24th June 2011
Julie and I developed our Lay of the Land piece from Dublin in Belfast. We crossed over from catholic to protestant to catholic to protestant and finally back to a catholic area again. It took part in the space measuring about a square kilometre and lasted for a few hours. The line we drew on the ground in Dublin was pretty straight but the line here at times resembled the chalk outlines of bodies found at the scene of a crime. This area in the north of Belfast has many peace walls, with and without a passage through. We as outsiders decided to traverse through the space in a trajectory that deliberately went from zone to zone. We know that as outsiders we can do this, and beforehand had deduced from our research with the locals that this was not the case for most of them, regardless of the fact that these trajectories could provide a short cut. The over-riding impression I got from the place was one of impoverishment and and that poverty transcends religion. The real divide is often that of vulgar wealth versus abject poverty and in this way it linked with our intention in Dublin. We wanted to pass through and over the peace walls without making a big deal of them, to carry on as if they didn’t exist. 
Photography by Jordan Hutchings
Lay of The Land: Belfast
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