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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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Above is another Patrick Devlin stencil at the Red Barn Gallery. Extensive research has failed to reveal who/what the stencil is based on – some sort of nose-picking gorilla-monster in a cowl. Leave a comment or send an e-mail if you have an idea.
Previously by Devlin: Blowing My Mind | Attendez, Je Suis Charlie | Mr. Lee | The Passion
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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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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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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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The suicide of young people continue to cast a shadow over Belfast and the rest of Northern Ireland. (The suicide rate has almost doubled since the ceasefire; a fifth of those dying are under 25.) Here are three images from west Belfast, two from Black Mountain – “RIP Caomhan” and “RIP Butts” where the lettering from “End Brit/S’Mont Cuts” (see Credit Union Limited) has been repurposed. “RIP Punk” is from the junction of the Whiterock and Springfield Roads.
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Shepard Fairey used Mannie Garcia’s AP photo of Barack Obama for his ‘Hope’ poster of the 2008 US Presidential election (WP). The three-quarter profile, faraway look and four-tone shading have been repurposed for the board, shown above, in east Belfast: a boy gazes beyond Samson and Goliath, backgrounded by a sunburst: “Dream, Seek, Achieve, Educate, Achieve!”
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Children from Botanic Primary school and art students from University of Ulster Student Union painted a series of animal pairs (created by Vikki Lutton) and geometric panels on the wall of the Stranmillis embankment. Above we have wolves, below there are elephants, and in the wide shot, sea lions. ‘In progress’ images from UUSU | P4 schoolchildren.
UUSU was also responsible for the Seamus Heaney mural (The Hunting Heart).
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There are eyes everywhere in west Belfast.
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Seamus Heaney was born on this date in 1939 on a farm in County London-/Derry. His first (full) collection was Death Of A Naturalist in 1966 and it included the poem Twice Shy, the concluding lines of which are painted on Stranmillis embankment: Still waters running deep along the embankment walk.
Painted by UUSU students (see also Animals Two By Two).
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A menacing sofa, or possibly the Titanic centre, lurches through the flames on the shutters of the re:store furniture shop, with LOFT upstairs.
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Extramural Activity 