Episode 3 The Arts Show

Welcome to The Arts Show, our monthly look at the best arts

and culture in Northern Ireland.

Tonight we are in the Belfast School of Art, a world-leading

art school and a landmark building

in the heart of the Cathedral Quarter.

We are here for the annual New Talent exhibition.

Literally thousands of people will pass through here to see,

enjoy and put their hands in their pockets

to support the next generation of artists.

There really is the most tremendous atmosphere here tonight

and from this show to our show,

here's what's coming up on tonight's programme.

Can a community of brightly-coloured art pods in Bangor

reverse the fortunes of the boarded-up seafront?

Award-winning Irish novelist Colum McCann on his Garvagh roots

and why he felt compelled to write

about Northern Ireland and the peace process.

The founder of the Enniskillen International Beckett Festival

on ignoring the world's cultural capitals

to bring art festivals to rural places.

And from a melting pot of different musical traditions,

the music of flute bands fuses with jazz in the UK's City of Culture.

It is the biggest night of the year

for the Belfast School of Art, with approximately 300 graduates' work on show.

But what makes the school such a world leader?

With me is Debbie Fraser, the associate head of school.

Wow. It is an incredible night.

An amazing spectacle of creativity

and just amazing energy.

And as you said, 300 people celebrating getting their degrees

in art and design, across every spectrum.

Are you surprised every year at the numbers of people that come

-through the doors to see the show?

-No.

It has grown and grown every year. We have had 2,000, 3,000, 4,000.

You know, this is the largest gallery there is in...

Certainly in Northern Ireland, on this evening and for a whole week,

we welcome everybody.

You do want people to give, to purchase,

-because that is supporting the next generation.

-It is critical.

Entrepreneurship is not a word that sits very well in some sections of the art world

and so we talk about entrepreneurial thinking

and how do you embed that in your practice because if you can't sell your work,

how are you going to buy the materials to make the next piece?

We talk about globalisation and how it is not just about the local.

It is looking beyond that and competing with not just their peers

but who's doing the same thing outside - local, national, international.

And tremendous alumni have come from here as well.

I'm thinking of Oliver Jeffers in the world of illustration,

Colin Davidson as a painter.

-It has got real skill in terms of getting people out there.

-It does.

It's core to the educational system of art and design.

People seem to think that an art and design student,

"Oh, what are they going to?" We have graduates in every field.

The recognised artists such as Oliver Jeffers or Sean Cross,

who taught here, but also people who fit into curatorship, into the health sector.

You look at a lot of the organisations in Belfast

and our graduates are in there making decisions about the good of industries.

Debbie, thank you so much.

What is it like to be a student here and have your work on show?

I'm off to meet final year fashion design student, Sophie Webb.

Sophie, this is your stuff. It's absolutely gorgeous.

-Thank you very much.

-It's fashion, it's print and knit.

So what inspired you?

Basically, I've always been inspired by the sea and water

and shells and my final collection I just wanted something really related to that.

And this kind of material, this is very, if I may say so,

-this dress is very Game Of Thrones.

-Yes.

-You've been working on Game Of Thrones for the last two years.

-Yes.

For the past three summers of university.

-So I had a brilliant time. So much fun.

-That is incredible, isn't it?

As a fashion designer you are walking out into an industry.

In fact you have been working on Dracula as well.

I'm just so lucky to have the opportunity to do that.

It has been fantastic.

You are holding some screen-prints in your hand.

You have done this pretty much from scratch, haven't you?

I created one of the designs from scratch, from inspirations

from my own artwork and shells.

Basically, it's stained-glass windows and I did gel tones,

trying to get those coming out.

And the great stained-glass window person is Harry Clarke.

-Has he been an inspiration?

-Yeah.

It's his inspiration which relates back to where the commission is coming from.

Because this is an actual commission.

This is paid work. This is not just your final-year degree show.

And it is Inis Meain. Tell me a little bit about them.

Inis Meain is an Irish knitwear company or designer knitwear company

down in Galway and it's off the Aran Islands and it's just fantastic.

The heritage, and they're so into tradition and their knitwear

is all about the culture of Ireland

and luckily I have been asked to use one of my prints for their collections of scarves,

thanks to my tutor, Alison.

-That is incredible. The future is very bright for you, isn't it?

-Really exciting. I'm so excited.

Thank you so much. We wish you continued success.

I feel my cheque book twitching. Thank you.

Now, 45 years ago, these buildings on York Street

put art at the heart of a deprived inner-city area.

Now the new initiative in Bangor hopes to do the same.

In recent weeks, Queen's Parade has become home to brightly-coloured art pods

but will they really help turn around the fortunes of the boarded-up seafront?

Karen Patterson has been back to see what's happening in her home town.

They are certainly eye-catching, aren't they?

It's like a slow reveal as you walk around each corner

as to what's going to be in the window in front of you

and I have no idea what to expect.

But your eye's drawn to the next one

and you want to see more and more and more.

The sun's shining and you kind of have to pinch yourself. This is Bangor.

Since the end of March, Project 24 has been taking shape

here in my home town.

These 12 art pods will occupy a vacant site on Queen's Parade

in Bangor for two years as studios for artists,

including a glass worker, a sculptor, a painter and a jewellery maker.

But could art and culture be more than just a stopgap

here on the seafront?

Could this be the start of the renaissance for Bangor?

The creative industry sector is the only growing sector at the moment.

What we're trying to achieve here is an economic benefit

through the introduction of art and culture to this local area.

For generations, Queen's Parade was the seaside.

Oh, the summer days spent there.

But the sand was shipped out in the 1980s,

when North Down Borough Council gave the go-ahead for Bangor Marina.

The hotels and restaurants were closed

to make way for a new shopping centre that never materialised.

Queen's Parade went from being a bustling, vibrant seafront to an eyesore.

Today many of the shops are closed, it feels unloved and neglected.

Karen, what we are trying to do is achieve

a greater footfall for the town centre.

The more time people spend in the town centre,

the better the economic spin-off and what we are trying to do

is keep people in the area and hopefully spending money.

And there is a very businesslike arrangement

between the council and the artists.

I get a subsidised studio rent

so it doesn't cost me very much per month,

which means that I can take a risk.

However, we actually have to contribute a lot of time

so we are expected to be here at least 30 hours per week.

You have the shop window right in front of us where people

can basically view you all day long.

That's a little bit daunting at first.

You have to sort of learn to keep working.

But Sarah and the other artists here are not just a visitor attraction.

They are businesspeople in their own right.

I don't do anything that fails

so I am prepared to work hard to make sure that it is successful.

I know that there are plans in place for how it is going to progress

and I think that is very exciting and very forward-thinking.

What would you say to people who think it's naive of a council

to build an economic regeneration plan on artists?

They are a bit flimflam, they might say.

I've been a jeweller for 20 years. I make my living out of this.

Why don't they come in and ask me what I do?

We are the new business. I'm a home-grown business.

The arts do have a proven track record for reinventing run down seaside towns.

St Ives in Cornwall is a well-heeled tourist Mecca

thanks to its thriving arts scene and Tate Gallery

but it's been a artist colony since the late 19th century,

attracting major figures like sculptor Barbara Hepworth.

Can Bangor boast an equivalent?

An exhibition at North Down Museum makes the case for Colin Middleton.

I think he'd be seen now as arguably the most significant

Northern Irish artist of the... Potentially of the last century.

What sort of pulling power does he have?

Middleton could become in a way synonymous with Bangor,

the way Barbara Hepworth is with St Ives.

There is a great attraction for me for the town in reclaiming

Middleton because there is an all-Ireland interest.

There are collectors all over Ireland who have his paintings.

But building a major visitor attraction like Tate St Ives

would require forward planning with serious ambition.

Do you think North Down Borough Council

will put its money where its mouth is

and invest in making Bangor a high-profile arts destination?

We have to see what comes out of the consultations, et cetera,

but we do believe this proves the market exists

and we will be pushing that.

For me, Project 24 could start to change

how Bangorians see their home town.

The tired old seafront has a new spring in its step

and the optimism of the artists in their pods

could rub off on everyone else.

The Bangor renaissance. Maybe it's not such a strange idea after all.

And the art pods are in Bangor until 2015.

Now, Colum McCann is one of the leading novelists of his generation.

Born in Dublin, he now lives in New York

and has just completed a screenplay of his breakthrough novel,

Let The Great World Spin, for film director JJ Abrams.

His new book, Transatlantic, straddles America and Ireland

with a cast of characters from famine time to present-day,

including one of the architects of the Northern Ireland peace process,

Senator George Mitchell.

Earlier this week,

President Obama quoted McCann in a speech in Belfast ahead of the G8

and put him in Irish literary heavyweight company,

with Yates and Heaney.

"Peace is indeed harder than war,"

the Irish author Colum McCann recently wrote.

I recently met Colum to discuss Transatlantic.

How do you, for want of a better word, keep all the voices in your head intact?

This new book was probably the hardest book I've ever worked on.

To be totally honest with you, there were times when it drove me mad.

"He kisses her. Then his son.

"He pinches the boy playfully on the toes.

"The roll of soft skin at his fingers.

"He takes the nappy, still warm to the touch, and drops it in the bin.

"Life, he thinks, is still capable of the most extraordinary quips.

"A warm nappy. At 64."

The idea of taking real people.

Is there ever a nervousness about that, that you are taking

fact-based history and imposing a fictional narrative on it?

The way I look at it is that the real is imagined.

So the way we shape our narratives,

the way we throw words at the page, necessarily,

is an act of the imagination but the imagined is also real.

So these two worlds come together with the new book.

I wanted to write about the peace process

so I wrote to George Mitchell and said, "Would you mind if I wrote about you?"

He and his wife wrote back and said, "Absolutely."

They said, "When would you like to come and meet me?"

I said, "I'd rather not meet you, frankly. Thank you very much.

"Let me go away for six months and try and imagine what you're like."

And I sent it to them and they read it and were incredibly generous

and they pointed out what was right and what was wrong.

There are little things in there, like him weeping in the shower

on the day before the Good Friday Agreement.

And that, that's a very personal thing. And he said it was true.

"A closet hardly big enough to step inside.

"The senator goes upstairs, undresses,

"steps in, leans his head against the tile, slick and grimy.

"He doesn't care."

Mitchell's beauty was his humility and his silence.

In fact, literally just three days ago, I went to his house

to drop off a copy of the new book and he said to me, beautifully,

he said, "Say hello to the people of Northern Ireland for me."

"The children looked like remnants of themselves. Spectral.

"Some were naked to the waist.

"Many of them had sores on their faces. None had shoes.

"He could see the structures of them through their skin.

"The bony residue of their lives."

Transatlantic weaves together three parallel narratives.

Along with George Mitchell are the stories of Frederick Douglas,

a black slave in the famine year of 1845

and Alcock and Brown making the first flight from America to Europe in 1919.

McCann boldly attempts to get inside the heads

of very real but very different historical figures.

"Alcock pushes back against the rudder control bar,

"bends it with pure force.

"A shot of pain through his chest and shoulders.

" 'Good Jesus, Jackie. What happened there? Have we crashed?' "

Why do you then take ALL their stories?

Is there a moment when you think, "George Mitchell is a great story and I've got into his head"?

Why is that not a full book?

I think the thing is that you write towards your obsessions

and, originally, I was obsessed by Douglas coming over here

and his journey colliding with the famine

but I didn't like to just keep the story then.

I wanted to bring it all the way to 2012, in fact.

"The cottage sat at the edge of the lough.

"She could hear the wind and rain

"whipping across the expanse of open water."

I didn't want to write what people might call an historical novel.

These particular stories were all sort of tied together.

They're heroic men who have made these transatlantic trips

and I believe we're connected in all sorts of extraordinary ways

and you can make sort of shotgun leaps into other people's lives.

"One by one they visit his office. The air of worried men and women.

"Every one with something to lose.

"This, he has discovered, is part of their generosity.

"The ability to embrace failure."

For a Dublin writer, why the fascination with Northern Ireland?

My mum is from Derry. She's from Garvagh.

When I was a kid I used to come up all the time.

Northern Ireland has been in my blood for quite a while,

which I suppose was an unusual thing

for somebody from, say, suburban, middle-class Dublin at the time.

Because you're based in New York now,

do you feel you've got that geographical distance, that emotional distance from it?

You know, I've been gone for the best part of 25 years

but I wanted to come home and I think I've been preparing to come home, psychologically, for a while.

Part of the reason to write this was to return back, sort of emotionally, as well.

And Transatlantic by Colum McCann is out now.

Now, the world's first ever annual Samuel Beckett Festival

could have gone to any major city on the planet - Paris, London, Dublin.

But it didn't. It went to Enniskillen.

Last year was its first festival and it brought ambitious,

provocative art to a rural town.

The Happy Days founder and artistic director, Sean Doran, is with me.

Sean, was there ever a moment you thought you'd have been wiser

-putting a festival like this on in a known cultural capital?

-No.

Not a single second, really, because a well-known capital, I mean,

it's full of provision, saturated and you're not needed.

I think there was an intention on my part to come back to a place

that hasn't got what the capitals of London, New York and Paris have.

-And how successful was it?

-I was overwhelmed, I have to say.

It exceeded what I felt could happen in the first year

but I think an important thing in the Anglo-Celtic culture about it was it was a European festival.

-They came from Los Angeles and Japan.

-And were you surprised at that?

That they were making these huge journeys?

Was it the fact you had booked top-quality acts

and you knew that if you booked them, the audience would come?

It is about quality, yeah.

And it's about the imagination of the programming and our curatorial approach.

Even the unaware audience can sniff it.

-They can sniff whether it's authentic.

-OK.

When people got to experience the work out of the lips of Adrian Dunbar,

the local Armagh accent on an island on the Lough Erne

and this was what got me interested

is looking at how you can programme out of place.

So we go in to the cathedrals, we go in to the crypts,

we go in to the islands.

We're down in the Marble Arch Caves this year. We're up in the air.

And you're also going to Armagh so you've got this ambition

to target places that are considered smaller and bring the art to them.

It will happen at the end of May in 2014,

there's a classical music, world-music-led festival.

-There's another individual that I'm not quite announcing just yet.

-OK.

But entirely counterpoint to the literary, theatre-led festival

in Enniskillen but the two will be sisters of each other.

Armagh is rich to actually site a festival so I'm not going in blind.

I know what will work but I still want it, for me,

to be daring and to be the impossible and people to look at,

"Right. He's not going to make it work this time."

-And you'll prove them wrong.

-I think entirely so.

Because it comes down to the people,

if places are ready for it and they want it

and people elsewhere are more interested in getting out

and finding new places and the regional places in Northern Ireland.

Sean, thank you so much.

And the Happy Days International Beckett Festival

is in Enniskillen in August.

Now, flute bands are one of Northern Ireland's most vibrant cultures.

They date back hundreds of years and today,

around 30,000 people play in them on a regular basis.

It's a world of strong musical traditions

but how do they respond to bold, new ideas?

That's what's been happening in the UK City of Culture

in a new collaboration between jazz composers Brian Irvine

and Sid Peacock and a number of flute bands from Londonderry

for the world premiere of Beyond the March.

The band was formed in 1973. It is 40 years in existence now.

The biggest majority of the band has always come from the Irish side

of the estate but people who join it feel as if it's a family.

-How are we doing?

-How are you doing?

How are you doing?

This is actually a slightly different piece.

A different way of making a piece.

Because I suppose it's been about

developing a kind of relationship with the band,

taking ideas and really getting to know how the band works

and how it allows tunes and so on and then kind of finding a way of

deconstructing that and putting it together in a different kind of way.

It has opened a few eyes to the boys

of what they can play and what they are capable of, you know.

One, two, three...

PERCUSSION

Myself and another composer called Sid Peacock,

Brian and Paula from Moving on Music,

we've always wanted to do this project about the musicianship of flute bands.

Started working in partnership with four bands -

Caw, Burntollet, Pride of the Orange and Blue, and East Bank.

WHISTLE AND DRUM

We've created lots of little loops made up of little, short phrases

and we've constructed this piece that involves layering of these loops.

That's it!

'My own background, I was born just off the Shankill Road and my father was an Orangeman

'and 12th of July was a massive family occasion, and I particularly

'loved the sound of being able to hear three or four bands

'at the same time, you know, as they kind of drifted past you.'

We're going to rehearse the piece for the Playhouse

on the 21st of June.

This is the first time we've seen it and there's two weeks to go

so here we go!

I've cue cards, numbers.

So whenever you see a cue card go up,

that's telling you where we're going to go to.

Cos everything you do will be based on the pulse on the laptop,

which is kind of like your marching pace.

They're a bit daunted whenever they don't know what they're doing.

But once Brian got into it, they're quite happy to learn and stuff.

The key thing is, don't repeat a pattern.

So it's a real test of your creative agility.

-HE LAUGHS

-That's a look of fear!

THEY LAUGH

'They've got a bit of a stereotype in their mind

'of what bands are and they don't really know nothing about them.'

If they were to actually come along to the Playhouse

and sit down and listen, maybe it would break down the barriers.

So let's hope they do.

-MUSIC

-Again!

Excellent! Excellent. Excellent.

Now, that will work.

Whenever I've been telling people, "Brian's coming down to conduct," you see eyebrows.

They sort of think, "He's winding me up, here."

I just think of this whole thing as this big statement

of what the band is all about.

It's about playing these tunes, about being musicians, being improvisers,

being rhythmically tuned and all sorts of things so it's a really good opportunity

and I think if we just keep that pulse in for two minutes, people will go, "Phht!"

INDISTINCT SPEECH

Yeah! Or alternatively we'll play the sax.

THEY LAUGH

This is a band of particularly achieved musicians.

More open in terms of trying new ideas

than some professional classical ensembles.

They want to explore their music in every way they can.

-Beautiful!

-HE LAUGHS

That really does sound like an incredible collaboration.

The Arts Show at rehearsals for Beyond the March.

Back here at the Belfast School of Art, things are still buzzing

and with me is a final year student, Ashling Linsday.

Ashling, you are an illustrator and you've only just gone

and been nominated for the Oscars of illustration. How does that feel?

It's unbelievable. I couldn't actually believe it.

I saw it published on Twitter, you know, the results are out

and I kind of reluctantly went into my emails and was like,

"OK. Have a look." And then yeah, I got shortlisted and I was like,

"This is amazing." It was, like, one of the best things ever.

And what will that mean for you in terms of a career?

It's really, really good publicity.

Since then I've already had people contact me and things, for jobs.

-Really?

-Not really high-profile jobs just yet but, you know,

-jobs here and there and it's doing well for me.

-Why illustration?

I came here four years ago and did the foundation degree first

and then tried loads of different things

and realised illustration was what I wanted to do.

So where do you go from here?

At the minute I'm trying to get signed with an agency.

I'm applying to the top ten ones in London at the minute

and hoping I'll get that cos then I'll get some high-profile clients

and start to do some editorial work, like,

maybe a few people that were here before like Peter Strain, Oliver Jeffers or Barry Falls.

They all went, got signed up and started doing things for the New Yorker and New Scientist and stuff.

-Hopefully.

-Have you had a chance to chat to them?

Oliver is obviously doing amazingly well,

-based in Brooklyn in New York now.

-He's doing so well.

-Your work reminds me of his work as well, the simplicity of it.

-Yeah.

Well, Peter Strain actually came in and did seminars with my group

so he was really, you know, a major influence on me towards the end.

Oliver Jeffers is great. I nearly have all of his books.

There's something so good about his stories.

There's always a nice cleverness as well as his illustration.

And that is something you like to combine?

-You're not just the illustrator, you're the writer as well.

-Exactly.

Ashling, thank you so much.

Now, I'm going to head off to the other end of the university campus

to meet another final year student, painter Andrew Haire.

Andrew, this is incredible.

-The buzz here tonight is just unreal, isn't it?

-It's so exciting.

I've never felt anything like this in a place like this.

It's usually quiet,

I'm just in here painting, and now there's people

looking at the work and engaging with the work so it's very exciting.

Not only engaging with the work.

-There are red dots on them so you've sold some.

-Yeah.

Pretty happy with that.

It's landscape but it's not Irish landscape. It's where?

I decided that Iceland would be an accessible wilderness

-to travel to and...

-So you went there?

Yeah, I went there last summer to travel and get first-hand photography

to base the paintings for my third year show on.

I use acrylic paint in thick layers, translucent layers,

that build up a glass-like shimmering surface

and that's to mimic, when I was in Iceland we did a lot of driving

from place to place and as a result...

I was taking photographs through the car window a lot so I decided

I wanted to mimic that kind of reflections

and refractions of light in the paintings themselves.

What has the art collage meant to you?

Has it helped you find your voice as an artist?

Over the three years I've been here,

it's given me the chance to experiment, experiment, experiment,

try lots of different things

and be able to come to the conclusion that is this degree show.

Without the art college I wouldn't have had the time

or the place to be able to develop my work to where it is now.

Do you feel confident about a future career as an artist?

I don't know if you could ever feel confident

but the goal at the start of this show was to sell one painting

to somebody I don't know and I will take that any day of the week.

I've got your card in my pocket

and I think that your name... Certainly the buzz in this room is around your work,

-so I wish you continued success, Andrew. Thank you.

-Thank you.

Well, that's it from The Arts Show from the Belfast School of Art.

If you've been inspired by anything you've seen tonight,

join me live on Twitter straight after the show.

You can also keep in touch with arts and culture on BBC Radio Ulster's

Arts Extra,

every weeknight at 6:30pm.

We're back on 25th July with a special show

from Derry-Londonderry UK City of Culture 2013.

From me, goodnight.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd