www.theartofasbestos.com

video by king adz

FROM THE MOUTH OF ASBESTOS (on the boxing club project):

I was introduced to Ligoniel Amateur Boxing Club by the guys who run the Safehouse Gallery and on my way to Belfast on the train that day, the usual images and preconceptions of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland came to mind. But I wasn’t interested in adding to a landscape of film, painting and literature that couldn’t escape the images of violence and division from the past. It was my intention to create a body of work focusing on people who’re making a difference in their community despite all the shit that goes on around them.

I got to know the guys from the club, each had a story, each had a reason to be drawn to boxing and the small club that was a home and a safe family. I came away from that club with a head full of stories and a meaningful idea for an exhibition in Belfast. My initial fear was that these guys would treat me with suspicion, but each was open and honest, happy to talk while I photographed.

The following day, I scoured the streets in different parts of Belfast for the signature yellow Ace Bates skips (he’s the king of the Belfast skip world). I hoped that they might contain the detritus of the city; wood, metal and any other objects that told the cities history for me to paint on. I pulled pieces from skips in the Holy Land, the Shankill Road, the Lisburn Road and the Falls, then I hauled them home to the studio in Dublin to paint.

Belfast is intersected with many hulking ‘peace’ walls separating protestant (unionist) and catholic (republican) factions. Nowhere is the separation and animosity more serious than between the working class protestant Shankill Road and catholic Falls Road communities.

Al Jazeera English TV aired an insightful doc on the walls, the communities, and the political protest graffiti that dots either side of them. Apparently, certain artists, who have come to attain near celebrity status, from both sides, have ended up coming together to dialogue, with art as the connecting point. Go figure.