Wall of Pain



"Battle of the Bogside (2)" depicts a protracted street battle from 1969.

A muralist from Northern Ireland speaks about depicting The Troubles.

by Frank Lewis

In Northern Ireland virtually everything is viewed through the spectrum of politics, and art is no exception. That apparently is why after creating what may be the most visited and photographed murals in Europe, the Bogside Artists still go door to door and collect money for paint and scaffolding.

Taking their name from their neighborhood —a Catholic, Irish nationalist section of Derry (or Londonderry, as it’s known to Protestant residents), Northern Ireland’s second-largest city — the Bogside Artists actually don’t consider themselves political. Tom Kelly, William Kelly and Kevin Hasson have set out only to chronicle, in stark, towering murals, significant moments from The Troubles, as the last 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland are commonly known. If some choose to see sectarian messages in their work, that’s their business.

From Sept. 22 to Oct.1, some of the Bogside Artists’ work will be on display in "From Conflict to Peace" at Moore College of Art and Design’s Levy Gallery. The exhibit is presented in conjunction with "Telling the Story: The Intersection of Art and Social History," currently on display at Moore. City Paper caught up with Tom Kelly by phone last week, prior to his arrival in the U.S.

Can you talk a little about the history of the Bogside Artists?

…[E]ight years ago we decided to just go a little deeper [with our work than we had independently], and actually start trying to express the things that we had personally witnessed and seen in the last 30 years of conflict. It was important to us to try and be as objective as we possibly could, but given that all three of us are from Catholic nationalist backgrounds, you can see how difficult that would be. But nonetheless, we endeavor to do that. And some people like our work, some people don’t, but honesty is the important aspect of it. Therefore we concentrate on the key events that have affected us all, such as Bloody Sunday [in 1972, when British soldiers fired on civil rights demonstrators], and the Battle of the Bogside [a riot pitting Bogsiders against British forces in 1969], and the hunger strike [by Irish republican prisoners in the early 1980s], and the killing of children, irrespective of where they come from.

Our vision here in the Bogside, and in Derry, is to try and create an open-air art gallery, that helps to define the area of the Bogside, but which also tries to attempt to tell our own story. We all feel that our story, and the history of the conflict — in particular in Derry — has been told for us by others for far too long, and always inaccurately, and sometimes that is deliberate. So we’re trying to redress the balance and tell our own story. …. I think we take our cue from people like Bishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, who described conflict and civil war situations as open wounds, and unless they’re properly examined and cleaned out, only then can they properly heal.

Is your work viewed by some as being divisive?

The BBC made a 40-minute documentary that was shown on national television here in Northern Ireland, and that laid that misconception to death. Most of my activity is very much Christian-based, and the other artists who work with me are neither sectarian nor propagandists, and this was clearly seen on the BBC documentary…. So I think it’s well known among the art-funding bodies and the powers that be, let’s say, that this is not the case. But nonetheless they seem to shy away from supporting this type of work.

Are young artists showing an interest in carrying on the work that you and your partners have begun?

That’s a big part of our work, actually. With each large-scale mural that we do we try and organize a series of four workshops where we look at the actual content and we attempt to also pass the skills on that help them to express themselves in their own communities — and this would be both Protestant and Catholic children.

Mural painting has a real strong cultural heritage for us here, as it would be in Mexico and indeed as it would be in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, we don’t have the same type of support and facilities, but nonetheless we feel that we have achieved our goal, up until this point at least. But passing the skills on, and helping young Protestants and Catholics to forge friendships while they’re being creative, and while they’re building up rather than dragging down, is probably the most meaningful part of our work.

Tom Kelly will participate in "Urban Exposures," a panel discussion with Philadelphia-based artists, on Sept. 27, 5:30 p.m., at Moore College of Art and Design, 20th St. and the Parkway, 215-568-4515.