18th Belfast Children's Festival (4-9 March) - Ali FitzGibbon looks back over her time at Young at Art

Belfast Children’s Festival 2016 runs from 4 to 9 March and its programme (PDF) was launched at lunchtime today.

“Going to a theatre performance, going to an exhibition, taking part in a workshop, sends people on a journey that shows them that the world can be other than as it is.”

Festival director Ali FitzGibbon explained to me that Central Station was an appropriate venue for the launch since it’s the hosting the interactive I Think I Can (via Australia’s Terrapin Puppet Company and the Ulster Model Railway Club), inviting audiences to inhabit a miniature town and become active members of its tiny community. Watch out for the diminutive antics being reported in an online newspaper during the festival. I Think I Can is free and runs for the duration of the festival (8 years +).

The festival programme brings together international artists (Swiss Vorstadt Theater’s Bambi 4-5 March/8 years + and two clown shows from Norwegian Katja Lindeburg on 8 and 9 March) as well as performances from local companies like Replay Theatre’s fantastically named Snoozle & the Lullabugs (4-6 March for under 5s with profound and multiple learning difficulties or severe learning difficulties) and Maiden Voyage Dance’s Pause & Effect (5-8 March/4-8 years).

You can hear from authors and illustrators like Marie Louise Fitzpatrick (5 March/4-7 years) and Sheena Wilkinson (6 March/11 years+), Doodle Live in the Strand (5 March/7-10 years) and check out the portable Library of Stories (5-6 March) written by children and young people.

The Office of Important Art has relocated upstairs to the first floor of Castlecourt this year (opposite Costa coffee shop) and will host local artist David Turner’s autobiographical Ordinary Extraordinary images.

And don’t miss the Baby Rave (6 March/0-4 years) or the live bands at Pre-Teenage Kicks (6 March/8-teens).

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Interviewed about the development of the Belfast Children’s Festival over past years, Ali FitzGibbon acknowledged that “there have always been artists who make good work for children in Northern Ireland”.

“There have always been really passionate and really dedicated people who create projects that work with children. What the Festival does is puts [this] into a very large international scale. It’s certainly put Northern Ireland on the map over the last 18 years.”

Ali explained that they consciously “use the Festival as a showcase and platform for local artists”.

“There are many people who have been working with children in Northern Ireland for many, many years who have received opportunities to travel and to have their work internationally recognised as a result of being in the Festival.

“I think people can trip off the tongue that ‘this is an international festival’ very easily. Children learn diversity. Children learn difference. They don’t start thinking ‘that person is different from me’. We’re very interested in what happens when you introduce children to the idea that other people see the world differently because they’re in – or from – an other part of the world.”

This year sees artists from Switzerland, Norway and Australia coming to the Festival.

“Children don’t have a lot of the inhibitions that adults have. They are very open to quite abstract and complex concepts of narratives and stories and themes of human emotion. They’re instinctive audience members and instinctive artists and participants. As we grow up we tend to start to code everything and say ‘that goes in that pigeonhole’ and we come up with responses.”

While adult-orientated festivals may find it difficult to build audiences for contemporary dance, this genre sells out at the Children’s Festival.

“Families and schools now understand that dance is a really interesting way to communicate with children. Dance is an amazingly powerful art form and children respond to it and talk about it. They see signals in the performance that they can take back into their home and back into their classrooms and discuss with their parents and their teachers afterwards.”

Baby Rave is a festival stalwart, a fun-filled disco for babies and parents with non-stop music, colourful visuals, soft materials and sensory toys. Ali explained:

“Baby Rave is my baby.

“In my second festival in 2005 we could see that we have people coming to us with four and five year olds and we couldn’t find anything we could use to bring in that younger age group. I had a very young child at the time and was trying to see what as a parent would I want? I wanted something very free style, very sensory … The Baby Rave comes from that.

“What we didn’t realise when I first brought a team together to make it was that nobody had done a baby rave. Subsequently we got to travel round the world doing Baby Rave.

“We were the fastest selling act in the Adelaide Fringe Festival in 2007. We sold out in thirty seconds. The youngest we’ve ever had was 5 days old … You get young couples, lots of first time parents coming along and they really engage with its dancing, its visuals, its design and its really well selected music. It’s really informal and people can come in and out in the course of an hour … That gets people with us who haven’t come across us before and they stay with us on a journey.

“The festival goes up notionally to fourteen years old. So we now have the first baby ravers beginning to get too old for the festival. My big challenge is who’s responsibility is that to take over and what provision is there for 14+ because there’s a finite limit to what one small charitable organisation can do. And what I do know as a parent … is that fourteen year olds don’t want to hang out with four year olds unless they’re getting paid!”

(Outside of the festival, Young at Art work with young people all the way up to the age of 18.)

The public subsidy of arts organisations and events is sometimes criticised whenever there is fight back against cuts to cultural funding.

“The most expensive we have in the festival this year is something like £13. There are a huge number of free events. We have Big Festival Days Out – a new programme we’re running – which is about trying to get people to see some of the great venues we have: The MAC, the Lyric, the Strand and the Duncairn Arts Centre. Most of what’s going to happen in those spaces is going to be free of charge. For the whole of the week of the festival we have exhibitions on, [for instance] David Turner’s amazing toy exhibition in Castlecourt.

“If we introduce charges every single person who took part in something for the Festival would have to pay about £30. We know that people are struggling and a lot of families are under pressure.

“We also know that there isn’t a habit of going to arts events with your children [other than panto] … These experiences are the stuff of lifetime memories. I still have ten and eleven year olds come up to me at the Festival and they talk to me about things they saw when they were three years old …”

Ali will shortly step down from Young at Art after twelve years. Her most memorable highlights included Land of Giants, a collaborative community project in the Waterworks Park (that may have dyed the duckpond in the process!), as well as the ongoing Fighting Words project.

She perceives “a tendency [in the public sector] towards short term pressures versus long term investment” adding that “nobody in the arts sector is looking for handouts … but what Young at Art is looking for is some realistic investment” that values and delivers cultural experiences.

“In Northern Ireland we are way behind where cultural provision could and should be for children. If anything there’s a spreading-the-butter-very-thin approach which says that every child will have some element of experience and there’s not enough time being spent looking at the quality and duration of the experience, what kind of support they get within the school system and the youth sector.

“As an organisation we’ve had two or three of the most challenging years we’ve had in eighteen years. And it’s a sad thing when you look at an 18 year old organisation that has been on an upward trend, that has been growing and growing [but] last year because of the in year cuts we saw our numbers roll back a bit for the first time, largely because the free events had to be cut or bringing an international show costs a certain amount of money and if we don’t have that money in the kitty and can’t offset it with ticket sales then it doesn’t come.”

As an organisation, Young at Art don’t just look for public sector funding. Ali explained that “all the education programmes are financed through private trusts and donations”. Corporate sponsors are involved too, including Translink Castlecourt, Belfast Harbour and Easons.

Ten years ago, Young at Art’s board of directors came to the decision that “survival was not good enough”.

“Keeping in business is not worthy of merit. Keeping the doors open when so many people are on the brink of closing their doors is not good enough. You have to be good. You have to be good for your audiences. You have to know what’s coming up on the horizon. You have to see how your audiences are evolving. You have to see who’s not coming and try to find ways of making sure that they come. You have to be able to articulate purpose. And if you don’t do that, then you shouldn’t be doing it.”

Time to repaint the buoys ... and time to get the correct colours

Update 12 May 2014 - Belfast City Council have confirmed that they'll shortly be repainting the three buoys ... and they've consulted the experts and will be painting them red and white, green (cone shaped) and black (can shaped).

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Long time readers of the blog will remember previous posts about the three enormous buoys that occupy the square beside the University of Ulster Belfast Campus and St Anne’s Cathedral.

Just before the Tall Ships Festival in September 2009, I noticed a spot of repainting. At a cost of £3,000-£3,500, the Council’s Property Maintenance Section repainted the buoys. And oddly, they changed the colour of the red flatted-topped buoy to a light blue colour.

The plaque beside them explains how they came to be located on this piece of land owned by Belfast City Council.

The Buoys

The maritime influence is strong in Ulster. The coastline is long and there are many harbours. Belfast has a tradition as a sea port and shipbuilding city. Ulstermen over the years have built fine ships and served at sea in wartime and in peace. They have fished for their livelihood and sailed for pleasure.

Belfast City Council has used the gift of three navigation buoys from the Commissioner of Irish Lights as the theme of an Environmental Improvement Scheme to mark the Ulster seagoing tradition. These three buoys are more than 50 years old and are in pre 1979 Lateral System Buoyage colours. They are of the type used in local waters.

BBC journalist Will Leitch picked up on the story and ran a piece on Good Morning Ulster which discovered that while the colours had been changed, the previous colours hadn’t been correct either and didn’t strictly follow the “pre-1979 Lateral System Buoyage colours”.

Belfast Harbourmaster Captain Kevin Allen explained:

“The round buoy, which should be indicative of a safe water mark, should be painted red and white. The other is a conical shaped buoy, which by modern conventions should be painted green. And you would expect the can-shaped buoy to be painted red.”

Robert McCabe from the Commissioners of Irish Lights gave a more historical view of the conical buoy's colour:

“The chances are the conical buoy was black. Black is a very visible colour against a sea or a sky.

At the time Belfast City Council said the change of colour was “a simple mistake” due to “miscommunication” and promised to correct the colour next time the buoys were painted.

That moment is now.

Passing the garden on Saturday evening, the buoys were in a sorry state. The paint is flaking off the two blue buoys. While it’s not strictly a memorial garden, the poor state of the buoys reflects badly on the burgeoning Cathedral Quarter and the council’s respect for the city’s rich maritime history.

Time to repaint the buoys … and time to get the correct colours.

Norn Iron sculpture picks up international award - RISE

It took a long time to get a piece of public art erected on Broadway Roundabout only for Titanic Belfast to arrive and take the limelight away from the 37.5m, 65,000-piece Balls on the Falls.

So while in Gloucester - home to another of Wolfgang Buttress' sculptures - I was glad to see that RISE has won a prize: the 'small projects' category at the Institute of Structural Engineers' annual international awards. There'll have been cheers in Rasharkin where the manufacturer M Hasson and Sons is based.

Apparently buildings rather than sculptures tend to pick up the gongs. The judges explained:

"Pure sculptural structures are amongst the most difficult to achieve successfully, as everything is on view, and will be scrutinised down to the finest detail. It is therefore a real pleasure to find a creation such as this, which admirably projects the artist's original vision and at the same time celebrates the aesthetic beauty of pure, efficient structure for its own sake."

Also good to see that Derry's Peace Bridge was commended. The Iron Market in Port-au-Prince (Haiti) won its sustainability category.

Belfast Black Taxi Tour - a political insight into the west of the city

A black taxi tour of Belfast? Surely that’s just for tourists?

There are huge areas of Belfast that I’ve never visited. Election observing has taught me a few routes through West Belfast to wind around a handful of polling stations on the way back to Lisburn. Even while living in East Belfast, there was often little reason to go further down the Newtownards Road than the Connswater junction with the Albertbridge Road.

So I was glad of the excuse to see a bit more of the city last week on a “political tour” with Jim from NI Black Taxi Tours. You can get a flavour of the tour in the embedded timelapse video shot out the window of the cab.



For £25 you get ninety minutes or more visiting some of the more vivid murals and memorials in the west of the city. You’ll stop off at murals in the Shankill commemorating loyalist antagonists like hitman Stevie ‘Topgun’ McKeag, the memorial wall marking atrocities on the Shankill, and then drive along the “Peace Wall” full of scribbles from peace-longing visitors including Bill Clinton.

Pick flowers not fights
I want this [message] to disappear with this wall

Then it’s across through the automatic barriers at Lanark Way to see the other side of the interface. Described as an area where it’s “100 per cent Catholic” the taxi stops at the memorial garden in Bombay Street. Nearby homes backing on to the wall have wire mesh grills to protect the back of the houses. The well-kept memorial commemorates IRA volunteers as well as civilians killed in the Clonard area.

There’s a stop off at Bobby Sands’ mural on the side of Sinn Fein offices and the republican gift shop to hear about the hunger strike, and then down to the nearby International Wall that pictorially relates to “other civil wars” across the world. It’s obvious that across Belfast the murals are constantly being touched up and updated. Fascinating to see how every panel on the wall has been adapted to call for Marian Price’s freedom. The final stop on the political tour is the Crown Bar … unless you want set down somewhere else.

Whereas a bus tour glides past landmarks – and probably covers a much greater distance – the taxi tour gives you a chance to get out of the cab, stretch your legs walking around sites with the driver and the opportunity to ask questions.

Don’t expect to be immediately immersed in a deep and nuanced history of the Troubles. It’s a simplified narrative, though the driver will be happy to open up about a surprising range of topics if you choose to probe. But it’s a good start and a whole lot better than a static museum display.

Our Belfast Black Taxi tours and Belfast Black Taxi Political tours start at just £25 for two people. Each additional passenger costs only £10. The average duration of each tour is around 1 hour 30 minutes, but can be tailored to suit. We can also cater for large groups.

Chris Jenkins raised questions about the morality of troubles tourism in a recent Guardian Unlimited article. Matthew Symington followed up with an extended interview on Eamonnmallie.com in which Chris again challenged the trend of “money being made from human tragedy” and the DUP’s switch from opposing a “shrine” at the Long Kesh to supporting a “Mecca for tourists” at the Maze site.

Last week’s taxi tour didn’t feel voyeuristic. As an outsider to those areas who learned about many of the atrocities and events through Good Morning Ulster while eating breakfast before school rather than living through them, it was a very visual reminder of our conflict and its legacy. And at certain points it was quietly moving to stand and reflect on lives lost and lives wasted.

Few local people take a taxi tour. Some accompany guests who are visiting Ireland and staying with them. Some folk come up from Dublin. But mostly, its tourists, usually Americans. In terms of being better able to place events in a broad context, I’d recommend it as a first step in the process of engaging with history.

Disclaimer – I was contacted by NI Black Taxi Tours and offered the tour. The cab was yellow, not black!

The day they buried a time-capsule in the middle of Broadway Roundabout - RISE is complete

Today marks the end of chain of posts and a fascination I've had with the plans to erect a sculpture in the middle of Broadway Roundabout. Back in 2007 I mentioned on the blog that as part of the project to create the Westlink underpass, Ed Carpenter had won a public art commission with Trillian - a 45m tall wild flower (representing a post-Troubles city) to be built in the middle of the roundabout.

The electricity pylon that used to occupy the overgrown space was removed. But due to the rising cost of steel, the competition was reopened.

Second time around, Wolfgang Buttress won with RISE - his iconic image of two globes resting on a bed of reeds which are fondly referred to locally as the Balls on the Falls, or the Westicles.

After much delay, work started on the project last winter. You can watch a superb time-lapse video on the building process. (I love the way that the circus arrives arcoss the road about 2 minutes 35 seconds into the video!)

At lunchtime today, a time capsule was buried under RISE. Less buried, more sunk into the mud.

In truly awful weather, Belfast's Lord Mayor Councillor Niall Ó Donnghaile bravely stepped into a dodgy photo opportunity and helped school children from the local area tip earth over the sealed capsule.

Having interviewed Wolfgang Buttress at a public meeting last November, I caught up with him again today after the watery ceremony to ask him about his creation.

He spoke very warmly about the steel fabricators - M Hasson and Sons Ltd in Rasharkin - who also assembled the sculpture, and he confirmed that they are now working with him on further projects. A success story for local business.

Of the £486,000 budget for this piece of public art, 85% was spent in Northern Ireland. Ratepayers will want to know that £56,000 came from Belfast City Council. Taxpayers will want to know that the Department for Social Development contributed £330,000. And lottery players will want to know that the Arts Council of Northern Ireland were able to give £100,000 via Lottery funding.

One council official suggested that they should sell snow globes with models of RISE inside in the Welcome Centre!

In twenty five years time - if anyone remembers where the capsule was buried - the citizens of Belfast will discover messages from the local children expressing what they hope to be doing in 2036, along with school ties and sweatshirts from the participating schools. They'll marvel at the smell of damp, the way some of the clothing was obviously shoved into the capsule, and wonder why the Belfastians of 2011 didn't roll up the length of greaseproof paper the children had written on a bit more neatly.

Maybe they'll look up what's left of the old internet, find this post, and discover that before it was buried, and before the dignitaries arrived from the nearby Olympia Leisure Centre, the media had opened up the carefully packed capsule in the rain and hoked through it looking for choice footage for that day's news bulletins ...

Future historians will also be able to read the full contents of Wolfgang Buttress' letter inside the capsule in which he describes the pride he felt about the project and learn about the "wonderful people" he met.

They may also reflect on his frustrations with "red tape and Kafkaesque rules and regulations". Building a 37.5m tall sculpture weighting the equivalent of six double decker buses in the middle of a cramped busy roundabout was not a bed of roses.

Update - the Council have been in touch to explain that the 'contents of the time capsule have to be treated and vacuum sealed before it is finally sealed and buried' - which should give them time to remove any creases from the papers, and refold the school sweatshirts neatly ... and maybe even drop in a DVD copy of timelapse of RISE being constructed!

Smoke billowing above RISE this morning

Update - Since the Monarch Street bonfire was part of the Belfast City Council management programme - which provides grant assistance in return for socially and environmentally responsible bonfires (ie, no tyres, no burning flags etc) - the council are sending up one of their beacons to this site for this evening. You can see pictures of the beacon ... and their replacement bonfire - on a second post.

The plume of smoke above RISE this morning was the result of an early-morning arson attack on the Monarch Street bonfire rather than an out of control BBQ in the middle of Broadway roundabout.

There was disappointment and a hint of anger in the voices of the group of teenagers who were the first to arrive at the Donegall Road/Broadway bonfire this morning. Days of effort destroyed.

Sixteen hours early, someone – and fingers were pointing at another community – had lit the unguarded bonfire. The blaze was well underway when the fire truck arrived, briefly pausing before driving off.

What the pictures can’t depict is the wall of heat that hits you – even at that distance – and the stench (most likely of tyres). Update - probably not tyres as the bonfire was part of the management programme run by Belfast City Council.

The Monarch Street residents will have a quieter than expected Eleventh Night.

Update on RISE - Belfast City Council confirm that work on the main sculpture has now finished, and the footpaths across Broadway roundabout will shortly be reinstated. An “official opening” event is planned for mid-September, when a time capsule will be buried on the site and the lights will be switched on.

RISE and bonfires - lots of construction across Belfast

While work on Broadway roundabout's sculpture RISE ("the balls on the Falls") is nearing completion ...

... other large scale constructions are being built for Eleventh night bonfires across the city (and beyond). This example - complete with sectarian graffiti and a Sinn Féin election poster that's folded over in the wind - from Pitt Park in East Belfast.

Rising up ... RISE

It'll not be long before the smaller ball will be hoisted up and dropped into the middle of the larger, outer ball.

The scale of Wolfgang Buttress' sculpture is finally clear, and within a few weeks the Balls on the Falls RISE will be finished and drivers will no longer be so distracted with the mechanics of its construction, making Broadway Roundabout a safer place to drive around.

The Rusty Needle - "Candle" by Wolfgang Buttress

Wandering through Gloucester Docks this afternoon, we walked past a new piece of public art that wasn't there last summer. Rising high into the sky, the 22m tall "Candle" is known locally as "the Rusty Needle".

The sculptor? None other than Wolfgang Buttress who is behind Rise ("the Balls on the Falls") which is in the process of being installed on top of Belfast's Broadway roundabout.

The Candle with its embedded spire complements the existing city skyline which includes Gloucester Cathedral and the tall warehouses (now offices and apartments) in the Docks. The candle or flame is also meant to be a reminder of the many fires that have occurred over the years in the docks.

Around the base of the sculpture are the first few lines of Requiem by Ivor Gurney - a poet and composer who grew up in Gloucester.

The panorama function of my camera - or perhaps my use of it! - had problems keeping the image straight!

Starting to RISE up on Broadway

Driving past Broadway roundabout on Wednesday, it looked like preparations were finally underway to build RISE, Wolfgang Buttresses' winning sculpture that will sit nearly 40m tall and consist of a mesh sphere suspended inside a larger outer sphere.

There was consternation in January when no one turned up at a local consultation event on the Falls to discuss the new piece of public art which will dominate the view as motorists travel up the M1 into the city.

I spoke to Wolfgang Buttress back in November when he described his thinking behind RISE in this video.

Taking the RISE out of community public art consultation

Back in November, I posted about the RISE sculpture that will shortly be materialising on the Broadway roundabout at the top of the M1 motorway.

The project - and the funding - has been on the go for many years, with fabrication already underway up in Rasharkin.

As well as erecting an icon piece of public art, part of the project includes engagement events with local communities that will be staring at the two giant balls and walking underneath them. So workshops were to be arranged in the Falls and the Village.

The BBC report that there was a very low attendance at Cultúrlann on Wednesday night. Local Sinn Fein councillor Breige Brownlee commented:

"A lot of local people would prefer to have seen the money better spent elsewhere. But now that it's a fait accompli, people are beginning to warm to it, which is good."

Creator Wolfgang Buttress speaks in the clip below:

RISE - Balls on the Falls

Belfast City Council and PLACE are out and about this week with Wolfgang Buttress, the artist behind the 40m high RISE sculpture that will be unveiled on Broadway roundabout by Easter. There was a public meeting in the City Hall on Wednesday at lunchtime, followed by an evening event at Falls Community Council.

You can catch Wolfgang from 7-8pm on Thursday night at the Richview Regeneration Centre, Donegall Road. Light refreshments will be served. To reserve your place, please call Ivy Rollins, Tourism Culture and Arts Unit, Belfast City Council on 028 9050 0512 or email culture AT belfastcity DOT gov DOT uk.

The process to place a piece of public art on the pylon-free roundabout has taken longer than Belfast City Council and Roads Service ever imagined. The first commission – Trillian, a 45m tall wild flower designed by Ed Carpenter to represent a post-Troubles city – fell through when the price of steel rocketed beyond the project’s budget.

Wolfgang Buttress had been shortlisted the first time round, and nearly didn’t apply again when the commission was re-advertised. Speaking before the event began, he explained that having visited the site, he wanted a sculpture that would acknowledge:

“… the fact that there are two different sides, the fact that it’s important that it’s seen by both sides of the community as well as people coming into Belfast. It needs to be nice and simple, universal, and looks the same from each angle.”

The Bog Meadows are reflected in the reeds that will sit below the balls and (in some cases) structurally support them. Some of the reeds will also house the lights that will illuminate RISE at night, making it an icon from ground level as well as from the air as flights come in and out over the city.

Wolfgang describes in the short clip that he wanted the sculpture to be “open” and yet “have presence”. At nearly 40m tall and 30m across, it is a huge structure. It’s certainly in proportion with the tower blocks next to the Royal site.

Fabrication of RISE is already underway in Rasharkin and work to prepare the Broadway site should begin before Christmas.

A good aspect of the project is that around 80-90% of the money is expected to flow back into local NI businesses and suppliers.

I’m looking forward to Nick Patterson’s timelapse project to capture the construction.

There was quite a bit of discussion at the lunchtime event about how public art is commissioned. How constraining are the strings that are attached to public art projects, potentially compromising the raw art with constraints, briefs and box-ticking. Of course, throughout history, pretty much all commissioned art has been tainted by the funder and not just requested for arts sake.

But what should be the balance between aesthetic judgement and city building? How do democratic structures and civil representation sit alongside community involvement. Rather than be a completed monument, should public art be something that enriches people’s lives on an ongoing basis?

Belfast has an on-off relationship with public art.

The Big Fish has had a positive impact, along with the quiet persistence of the Nula with the Hula.

While the public got what they voted for, Dan George’s steel squiggle Spirit of Belfast was a bit of a let down and failed to capture the imaginations and hearts of city centre workers and shoppers. (The sculpture’s promised lighting features – “ribbon of light … [whose] … intensity, color and movement will be programmed” - failed to materialise which damaged its evening impact in Cornmarket.)

The Magic Jug destined for Fountain Street was dropped at the end of August.

Daniel Jewesbury ran a (successful?) campaign against the Magic Jug. He was sitting in the front row of the RISE session and I asked him afterwards about his vision for public art.

Personally, I suspect the sheer size of the enormous sphere, and the mesmerising effect of the smaller sphere suspended inside, will capture the imagination and hearts of drivers as they come towards the end of the M1 motorway heading into Belfast, or drive out of the city centre heading towards the underpass.

RISE has the potential to take over from the big wheel as the media’s shortcut image of Belfast.

I’m less sure about what local communities (the Village and the Falls) will make of it and how they’ll be able to engage with the alien structure that is about to appear. I can help fearing that it’ll be a target for throwing toilet rolls at and decorating with flags once a big enough cherry-picker is found.

A roundabout – even one that is as large as Broadway – is an unfriendly and isolated place. No matter how much grass is laid, no one’s ever going to cross over to the middle of it in order to kick a ball or sit on a bench and stare up at the sky. Cars whizz clockwise around the circumference, and people scoot across the middle spending no more than a minute or two to get to the traffic lights on the other side.

Although there may be a passing trade of shoppers heading to Park Gate, and staff heading over to the Royal Group of Hospitals, they are transient, windswept and in a hurry to get past. Poor access and parking, together with health and safety concerns must practically rule out any use of the space underneath the sculpture (owned by Roads Service) for community festivals and events.

Yet maybe there’s hope in the fact that within days or weeks of its announcement, RISE had already been given the nickname of the Balls on the Falls. Artist Wolfgang Buttress seemed quite pleased that it had been so quickly adopted.

Cat's Budgies go on air

Budgie Butlins made it onto Arts Extra on Tuesday night (11 minutes 24 seconds in, though the link should auto-start at the right place).

You can catch my original post and interview with artist Catherine Roberts last week.

Where do Belfast budgies go on holiday? Budgie Butlins!

Forty five budgies are camping out for the next few weeks in the PS2/PS-Squared gallery on Donegall Street (opposite John Hewitt and up a bit). At the opening last night the budgies were introduced to their new environment. PS2 has two windows looking in on the bird-sized caravans built out of nesting boxes that inhabit the manufactured landscape. There’s also a pool, some wooden ladders, branches and bunting!

The artist responsible for this feathered fantasy land is Catherine Roberts who spent all summer creating the a bird-safe exhibit/holiday park. In the video above she explains the background to the project, her continuing love for birds, and what she hopes people get out of the installation as they walk past the windows on Donegall Street. On the PS2 website she explains:

“This is an uplifting project and its foremost objective is to make people smile. I try to create an outer worldly scene, a voyeuristic spectacle, an updated still life influenced by early Victorian encasements of the natural world. I am looking, whether it is possible for animals to derive pleasure (in a good way) through architectural means etc. My work isn't so much about the critical aspects of bird keeping, it is about the positive. It’s optimistic! Yes there is questioning, but I would like people to come to their own conclusions.”

Budgie Butlins runs until 25 September 2010, with twelve hours daily window viewing and feeding sessions between 1-2pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at Paragon Studios Project Space (PS2).

It's an undeniably bizarre idea, yet last night it was clearly putting a smile on the face of passers-by. Do look in the windows if you’re in the Cathedral Quarter and think about freedom and incarceration, pleasure and appreciation, or whatever else comes to mind. The budgies will hopefully shed their shyness and start to live nearer the windows as time goes on. You can read a bit more about it on Culture Northern Ireland.

Tinkling the ivories of a street piano in Belfast

Brush up on your Chopsticks! Street pianos have been around for a quite a while, but now they're coming to Belfast.

Craft NI have a large programme of events during August, which started with the yarn bombing of the sheep in front of the Waterfront Hall. Their next wheeze to make us smile and enjoy our normal environment is a musical art installation “Play Me, I’m Yours” by artist Luke Jerram.

Ten street pianos will be left on the streets and in the parks of Belfast between 14 and 28 August for anyone and everyone to enjoy: Belfast City Hall, Commercial Court, Corn Market Sculpture, Cotton Court, First Presbyterian Church, Linen Hall Library, Northern Bank Building, St Anne's Square, Tesco on Royal Avenue, Writers Square.

"The pianos have been rescued, restored to working order and decorated by local artists, community groups and charities, all of whom have offered their time for free. This is the first time the artwork has been presented in Ireland."

The Play Me I'm Yours website for players and listeners "to post their comments, films and photos about the pianos." At the end of the two weeks, the pianos will be donated to local schools and community groups ... or stolen and moved into student flats!

Guerilla knitting hits the Waterfront flock

It's not the first time the sheep (and shepherd) in front of the Waterfront Hall have been decorated.

In March last year they adopted red noses to coincide with Comic Relief.

But over the last few days, someone has taken pity on them standing out in the summer rain and made them more cosy ... as well as more colourful.

I'm not sure whether it's related to the Trans / Urban Arts Academy festival running in the Waterfront - maybe the weekend Clothes Customisation course? - or whether it's an unrelated act of guerilla knitting? But I'm sure someone will know and comment.

Update - local legend Moochin Photoman has the story of "yarn bombed as part of Craft Month organised by Craft NI" ... and BBC NI News Online!

I/we have not and will not canvas or solicit any Member, Officer or Employee of the Council ...

Belfast City Council are commissioning a piece of public art for the City Hall “which reflects the Irish history and heritage of many of [its] citizens”. But that’s not the story.

At the back of the issued Expression of Interest / Quotation document (which outlines the specification and contract conditions) there is an appendix with a form that applicants must fill out.

Applicants must promise not to canvas or solicit support for their application from councillors (“members”) or council staff.

A CERTIFICATE AS TO CANVASSING

I/We hereby certify that I/we have not and will not canvas or solicit any Member, Officer or Employee of the Council in connection with the preparation, submission and evaluation of this Expression of Interest or award or proposed award of the Contract and that to the best of my/our knowledge and belief, no person employed by me/us or acting on my/our behalf has done, or will do, such an act.

I/We hereby certify that, to the best of my/our knowledge and belief, no person who is a Councillor, Officer, Servant or Agent has any direct or indirect interest, in or connection with, the Organisation.

Signed .....................................................

Pity Castlereagh Borough Council didn’t have that in place when they were tendering for the Lock Keeper’s Inn café. Or maybe they did?

Someone out there with a copy of the Expression of Interest advertised in January 2008 and re-advertised later that summer may be able to comment further. But a cursory read through the Castlereagh minutes doesn’t point to anything more elaborate or lengthy than a simple advert in a newspaper. And I’m not about to go and request a copy of the Expression of Interest just to prove a point!

Paying up for the Balls on the Falls (Rise) ... and a proposal to stream Belfast City Council meetings online

A couple of things converged today. Someone left a comment on yesterday’s post about the £36,000 budget hike in the Broadway roundabout sculpture that Belfast City Council were due to vote on last night (Tuesday). The anonymous commenter asked:

So what did the council decide to do?

It’s a great question. A straight Google search did turn up a council committee paper that referred to the overspend, but no answer. Unless you were present in the public gallery watching the council meeting or unless reporters present ran the story on the decision online, in this morning’s papers or in news bulletins ... then it’ll be a few weeks before the minutes of the meeting are approved and we can hear the results. I suppose someone could track down a councillor who was there and actually ask them!

But there’s another solution. Niall Kelly – SDLP councillor in South Belfast – issued a statement yesterday about a motion he had tabled for debate at the same council meeting last night. He was calling on the Belfast City Council to start streaming its meetings online.

“This motion is an attempt to bring forward a new era of openness and transparency to Belfast City Council by ensuring that in the future the monthly council meeting is streamed online, through the council website. The technology for this has been around for many years and I firmly believe that it is about time the council embraced this opportunity and moved into the twenty first century.

Already more than 80 local authorities in England and a number of larger councils in the Republic of Ireland, including Dublin City Council, not only stream their meetings online but archive the meetings, allowing people to see exactly what goes on in the chamber, at a time that suits them. As the largest council in the North of Ireland, Belfast should be leading the way on matters such as this.

At present there is provision for members of the public to watch the council proceedings from the public gallery but for many people this is neither practical nor convenient. It would be much easier for people if they were able to watch what is happening in the council in a way that suits them best.

Anything that we can do to highlight to the public to let them know what we are doing is to be encouraged. At a time when the public are increasingly suspicious of the actions of politicians I believe that we should be thinking of new and innovative ways of showing them the positive work that we are doing.”

I texted him and discovered that the motion had been referred to the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee due to the financial implication. No doubt it will be on their agenda when they next meet on 11 December and hopefully they’ll report back in a few months, and the full council can them come back to the issue.

So in the meantime, back to the commenter’s question. Did the council approve the extra spend on the sculpture?

Yes.

Thankfully, Brian Lovett reported in the Belfast Telegraph that the council agreed

“to pay £36,000 of the shortfall while the Department of Social Development (DSD) has agreed to provide another £30,000.”

The Balls on the Falls: delayed ... and now running £60k over-budget

There's another twist to the story of “Rise” - the 35m high piece of public art that won its right to be installed on Broadway roundabout at the top of the M1.

A couple of weeks ago I posted that work on Wolfgang Buttress's £400,000 design had been pushed back to the spring of 2010 while his design was finalised and contractors were found. On top of that “the Northern Ireland Government’s [DRD Roads Service] annual two-month ban on roadworks over the festive period” meant that it was more sensible not to even start until the new year.

The sculpture's creator explained:

“There are about 7,500 struts of different lengths that have to be manufactured, as well as 2,000 pressed discs that the struts go into. We need to make the jig that it will all sit in before we can then think about the main construction process. The sculpture is simple, but because it is 35m high it needs to be done accurately.”

Tonight, the full meeting of the Belfast City Council will be asked to approve an extra £36,000 to fund extra safety checks that were not included in the original budget. The Department of Social Development have already agreed to contribute another £30,000.

The BBC report that:

"Applications for more funding from the Arts Council and two government departments were refused. The whole scheme will now cost almost £500,000 and will not begin until next year."

The Balls on the Falls - delay to "Rise" sculpture on Broadway roundabout

As part of the Westlink road works, Broadway roundabout was to get a 45m tall flower erected in the middle of it. Ed Carpenter won a Belfast City Council-led commissioning competition with his expression of a post-troubles city.

“Trillian rises over Broadway Roundabout, marking the southern entrance to Belfast, offering a symbol of transformation. Its gesture is bold and delicate, engineered and organic, familiar and extraordinary. The delicacy of nature and the strength of human resolve are suggested in graceful lines and robust steel. Trillian reaches upward toward the light.

Perched and leaning, it suggests life in the balance. This sense of precariousness is only symbolic, however, as myriad armored cables insure great structural integrity and redundancy. At night Trillian forms a luminous beacon in the sky, visible for miles. Rainy skies are penetrated by beams of light extending up into the mists, further heightening the presence of the sculpture.”

Problem was that the price of steel forced a rethink, and a fresh competition.

But now the replacement public art has been delayed by six months.

“Rise” is expected to stand 35m high, and will feature LED lighting allowing “the sculpture to glow and pulse at night”.

Talking in the Nottingham Evening Post, artist Wolfgang Buttress explained why work on the £400,000 design - “Rise” - has been pushed back to the spring while his design was finalised and contractors were found. And there’s “the Northern Ireland Government’s [DRD Roads Service] annual two-month ban on roadworks over the festive period” ...

“We had a short time scale. The work had to be done over the summer while there is good weather. The start, however, was delayed and if it had got any later in the year we would have meant we were getting into winter, so it seemed a sensible decision to delay it until next spring.”

“There are about 7,500 struts of different lengths that have to be manufactured, as well as 2,000 pressed discs that the struts go into. We need to make the jig that it will all sit in before we can then think about the main construction process. The sculpture is simple, but because it is 35m high it needs to be done accurately.”

Local wags are already nicknaming the sculpture “Balls on the Falls” ...

So while the road opened ahead of time (and celebrated with an early bath!), the public art on top of the roundabout is going to be late.