MESSAGE ON THE WALL
Northern Ireland is officially coming out of its darkest period. What has often been somewhat euphemistically referred to as 'The Troubles' is finally coming to an end. And what better place for them to end than the place where it all started?
Many say that the first stone in the Northern Irish conflict was thrown in the Bogside, a Nationalist community deep in the heart of Derry. Also known as Londonderry, the city has played a pivotal role in Northern Ireland's political history. The Bogside itself has been witness to many battle scenes between the British army and the IRA.
It was also the scene for Bloody Sunday, one of the most tragic events in the history of the island of Ireland. On 30 January 1972, a date that still haunts the British government, 26 unarmed protesters were shot by members of the British army as they marched for their civil rights in the Bogside.
The troubled years that followed were a bleak period in Northern Ireland. But along came three young men with a vision. Brothers Tom and Will Kelly, and their lifelong pal Kevin Hasson - all three from the Bogside - decided to make their own mark on history. The Bogside Artists were born.
The run-down and glass-strewn streets of the Bogside have, over the last eleven years, been transformed into a colourful open-air art gallery that now attracts thousands of tourists every year from all over the world.
Rossville Street, its main artery, is the setting for the unique large-scale murals that adorn the gable walls of houses in what has become known as the People's Gallery. "It's not about putting up any old mural on any available wall," avows Kevin. "Rossville Street has massive historical significance."
Although the three artists grew up together, their backgrounds and ideological standpoints are rather diverse. "Tom heads up a Christian community made up of people from both Protestant and Catholic backgrounds. William is a Humanist and a Socialist. And I'm a Republican. When we're deciding on the content of the latest mural there's quite a heavy debate," he laughs.
But despite their differences, the Bogside trio have fully committed themselves to the role of peace and reconciliation through art. "We know that we're responsible for the images that we paint, and don't want to add to any conflict here," insists Tom. "If anything we just want to bring a bit of understanding to it."
"Our work is devoid of gunmen shooting over coffins, phoenixes coming out of the ashes and all the other clichés," he asserts. "Our murals are not knee-jerk reactions to events that happened, as they happened. As serious artists, from the beginning we set out to do something completely different. Anyone who takes the time to look at our work will see the differences between our open-air art gallery and other murals peppered throughout Northern Ireland."
"One is that there's no real show of Irishness. They're painted with International people in mind, but also with our own people in mind. A young Palestinian or even a young student from Tiananmen Square can identify with our work immediately. And we know this from our own experience of talking to these people - Argentineans, Basques; anyone who has been at the hard end of oppression."
"Secondly, most of our work is painted in black-and-white," Tom points out. "We want to help people understand what we went through - this is something that we experienced - but it is history and we must move on."
"We're not only into challenging the State, which I hope we do through our work," he continues. "We're challenging our own people as well. We painted a peace mural asking for the guns to be taken out of Northern Ireland politics long before any Good Friday Agreement. And we painted that right in the heart of the Bogside, a very strong Nationalist IRA community."
"The last and final mural that we painted is called The Runner. It shows three young men who all died at age 15 as a result of The Troubles. One was shot dead by the British Army. Another blew himself up with his own bomb. But the third, and probably the most important, was killed by an IRA bomb. Nowhere in Ireland will you see a mural of that nature. We're stating, 'This is what happened to all of us.'"
The People's Gallery is a document, according to Tom. "This is our story from the horse's mouth. It's re-appropriating our story, taking it back from the British media who've been telling it for us for far too long."
"These are our front pages," he declares. "They're our newspapers. It's about who we are and what we've come through; and more importantly about where we're going. Gable walls give a good idea of what's going on in a community."
Not reliant on hefty arts grants, the Bogside artists are wholly supported by the ultimate in public funding - the community itself, especially poignant given the cripplingly low income of most of the area's inhabitants. Fiercely independent and proud of their ideological integrity, they sent Thatcher's marketing agency Saatchi & Saatchi packing when they offered to hook up.
"For eleven years now we've been painting these murals with no support whatsoever from the powers that be," stresses Tom. "Here are three artists who are unemployed, have exhibitions on three different continents, but have yet to get some real support from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland."
"We've created all this solely with the support of the people of the Bogside; the one-parent families and the pensioners. That's why it's called the People's Gallery. It belongs to them."
Accordingly, the people have the last word. Before they start any new murals, the artists check it out with the locals first. If they approve the content, they are asked to contribute a pound or two towards paint, scaffolding and so on. "The response from the community has never faltered," adds Kevin. "It's always been overwhelming. That speaks volumes in itself."
According to the artists, a whopping £1.3m has been designated to restore and enhance the jewel in Derry's tourist crown - the ancient city walls. But without a penny of funding, the trio argue that their paint-spattered walls attract more visitors every year than their ancient counterparts ever could.
"We're an embarrassment to Derry City Council, to the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and ultimately to the Northern Ireland Office," laments Tom bitterly. "But prior to us painting the murals, there were no open-top buses pulling up to show people around the Bogside. New tour companies have suddenly sprung up. The B&B's have benefited; hotels have benefited; taxi firms and bars have benefited."
"With no support from the Northern Ireland Tourist Board, we accommodate free of charge on a daily basis not hundreds, but thousands of visitors passing through our studio. They want to meet the artists, and see the murals that we've created. We provide a service for tourism without any recognition whatsoever."
"Some people in positions of power have an agenda," Tom believes. "They want to ignore the Bogside; ignore the story of the conflict. They wish all this was swept under the carpet. They don't want to hear about murals, or the themes behind the murals. They don't want Derry to be known as Mural City."
Creative expression has always run in their blood, but although Will confesses to spraying walls in his youth, he stresses that he was never a dedicated graf writer. But he does advocate designated walls in cities for kids to splatter paint around as much as they like - without a creative outlet, he smiles: "I would likely have resorted to some form of destructive behaviour. Like religion, or accountancy."
LINKS
www.bogsideartists.com
Text: Eileen Walsh
Photography: James Cunningham
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