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 School 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 over a ten year period.
For the past seven years, Féile na hAbhann has been organised by LORAG, the Market Development Association and partners in the Short Strand to connect the citizens of Belfast to the beauty, wonder and joy of the River Lagan.
I CAUGHT up with Shaun Blaney before his Dandelion production of 'Deaf as a Post' opens at the Féile in the Culturlann in August.
THE female form has been used for eons as inspiration for art. The opportunity for Janice Cherry's current exhibition at the Cultúrlann, Torsos was given to her on the back of her degree show at Belfast School of Art in 2023. Janice is now completing a Masters in Fine Art but this has not stopped her from completing work for the large exhibition space. The highlight of the exhibition is a series of female torsos. The sculptured glazes on the surface of the torsos are like archaeological finds, as if dug up from some long forgotten battle. The exhibition description explains perhaps the battle of life and the "contemplation of sharing of knowledge, skills and resilience to life's challenges and traumas passed on through memory from our ancestors".
THE Study USA programme run by the British Council was designed to assist with the peace process. It was developed in the 1990s and implemented by the Inter-Church Committee on Northern Ireland in partnership with the Training and Employment Agency (now subsumed into the Department for the Economy).
AS the summer opening hours of the Ulster Museum commence, we consider two reasons to visit the Ulster Museum.
SUMMER is a time when – if we are lucky – we might get further than the end of our street and perhaps even a festival might lure us away from our usual experiences.
BELFAST School of Art launched its 175-year celebrations at the opening of the current degree shows.
HOW do we genuinely work towards cultural plurality when our own trauma is triggered by another's form of cultural expression? How do we gain the distance to observe in our bodies what is triggering while knowing there is good reason for being triggered? How do we continue a good enough peace? These were some of the questions going through my mind in recent days.
THE BELFAST Photo Festival is back on June 6 for its 10th year. It has a couple of particularly interesting installation experiences: 'Broken Spectre' about climate change at the deconsecrated Carlisle Memorial church in Carlisle Circus, and 'Smile AI.' at Riddel Warehouse, a tech-art show that immerses the audience in a dystopian future.
ARTIFICIAL Intelligence is the ability of computers to perform tasks more associated with intelligent beings. Any technology invented will be used by artists in order to produce art. The history of art is littered with examples of artists pushing the envelope and declaring it art while others declare it's not. Matthias Oostrik's installation coming to Riddle Warehouse as part of Belfast Photo festival comments on our surveillance society by subverting the technology used to look for devious behaviour. Instead of culminating in punishment for errant behaviour, the work celebrates the furtively observed.
COUNCILLOR Patricia Logue, Sinn Féin Mayor of Derry and Strabane District Council, opened a day-long symposium on wellbeing and the arts as part of the Northern Ireland Mental Health Arts Festival (NIMHAF) in the Guildhall Derry.
HOW do we welcome a ten-year-old child from Syria to the city of Belfast?
THE arts is a really great way of building cultural bridges across the world. Bbeyond, Ireland's oldest performance art organisation, is bringing eight Chinese performance artists over to perform alongside four Bbeyond members from Ireland.
A NEW theatrical walking tour brings Belfast’s ‘forgotten sister’ out of the shadows. You have seen her as a statue now imagine her in real life and maybe consider the breadth of what happened in her lifetime and how she was part of a political push for change.
WEST Belfast born and bred Ted Pim is currently exhibiting in London's Almine Rech Gallery. 'Never Odd or Even' focuses on mirrored images and the work is inspired by Dutch old masters, Baroque and Renaissance paintings. But as Ted creates his own reality the colour and echoes of modern life sneak into them.