67 / Community Art
“Things have certainly
changed around Olympia since you were there with Neighborhood Open
Workshops...miss them times ...do you remember the mural you did along the long
wall behind the porta-cabin and we painted a big cat and used the hole in the
wall for the eye, or the big inflatable tunnels that were put for us in the
park.... also remember you and your colleagues devising new games to play in
the crescent arts centre...gr8 times which are missed.”
The email brought me back to 70s – 80s Belfast, a time of
social and political belligerence. In
1978 I was a volunteer on summer play schemes for young people in the
city. The organisation running the
schemes was an independent charity and we were therefore able to work across
the sectarian community divide. At the
summer’s end, a group of volunteers – including myself – decided to stay. We set up a collective, Neighbourhood OpenWorkshops (NOW), to continue in the most deprived localities of the city and
eventually anywhere in N. Ireland. With small charitable grants, gifts in kind
and (thankfully) modest subvention from Arts Council of N. Ireland, the income
was tiny but we believed in the work - and the summer had been great craic.
The e-mail above bears witness to the value of our efforts,
at least from one person’s testimony.
The sender is someone who was a youngster at the time and frequently
took part in NOW’s projects and events.
The wall he mentions was the perimeter wall of Windsor Park football
club grounds. The area on the other side
from the football pitch, our side, was a rough wasteland. A City Council portakabin had been put there
surrounded by a high, spike-topped, metal fence. Mostly we attracted kids from around 8 or 9
to 14 years old from the locality. For us the venture placed art in a specific
community context; for the kids it was, we hoped, a joyful opportunity to
encounter and engage with creative art activities.
