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.
THE Women's Tec based in North Belfast has been in existence for 25 years. Its mission is to enable women and girls to access careers in industries where they are under-represented.
IT'S Good Relations Week. At one time that meant money, now it means that some events and opportunities to increase our understanding of each other are all on one website. If the thought or effort to attend something is too much, sometimes knowing that some of these events are happening is an opportunity for hope.
THE power of arts to offer a traumatised society a couple of hours to ponder on a perspective of the conflict that they might not have had the head space to consider before has once again played out on the stage of the Lyric. Beano Niblock’s The Man Who Swallowed a Dictionary – produced by Green Shoots – has brought the man to life, moustache and all. The opening night's audience was an eclectic bunch who found more humour than they expected. Ervine's early years got us up to speed via his origins in East Belfast and his journey into the UVF and prison. Actor Paul Garrett expertly plays all characters, from Gusty Spence to Tony Blair to Billy Hutchinson, and even Ervine's wife Jeanette. There were some early difficulties with lines and lighting, but I'm sure these have been ironed out by now. All perspectives in the conflict being given the theatre treatment can help us all come to terms with our past and help change attitudes. The difficulty is in getting support to do so. Green Shoots taking up the play to get it into production was the missing link to when Beano tried it on his own.
THE complexities of our contested past and who is in charge of what goes down in history when there is no single accepted narrative raise their heads every day in our contemporary society.
Internet trolls gave Clinton Kirkpatrick the name of his current exhibition 'A Mental Illness on Canvas' which can be seen in the second exhibition space at QSS Studios and Gallery.
HOW can poetry transform the views of an ex-soldier who served in the North of Ireland? 'How Did It Get So Crazy' was the title of former soldier Spike Pike's session at Féile.
AUGUST used to be a quiet month for visual art – but no longer. The creative spirit of the city is such that its cup overflows in the last month of summer.
St Mary's is the place for the Féile visual arts, the festival opening on August 3. But August is also the month for crafts and creatives, so we look at a selection of interesting exhibitions, workshops and events across both.
Seven major works, created by some of Northern Ireland’s leading creators of theatre, dance makers and arts organisations, are due to be showcased as part of a Spotlight on Theatre and Dance from Northern Ireland event at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival
OUR assisted studio pilot Maker Mall in Castlecourt has finished and one of the joys of being in the shopping centre was not only the disabled access but the people who came to see what it was that we were doing. Be it someone from West Belfast who came into town once a week to shop there to others that came to eat. One man was from Ardoyne and the conversation we had stuck in my mind
IT'S Late Night Art this Thursday evening when most of the city's art galleries are open late. If it's a nice night you can see the city in a different way by walking through the streets and alleyways in search of art, mostly in the city centre. If you're not sure where to go, find one gallery and grab an art map.
MICHELLE Devlin, the Docs Ireland's Chief Executive, announced at the Omniplex Patrick Kielty/Karl Frampton event that the festival had reached its pre-pandemic audience levels of over 1,000 people participating in events on every day of the six-day festival. It is a credit to her team that this is the second festival that the organisation has run in a year.
I ARRIVED early at the Belfast School of Art awards and a Translink worker on her lunch break had come to see her daughter's name up on the awards board. Her daughter, unsure, stood hands folded in the almost empty foyer. "But mum," she said, "lots of people are getting awards."
TO make something happen you take the first step. You only have to stand at a bus stop and someone will tell you how to put the world to rights, but at the end of the day "More gets said, than done," as my dad used to say.
THE Belfast Photo Festival returns for the duration of June, offering journeys through history, place and perspective.