BORDERLAND (55° 6' 0'' North)2009
BORDERLAND was a cross-border participatory public art project, which reflected the memories, lived experiences and current realities of communities living in an evolving post-conflict society.
With a view to capturing the cultural and psychological borders which people encountered on a daily basis, the project gathered recollections on the lived experience of the border crossing between Derry City and the Inishowen Penninsula. Experiences of over fifty local participants were gathered via workshops which employed a range of multi-media and documentary strategies including oral testimonies, photography, archival research and participation in film production.
Borderland culminated in a site specific public art installation and screening of the B-239 film in the Plaza Ballroom, Buncrana. The Plaza Ballroom and other dancehalls such as the Borderland in Muff had a particular resonance as significant sites of social exchange for people from both sides of the border from the early 1940s onwards and throughout the period of the Troubles in the 1970s and 80s. The B-239 film takes its name from one of those formerly unapproved B roads that traverses the border region and includes footage of the border itself, former border crossings and the B roads that intersect the local geography.
The Borderland exhibition at the Plaza also included large-scale photographs taken by participants around the border area of Derry and Donegal and presented Projecting Borders, a screening programme of national and international documentary films. These films gave an insight into the multi-faceted experience of people who cross borders and boundaries in a range of political, cultural, and social contexts.
COLLABORATORS: Inishowen Development Partnership, Immigrant Outreach Project (IDP), The Playhouse, Inishowen Community Radio, The Verbal Arts Centre, The Nerve Centre, Family Resource Centre, Moville, Tullyally & District Resource Centre, Muff Community Development Co-op, Quigley's Point Community Centre, Crana College, Buncrana, St Mary’s College, Derry, St Cecelia’s College, Derry, Inishowen Woman’s Information Network, (BA) Community Development LYIT, Shared City Project Derry.
