Category: Northern Ireland – Belfast

5 to 20 October
Opening 5 October, 6pm

“without these connections I could not have witnessed the constellation of ideas in local clusters and the transformation that occurs as messages pass from one place to the next” – Nikos Papastergiadis, ‘Spatial Aesthetics’

‘material conditions’ is a collaborative exchange between Platform Arts Belfast and Engage Art Studios Galway, responding to the immaterial and material conditions that transfer into artistic production.

Artists: Cecilia Danell, Jane Queally, Marias Diaz, Michelle Hill, Ruby Wallis, Simon Daly, Vicky Smith.

Platform Arts, 1 Queen Street, Belfast, BT1 6EA
T: 028 9031 1301
E: platformbelfast@gmail.com
W: platformartsbelfast.com

5 to 9 October
Launching Thursday 5 October, 6pm

Catalyst Arts is pleased to present the highly anticipated International Live Art Biennial FIX17.

FIX is an internationally renowned and distinctly Belfast biennial, established by Catalyst Arts in 1994. For twenty-three years Fix has consistently delivered an innovative programme of local and international live, sonic and performance artists to the city of Belfast and is one of Europe’s longest running live art festivals. The legacy of Fix has been to create opportunities locally for emerging and established practitioners, providing work for artists, photographers, videographers, writers, curators and arts administrators.

For a full programme of events visit: fix17.org

Catalyst Arts, 5 College Court, Belfast BT1 6BS
E: catalystarts@gmail.com
W: catalystarts.org.uk

6 October to 2 November
Opening Thursday 5 October, 6pm

Conor McFeely lives and works in Derry. His work incorporates a wide range of processes, from the ready-made to sculpture and installation, as well as photography, video and audio.

Multi-layered fracturing and manipulation of materials serves to find new relationships, referencing twentieth-century global political history, Northern Ireland’s troubled legacies and landscapes in the second half of the twentieth century.

His exhibition at QSS, titled Pioneer, points to episodes of altered states in relation to religious rapture and sexual ecstasy, as well as drug-induced experiences and interruptions of consciousness. The work is driven by McFeely’s ruminations on the nature of individual free will, choice and autonomy.

Queen Street Gallery and Studios
31-33 Bedford Street, Belfast City Centre
Phone: +44 28 90 24 31 45
E: gallery@queenstreetstudios.net
W: queenstreetstudios.net

7 September to 21 October

The Really Wild Show is not the show that you think it is. There is a show, but Michaela Strachan isn’t presenting it and what on earth does it mean to be really wild anyway? Join us as we explore internet jungles, wild birds and exotic plants with Iain Griffin and his Really Wild Show.

Did you ever fall asleep listening to the sound of the jungle? Or do yoga to the noises of the rainforest? For this exhibition the artist places live potted plants with unspecified jungle clips from YouTube and a therapeutic soundtrack of wild birds and animals. It is one of many hundreds of jungle videos created to help viewers to relax and escape from their day to day lives.

There is some echo of the work of Henri Rousseau (1844 – 1910), best known for paintings set in exotic fantasy jungles, such as The Dream and Surprised Storm in the Forest. It was widely believed that Rousseau sourced his material first hand whilst on military service in Mexico. However, it is now clear that those suggestions were unfounded and that Rousseau had never been beyond the borders of France, never mind seen a rainforest. Rather, his primary sources for the scenes of his jungle paintings were plants from the Botanical Gardens in Paris.

At one time our indigenous plants were wild and “wilderness” probably didn’t exist before we named it. Griffin plays with these ideas without trying to provide answers. What he does reveal is a sense of what lies beneath the suspension of belief.

Golden Thread Gallery, 84-94 Great Patrick St, Belfast BT1 2LU
T: +44 28 9033 0920
E: info@gtgallery.co.uk
W: goldenthreadgallery.co.uk

6 September to 1 October
Late Night Art Belfast Opening 7 September, 6pm

The exhibition by Tonya McMullan looks at Belfast City, in particular this area of the Cathedral Quarter at a time when there is significant change in the landscape and the way people use the city. Heritage buildings turn to rubble overnight, shiny new experiences are invented for our entertainment and the city’s trees fail to reach their potential.

The artist has taken notice of the city changes by photographing trees fake and deformed and built up a collection of found discarded clothing collected from the streets in early morning. Leisure and night wear, some rough and torn others pristine evening outerwear which could have been left by revellers or people who live on the streets or traces from those who operate unnoticed in the shadows. The clothing has been embroidered with insects as they are always present in the streets also operating in the peripheries. On the opening night the artist will be embroidering insects into your clothing while sharing information about the importance of these pollinators to our ecosystem.

The Green Room @ The Black Box
18-22 Hill St, Belfast BT1 2LA, UK
W:blackboxbelfast.com

7 to 9 September

All That Sits Unsaid is a reflection of Stuart Cairns’ interest in materials, places and things. It contains a series of objects found on various walks through forests and fields, along shorelines and urban streets. Some are set out as discovered, some are manipulated into new forms and some are fabrications responding to the rhythms and shapes of the others. This collection of objects, manipulated materials and fabrications act as a drawn language to suggest stories -of wanders by the sea, wonders in the forest and small moments in the city. They show the richness of the material world, the wonders of the everyday which can light up the imagination and speak volumes through their quiet, small forms sitting as poems to the landscape.

Pollen Studios and Gallery
37-39 Queen Street, Belfast, BT1 6EA
E: pollenstudiobelfast@gmail.com
W:.facebook.com/pg/PollenStudioBelfast/

7 to 23 September

Classical orders proliferate in Western cities (and indeed beyond), imbuing buildings such as law courts, banks, government buildings and academic institutions with esteem and grandeur. Despite being built since the eighteenth century, this ubiquitous style cites antiquity, evincing a sense of timelessness and purity. Aesthetically, they function as signifiers of power and prestige. Doireann Ni Ghrioghair recognises them as architectural societal ‘introjects’, bestowing inherited values onto their denizens. However, as rehashed pastiches of ancient Greek and Roman architecture, she also views them as unreliable translations. A set of arbitrary aesthetics, removed from their original meaning, around which we twine the fictions of our contemporary life.

Gallery 1
Platform Arts, 1 Queen Street, Belfast, BT1 6EA
T: 028 9031 1301
E: platformbelfast@gmail.com
W: platformartsbelfast.com

7 to 23 September

The installation that is being built from Platform Arts Belfast begins, in the first stage, from remote impressions of the city; with documents and photographs that can be collected on the Internet. I experience, months before the departure, an attempt to observe and investigate the structure of the city and expose events from history; this is a city that is completely unknown to me- the contents come from wondering around the net without any order or planning. The impression contains, associations, fantasies, deja vu, and a narrative. Ariel photographs and maps are the main documents I use and there I find shapes, buildings, neighbourhoods, and names of streets.

The installation in the gallery space will contain, on the walls, the collages that have crystallised in a studio in Tel Aviv. In addition, as part of the installation, there will be structures made of local materials and objects created as a result of a few days roaming around Belfast.

In both cases- the impressions of the city from a distance, and later physical wandering in Belfast without mediation, will examine the question-how and in what way a stranger is impressed by an existing city? Is the experience that is awakened personal? Is it universal? Does it depend on the physical presence in the city?

Gallery 2
Platform Arts, 1 Queen Street, Belfast, BT1 6EA
T: 028 9031 1301
E: platformbelfast@gmail.com
W: platformartsbelfast.com

7 to 28 September
Opening for Late Night Art Belfast, Thursday 7 September, 6pm

Artists: Colm Clarke | Angela Hackett | Catherine McLaughlin | Grace McMurray | David Turner

Unafraid Blue is the third of four exhibitions showing the work of QSS studio artists, curated by artist Colin Darke. It was preceded by Unafraid Red and Unafraid Yellow and will be followed by White. Recognising that the task of dividing twenty-three artists and twenty-three very different stylistic practices into four thematic categories would result in spurious relationships, Darke settled on assemblages based around colour. This allows for a level of visual cohesion, while retaining the conceptual and aesthetic diversity that defines Queen Street Studios.

Queen Street Gallery and Studios
31-33 Bedford Street, Belfast City Centre
Phone: +44 28 90 24 31 45
E: gallery@queenstreetstudios.net
W: queenstreetstudios.net