What role can the arts and creativity play in navigating unresolved concerns, ongoing debates and controversial questions for our communities?
Exploring complex topics, from reconciliation and truth-telling in the context of colonialism to polarising social or political issues, this symposium will feature exchanges between leading artists and researchers from Australia and Northern Ireland about difficult conversations we, as a globally connected society, need to have today.
The conversations
Siobhan Wills in Conversation with Willie Doherty
A case study between a human rights filmmaker and acclaimed visual artist sharing a common interest in documenting inter-generational social trauma through places and landscapes that have experienced political violence.
A Reading of Selected Poems by Kathleen McCracken
A reading of selected works exploring issues relating to First Nations experiences in Canada, in particular, violence perpetrated against indigenous women and the complexities of being an artistic ally to indigenous rights.
Revelation, Reckoning, and Recovery
Continuing the critical conversations around child sexual abuse in Australia in the wake of the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (RCICSA, 2013-17).
Frank Ferguson in conversation with Elinor Davies, James Ward and Carolann North
Frank Ferguson talks with Elinor Davies, James Ward and Carolann North about their written work covering subjects ranging from domestic experiences of ‘The Troubles’ to immigrant communities, afrofuturism and the future of Northern Ireland.
TURF – A Short Film by Ara Devine
A Derryman and a Syrian asylum seeker spend a day working on a bog with a complicated journey across the Irish border.
Watch the conversation with Paul Moore and filmmaker Ara Devine.
Sarah Travers in Conversation with Performance Artists
Some of Northern Ireland’s leading performance artists since the 1970s discuss the role of the artist in conflicted public spaces, navigating subjects including violence against women, political conflict, clerical sexual abuse and our relationship with power.
