locative memories:

LOCATIVE MEMORIES:Site-Specific Video Installations in

Northern Irish Prisons

Old Borders, New Technologies: Discourses in Contemporary Visual Culture in Northern Ireland

Technological and aesthetic developments NI moving image production Key artists, film-makers, performers Video installation, performance art,

independent film-making ‘Troubles’/‘post-conflict’ themes Contextualised by:

New media; expanded cinema; performance art; post-colonialism; social control, etc.

Challenging traditional notions of National Cinema and artistic canons

Catherine Elwes

‘Video is the default medium of the twenty-first century. It is everywhere, trapped on monitors and computer screens and projected, cinema-style, onto pristine gallery walls, across public spaces and onto the hallowed surfaces of national museums.’ (Video Art, A Guided Tour, p. 1)

‘Discredited as the medium of truth, video in the 1990s was more often discussed for what it couldn’t do than for what it actually achieved.’ (Video Art, A Guided Tour, p. 163)

Paper outline

Inside Stories: Memories from the Maze and Long Kesh Prison, dir. Cahal McLaughlin (2004)

Inside Stories exhibition in Crumlin Road Gaol, March 2009

Their Stories, dir. Patsy Mullan (2009) Exhibited in Context Gallery, Derry,

September 2009 Stories told naturally Personal accounts Simultaneous multiple narratives

HMP Maze

British government refused ‘political’/’special category status to paramilitary prisoners

H-Blocks built Protests over

treatment Closed in 2000

Inside Stories

Interviews with Billy Hutchinson, Gerry Kelly, and Desi Waterworth

Ownership of stories/collaboration vital

Prisons Memory Archive

Different stories told separately

Billy Hutchinson

Ex-loyalist prisoner for murder

Advocated loyalist ceasefire

Key member of PUP Had not returned to

the site before Site-reactive

memory Little media

experience

Billy Hutchinson

Held in Long Kesh nissen compound

Former RAF base Vacated in late

1980s Had remained

untouched but now razed

Plenty of material to work with

Gerry Kelly

Ex-republican prisoner for weapons trafficking and bombs

Transferred to Maze from Brixton

Key figure in peace process and Sinn Fein

Media aware Had returned since

release

Gerry Kelly

1 block preserved in case peace talks broke down

Education/debates Discussions led to

peace process Solidarity among

inmates

Desi Waterworth

Prison officer Serving in HMP

Maghaberry in 2004

Security routines and regulations

‘back against the wall’ body language

Seldom heard account

Isn’t granted same freedom

Joanna McMinn and Fiona Barber

Added part with Open University tutors at the Maze in the 1970s/80s

Filmed in car journey to Maze

Compare experiences

Audiovisual contrasts to other parts

Crumlin Road Gaol

Site-specific exhibition

Belfast Prison closed 1996

Museum, gallery, performance space, tourist attraction

Monitors within cells

Teachers’ segment in larger conjoined cell

Crumlin Road Gaol

Spectator empathy for confinement and cold

Sound bleed Stressed

emptiness Drew viewers

towards various voices

Separation reflected real life and interview process

Patsy Mullan’s exhibition

Lecturer in media Interested in

Armagh Women’s Prison

Video accompanied by Visual Residues – stills of Armagh Prison

Now closed Same protests as

Maze in 1970s/80s

Their Stories

Double-channel video

Back-to-back monitors

Headsets/intimacy Photographic –

minimal movement Slide show and

voice Double imagery

(foreground and background)

Their Stories

Rose McCartney Patricia Moore Candid accounts of

treatment Piece simplistic in

form/presentation Harrowing stories Verbal contrasts

visual

Paula Blair

pblair05@qub.ac.ukwww.prisonsmemoryarchive.com