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An exhibition 20 years in the making is opening in Rathfriland this Thursday 8 June. The artwork portrays key figures who negotiated the Belfast Good Friday Agreement (BGFA)
Women of Clonduff and Rathfriland Regen are working together to host artist Amanda Dunsmore’s new work AGREEMENT at Chandlers House in the town. The exhibition includes silent video portraits of 14 key political figures who negotiated the peace treaty.
Dunsmore, an Ulster University School of Art alumna, was artist-in-residence at the Maze prison in the 1990’s when the late Mo Mowlam visited loyalist prisoners as then-Secretary of State in an effort to keep their support for the peace process in January 1998. It was this act by Mo Mowlam which set things into motion as Amanda explains: “Mo took an unprecedented step for a secretary of state – that act deeply impressed me and the people of Northern Ireland, so Mo Mowlam is the main inspiration for starting this body of work. It really made me wish I could, by making an artwork, acknowledge these individuals, these representatives of communities who had made the miracle of agreement. “With the silent portraits the effect is quite strong on the audience because you come in with the understanding that these individuals are always imparting information, always animated and talking but when you’re given the silent other half of the individual it gives this quite deep effect”.
The artwork, following a run at the Ulster University over the 25th anniversary of the signing of the BGFA, is travelling to communities across Northern Ireland for public exhibition giving people the opportunity to reflect on the principles of coming to agreement and on what the Good Friday Agreement means to people today.
Dr Paul Mullan, Director, Northern Ireland, at The National Lottery Heritage Fund: “This is a unique project which attempts to look at the Good Friday Agreement from the perspective of heritage and through the prism of an artist’s response to what we have learnt from it. This is all the more important at a time in which questions are being asked about the Good Friday Agreement and how well it serves us today. So, it is good to go back to look at the reasons for its inception if only to remind us of how far we have come and how much we have achieved in those 25 years since 1998.”
Ulster Presents is Ulster University’s civic arts programme, presenting the best of Ulster and international artists to everyone. Cian Smyth, Ulster Presents Programme Manager, Ulster University said, “We are excited to continue our BGFA 25programme working alongside quarto collective and community groups in the Hilltown and Rathfriland area to bring this important work to the public with an opportunity to reflect on the last 25 years of peace. Our programme is about honouring the resilience of Northern Ireland’s citizens in sustaining 25 years of peace and non-violence and this project is for them to lead the conversation going forward.”
Bryonie Reid from quarto collective, who is working with the Hilltown/Rathfriland partnership, commented: “We are delighted to see such an important and profound artwork coming into this area of South Down, where the day-to-day work of peacemaking continues. We look forward to seeing and hearing what people make of the artwork’s subjects and themes. We hope it makes space for reflection on what agreement, and the Good Friday Agreement, has meant in the past, means today, and will mean in the future.
Made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, in partnership with Ulster Presents at Ulster University, AGREEMENT by artist Amanda Dunsmore will be exhibited in Chandler’s House, Church Square, Rathfriland from 12pm to 10pm on this Thursday 8 June and from 8am to 12pm on Friday 9th June. For more information please contact agreementexhibit@gmail.com
Find out more about the AGREEMENT exhibition at ulster.ac.uk
