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A new immersive art exhibition exploring the closure of Newry port in 1974 and its lasting impact on the town opens at The Quays Shopping Centre on 6 November.
A Town Unravelled uses virtual reality headsets to audiovisually examine how 20th century deindustrialisation in places like Newry has changed society in ways still not fully understood.
The exhibition focuses on how Newry sits in an indefinite state of in-between, which can be traced back to the port closure in 1974. When Newry Port closed, its trade moved to nearby Warrenpoint. At the time, the closure was a front-page footnote in the Newry Reporter, its significance overshadowed by other problems of 1974 most specifically the Troubles.
Like most post-industrial cities, Newry is structurally arranged around its key infrastructures and factories. The now city was, and still is, spatially organised around its port, coalyards and cotton mills, all of which closed alongside the port. The exhibitors note that "Aside from the work of Newry Maritime Association, a few memorials and the sign for O'Rourke's coalyard, there are very few traces of Newry's former identity as a port town."
Between 6 and 15 November, A Town Unravelled will attempt to revive memories of Newry as a port town. Using a novel audiovisual approach, Newry-based artist Aiden Brady has produced the project, which is funded by Immersive Arts UK to represent the social tensions experienced since the loss of Newry Port. The project combines a 3D reconstruction of cotton-industry machinery with an interview with James McAreavey, from Newry Maritime Association, reinterpreting a subject ordinarily reserved for heritage contexts into contemporary digital art media.
The exhibition opens at The Quays Shopping Centre on 6 November at 6pm. It will run on 7 November from 1pm to 7pm, 8 November from 11am to 4pm, 10 November from 1pm to 5pm, 13 November from 6pm to 9pm, 14 November from 1pm to 7pm and 15 November from 11am to 4pm. The work includes subtitles and captions.
For queries and questions around other access provisions, contact atownunravelled@protonmail.com.
The exhibition is suitable for over-16s.
