Onwards

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2015-06-18 CliveDutton+

Englishman Clive Dutton was an urban planner who was best known for work in Birmingham, London (Newham), and Belfast. He produced “The Dutton Report” in 2004 and “The Big Plan” (pdf) (the cover of which is pictured in the mural) in 2013. In them, he proposed and then updated a plan to tackle economic deprivation in west Belfast by the creation of a ‘Gaeltacht Quarter’ or ‘Ceathrú Gaeltachta’.  He died on June 8th at the age of 62 and the mural above has been painted in remembrance. 

The photograph of Durron reproduced here can be seen at The Guardian. The Big Plan was celebrated with a mural recorded previously.

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02660 na ceathrún gaeltachta forbaırt feırste ar aghaıdh lınn onwards champion 1953-2015

Circus Fools

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2015-06-17 FoolsFestival2015Detail+

This Saturday and Sunday (June 20th and 21st), Belfast Community Circus celebrates its 30th birthday with two days of events and performances in the Cathedral Quarter, including a world record-breaking (hopefully) pie fight. Kev Largey (KVLR) last month placed two “foolish” figures among the acrobats on the front wall of the organization’s Gordon Street headquarters, a lobster having a drink of weasels wearing hats and a rambler with a patched bed-roll and basket of spray-cans. (Also seen in paste-up form outside the Sunflower – see Costume Party.)

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X02659 X02658 festival of fools #foolsfestival 2015

Gitmo Beach & Spa

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2015-06-15 GitmoPhotos1+

13 years after the military prison opened, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is home to various detainees from around the Middle East as well as US service-men and women who (unlike the prisoners) can avail themselves of the fine beaches and the McDonalds, Taco Bell, Subway and other fast-food restaurants. Their living conditions are documented by Debi Cornwall in an exhibition at the Belfast Photo Festival; the images are housed in a shipping container in front of St. Anne’s cathedral. A piece from Alma Haser‘s Cosmic Surgery series can be seen in the centre of the wide shot, below.

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02655 X02656 X02657 alleged enemy combatants war on terror held without charge trial conviction counting every normal american convenience is now available to personnel “best-kept secret in the military” images already emblazoned on our collective consciousness the orange jumpsuits the barbed wire and explores the fun amidst the tedium in the residential and leisure spaces of prisoners and guards

Giving The City A Human Face

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2015-06-15 BuoysPaste2+

June brings the Belfast Photo Festival (4th-30th), including the work of Mentalgassi, a German trio that wraps street poles and other urban objects with black-and-white images of humans. In Belfast, they have covered the three buoys in the park beside the Art College. For shots of the buoys being covered, see the group’s Fb page.

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Making Changes

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2015-06-08 MakingChanges+

The history of music is told (from right to left) in a new mural. The gramophone gives way to the cassette and then to the CD and finally the iPod, with a mic and speakers in the middle. The suggestion, presumably, is that life in east Belfast also changes. From Blaze FX, who also did the Teenage Dreams repaint on the other side of the flyover, and local youths from both Short Strand and Newtownards Road.

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Costume Party

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2015-06-08 UnionStPasteup1+

Union Street paste-ups, opposite the Sunflower, showing (in costume) a lobster with wine-glass, a hiker with a bed-roll, a cow (Moomin?) in admiral’s hat, and an old-west character scanning the horizon with a spyglass.

For another version of the child-with-rose, see Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.

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X02651 X02652 festival of fools 2015 belfast

Snug As A Gun

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2015-06-02 Alexandra1+

Seamus Heaney took up the pen where his father and grandfather had worked with the spade. A copy of his poem Digging was, along with others, placed on the Alexandra Park “peace” line but has been torn off in favor of the preferred mode of expression of the next generation: the spray can.

For more Heaney as public art, see The Hunting Heart.

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SOS

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“SOS – Wall St rapes Ireland”. Conor Devine (at EamonnMallie.com) provides context. This message on the mountain (Slıabh Dubh) came and went in a matter of days, if not hours, because the television exposé it was designed to coincide with was not in fact broadcast; also perhaps because parents did not appreciate having to explain rape to their young children – the mountain can be seen from a large portion of west and central Belfast.

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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See-Through Sectarianism

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2015-05-31 SeeThroughGates+

In May 2013 the Executive pledged to remove “peace” lines in ten years – by 2023 (Tele). One step in this process is see-through gates, such as those at Workman Avenue in the image above. There is no change, however, to the fence on the Springfield Road – see the image below. See previously: the new gates in Howard Street.

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