Belfast city centre

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North Street Arcade was burned down in April 2004 – see Who Burnt Us Out?. Since 2012, there has been street art at both its North Street and Donegall Street ends, the latest (from September, 2021) being this piece by Danni Simpson (ig) in Donegall St.

For the girl with owl left over from the previous Matt Sewell street art, see Only When The Dusk Starts To Fall (along with A Bird In The Hand and Carnival Of The Animals).

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I Was Sick And Ye Visited Me

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A gallery of faces from KVLR (ig) in Exchange Place, perhaps on their way to Belfast’s first maternity hospital, the Humane Female Society For The Relief Of Lying-In Women (Clifton House). “The Entries are passageways for the comings and goings of rich and poor, sugar and coal, horses and handcarts, porter and print, secrets and songs. Openings and entrances over the centuries. A labyrinth of muck-made Belfast brick at the mouth of the Farset.”

The in-progress shots are from June.

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Stigma Breakers & Law Makers

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This is Wee Nuls’s (web | ig) street art celebrating the success of the ‘menstruation matters’ (ig) campaign for free period products and the passage of the Period Products Bill.

The piece is perhaps a “gremlin” self-portrait in the style of Mr Blonde/Vic Vega. It was painted for HTN22 in the spot below Transport House where her original version of Free Period Items was painted and blacked out. (It was then repainted at Artcetra.) To the left is Claire Prouvost’s tribute to women workers of the world and to left is a Unity (union) hoarding: Workers Of The World Unite.

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Wind-Up Merchant

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Work by Leo Boyd (web | ig) – and five other artists – is currently showing in The National in High Street. This entry shows 2019’s ‘Belfast Romances’ – still rolling in Victoria Street – featuring many familiar Boydisms: When Urban Love Goes Wrong, Belfast Kitty Hall, DeLorean cars, Godzilla – “The monster created by atoms gone wild! Escaped from Belfast zoo”, and the wind-up police land-rover.

“Approved by DC Tours“

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Cool

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The Royal Victoria Hospital was the first public building in the world to have air conditioning, developed by Sirocco Works. Fans drew in outside air and passed it over mats of wetted coir (Cooling Post | images at HEVAC-Heritage). The qualifier “public” is necessary perhaps because Carrier invented the general process for a printing factory in New York (ASME) in 1902 and the New York Stock Exchange installed a system in 1902 (6sqft)

The image above is only one of many panels in College Street Mews by Ed Hicks (ig) on the general theme of Belfast and its industry.

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Belfast Deco

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Here is a final selection of pieces from HTN2022, with work by Kitsune (ig) in Queen St (official title When You Weren’t Looking), Andy Council (ig) in Patterson’s Place, Asbestos (ig), Iota (ig) (who also did a piece in Larne – Shaped By Sea And Stone) and KMG (ig) in North St/Union St, and Sophie Mess (ig) in Linenhall St (official title “Shaping Ideas” (Linen Quarter BID)).

For the other HTN 2022 pieces see:

Union St (w) Love, Loss, And Beyond
Union St (e) A Burning World
Kent St (w) Vagabonds Of The Western World | Red Heads
Kent St (e) Evoke
Kent St (n) The Children Of Gear

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