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What's Happening
Boro Cereal
Dear God...
“Hate leads to fights, Fights lead to war, War leads to beautiful world no more”
Kieran Hunt
 

Coventry Cathedral &
The Bogside Artists

What we achieved:

Since October 2014, when the artists and Adrienne Chaplin had their first cross-community event organised by Contemporary Christianity in Derry/Londonderry, we have been engaged in various events that and established a number of partnerships.

In April 2015, Contemporary Christianity, in partnership with the Irish Churches Peace Project, organised a full day conference under the title ‘Art, Faith and Peace: the Bogside Artists’ Story Behind the Murals’. Held at a cross-community centre in the heart of the city, the day was supported by the bishops and religious leaders of the four main denominations – Catholic, Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian. Like before, many of the attendees felt they had gained a whole new perspective on the murals and felt more open to listen to the story of the Troubles as told by the people of the Bogside. The day was filmed by DiverseCity Community.

In the summer of 2015 we were invited by Greenbelt Festival to show the exhibition in The Shelter tent which was also the home of the Corrymeela Community, the Quakers and the Iona Community. The panel discussions with the artists provided fascinating exchanges and highlighted the still raw wounds suffered by many people in Northern Ireland and beyond. It also enabled important cross community conversations between the artists and some ex-British militaries. In order to fund the production of the exhibition at Greenbelt Adrienne Chaplin and the artists raised £1,326 through crowdfunder.

Church Times published two page feature on the exhibition. Read the Article Here.

After Greenbelt the exhibition was shown at St. Clement’s Church in Lond, which is the home of Amos Trust, http://www.amostrust.org , a human rights organisation working in many different countries. Tom Kelly and Adrienne Chaplin both spoke at their annual day conference, which also featured representatives from human rights organisations from Palestine and Burundi. Several people responded that the images might as well have been painted in Palestine or elsewhere, confirming the universality of the murals.

We secured a grant from Seedbed Trust for the upcoming exhibition at Coventry Cathedral in May and June 2017 and Westhill Trust has offered us a grant to produce a 60 page catalogue to go with it.





 
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