.” It has echoes of the Articoke Procession’s banners, you can imagine it was an idea that a collective member had then hastily made. It was here that I realised the flagpoles in a circle were perhaps inviting you (as the gallery attendant did) to imagine an Ireland without flags. How long have you got, I thought? It has a light mechanism in that particular part of the installation that changes the light from dawn to dusk – is it a new Celtic Dawn, perhaps? A new light? You receive a bright green token when entering the gallery for visitors to vote for their favourite. Talking with the Gallery attendants, they said it seemed visitors thought it was a toss-up between Array Collective and Project Art Works, who have a really interesting space, more traditional in layout, where they have focused on individual artists. Videos of how the neurodiverse artists create is heart-warming. Again, I lament that no such facility exists in the North of Ireland. The art is expressive and compelling and during the run of the Turner Prize different artists in the group will come in and work in the space. A lovely way for them to gain more benefit from the experience. It's really nice to see some of the hive of creativity spill out from Belfast to this slightly bigger Island. In talking to Dougal Makenzie, the course director of the BA fine art at Belfast School of Art, he commented that on a recent trip to Dublin some people were asking him was he not annoyed that Array was shortlisted, that many other studio groups have been doing work longer, or are better known. He reminded them that Array Collective creating and using their creativity is more akin to the contemporary reality of how a generation of artists are working in Belfast. For my part, I say you get much more from it if you go and see it in real life. If it’s ever shown in Ireland there will be a different reading from it again. I hope all the artists involved are able to readjust their balance as the amount of creative energy it has taken to prepare the submission can result in a pretty big downer and it’s a long time to December when the result of the prize is announced. The visit to Coventry was well worth the trip. You do have to book to get into the Turner Prize and a lot of the weekend slots are full. I got the first flight out of Belfast and if you were pushed for time and well organised you could do it in a day trip, but as it is the UK Capital of Culture there are other activities on and with the Art Biennale opening this week, it would be well worth staying overnight or spending a few days. The city is a little frayed around the edges, but coming from Belfast that seems very familar. The Turner Prize runs at Herbert Art Gallery and Museum until January 12, 2022.www.theherbert.org/whats_on/1560/turner_prize_2021
The quality of the arts to write on astounds me this week: it’s all about the Turner Prize, the UK’s best-known contemporary art prize with local nominees Array collective, a film about Belfast by Kenneth Branagh and a troupe called Drag Syndrome who are coming to town. Yes, you heard right, a troupe of artists with Down's Syndrome who perform in drag.
There is nothing like a deadline to make or break an artist. There is an added anxiety that can spur on the creativity or kill it completely. Thus, the arrival of the exhibition of Ulster University Ceramics, jewellery and silversmithing graduates at Craft NI exhibition space gives a much needed opportunity for the graduates of Ulster University 2021 to show their work.
Have you ever wondered about stained glass? Dr David Canon, a retired head of department at the National College of Art and Design, has worked on an updated version of The Gazetteer of Irish Stained Glass and recently gave a talk for the National Churches Trust.
It’s very heartening that the talent the University of Atypical has nurtured and supported in regards to what disabled and D/deaf artists Artists are achieving is getting a wider recognition. Alice McCullough performance poet is one of the BBC Culture in Quarantine stars with a tag line: Alice is not ok!
Cathedral Quarter Arts festival starts this week with a veritable tapestry of events — the vast majority in-person as we emerge tentatively from lockdown. The whiskey tour is sold out but with many artists filled with pent-up energy from a lack of gigging it’s an opportunity to experience something otherworldly — in the safest possible way.
One of the interesting things about visual art is that every material has its own niche of creators and specialists — just like music where you would not lump everyone together.
