Posts

Deep inside the Lagan Weir, the massive structure that regulates the tides along Belfast’s Lagan River, six video works make up an exhibition entitled “Flow” which take advantage of the cavernous concrete spaces found within it. Fiona Larkin’s “Everybody is out of Step” shows two pairs of nervously tap dancing feet that are resonated to cacophonous proportions, Kerry Plummer’s “Impending” conjures up an occasionally-passing train that seems to materialize out of nowhere to produce a brief vertigo, and Sihobhan Mullen’s “Singing Kettle” features an evocative gathering of starlings underneath one of the Lagan bridges accompanied by an occasionally sounding tea kettle.

A few blocks away and safely above the waterline at Catalyst Arts, Cahal McGlaughlin’s “Inside Stories” provides three different perspectives on Long Kesh Prison (commonly known as the Maze), the place held many of the prisoners on both sides of the Troubles. In physically separated video sequences, McLaughlin goes through the Maze accompanied by a loyalist, a republican, and a prison guard, each of whom had spent extended periods there. As the stories unfold, their matter-of-fact narratives illuminate the space of the prison, drawing out conditions of daily life there that are shaped as much by the outside political situation as much as they are by the architecture.

- Ed Osborn [Tuesday, May 10th, 2005]

(0) COMMENTS



From the editors