In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the handmaids have shopping partners, so that they are always under observation: “She is my spy as I am hers”. Artist Leo Boyd adds to the dystopian air of the book by combining the handmaid (from the new TV adaptation of the book – currently available only in the US) with an outdated computer monitor.
Here is some of Leo’s other work.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here is another PSNI land rover from Leo Boyd (web | ig). The first can be seen in “Nothing to fear, nothing to hide“; in this one, a new piece: a PSNI pedal car is “My first meat wagon”.
Here is some of Leo’s other work.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here is a selection of posters from throughout the past year (2017) from Belfast and London-/Derry. Above is an Anarchists In Ireland poster welcoming refugees, while the second image is of a passenger and parcel service to Romania from Dublin. The others are for republican marches and causes.
Previous collections of (mostly torn) posters: We Had Our Distresses | Layer Upon Layer
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Though the tradition might pre-date Christianity, on the day after Christmas – known also as Boxing day and St Stephen’s day – the wren (the king of winter and symbol of the past year) is hunted by strawboys or mummers who disguise themselves with straw headgear and make a parade and go around the houses asking for money to bury the wren.
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An Ulster Banner with a Union flag in the corner (a UDA flag?) in Mount Vernon (UVF territory) is reflected in the glass doors of Rehoboth Evangelical Mission, which “invites you to our gospel meeting every Sunday night at 7 pm. 3 Mount Vernon Road. Contact Pastor David McClure – A visit to our meeting can change you[r] life.” Previously: The Lord Has Made Room For Us.
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“Ulster Day” is September 28th, the day in 1912 that the Ulster Covenant was signed, pledging to use any means necessary to defend “our cherished position in the United Kingdom” and defeat Home Rule. The first signatory was Edward Carson. The Ulster Volunteers were subsequently formed in January, 1913.
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The story of the lead image is told in the images below. First, Paul Doran and Mark Ervine paint a mural of two “Chuckle Babies” (images 2 and 3 – see also Mark’s baby for Hit The East) between Imagine and the Frederick Douglass mural with its recently Xed out Aung San Suu Kyi and obscured by the recently-painted lower gates of the war wall (a.k.a “peace” line) on Northumberland Street (image 4).
Secondly, the mural is covered in French posters from the 1970s – which visitors were encouraged to sign and leave messages on – as “Act 1” of the No Walls project involving KRM (Cherif and Geza, a couple from France and Germany), Paul Doran, and Londoner John Costi, and which also included an exhibition in the Titanic museum (pdf of the full project).
Some of the posters and writing were ripped off (to be used in Act 2) on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 (video at the Irish News) to reveal again the babies (final image).
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Reflections on culture from (probably) TLO in the form of a statue with the eyes sprayed blue and red (Culture?) and from ANCO (Culture is a disease).
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Year 10 GCSE student Terri Nıc Poılín imagines what the view would be like if the “peace wall” were removed, using cardboard as a canvas. The piece was part of the Coláıste Feirste art show in An Chultúrlann.
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This is a 32 County Sovereignty Movement (32CSM) poster from west Belfast, asking people to “Dismantle partition – reject British rule”. The organisation describes itself as “a republican pressure group”. The Belfast cumann (Fb | web) is named after Wolfe Tone and Henry Joy McCracken (of the 1798 Rebellion).
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 