The Bogside Artists Withdraw Their Support of City of Culture 2013
The Bogside Artists of Derry, N.Ireland, have withdrawn their support of The UK City of Culture 2013 that was awarded to the city last year. Marginalization and vilification of the artists and their work is cited as the primary reasons for this decision.
“We withdraw our support for three reasons,” said a spokesman for the group; “First of all nobody who is not in the city’s political network of groups and associations known as “The Loop” stands to gain from it. Secondly, we have been singled out and targeted by certain individuals so that funding for our little independent studio and gallery is virtually impossible. Lastly, the promised lighting up of our murals that we call The People’s Gallery was shelved for reasons nobody saw fit to explain. So, seven years later, we have decided to light them up ourselves.
The lighting strategy for the entire city was actually commissioned in September 2005 and the resolution made public in the press. On April 4th 2007 the artists were informed by the council that the “conceptual strategy” for lighting the city had been completed and fully signed off. The murals were cited among 24 other designated sites in the city to be illuminated.
“We were later informed that the funds for the project had been “frozen”, meaning stopped dead. Well, rather than sit twiddling our thumbs we decided to light the murals up ourselves with respect to the people of the Bogside whose history we have painted and our own families and relatives who fought long and hard for civil rights. The murals are arguably the most visited attraction in the North West. Now tourists can see them at night, not that the Northern Ireland Tourist Board or members of our own council appear to consider that to be of any importance whatsoever.
We are convinced that the dumbing down of the Bogside where the troubles all began over forty years ago is a political ploy that pays no attention whatsoever to the will of the people. Political games are what passes for government in the six counties. We have lit five of our murals so far and will light all of them in due course at our own expense and with the help of locals so that The People’s Gallery celebrated the world over and visited by thousands every year will stand as a universal witness to a people’s courage and suffering. The marketing and promotion of Derry as the “walled city” on the premise that this feature defines the city and its people is the brainchild of political gamesmanship and nothing more. We take leave to remind those responsible that before the troubles began visitors to the “walled city” were so few that no records were even kept. It is singularly our contemporary history that brings visitors to this city and that is what our murals are about. The notion that the city walls can take precedence over The Bogside, its thirty years of conflict and its people is insulting to all the people who live there. The balance will have been restored when we finish lighting up The People’s Gallery although the mental balance of those behind dumbing them down, in the first place, and us with them, looks to be irreparable.”
