‘Seen: Shining a Light on Society’s Most Vulnerable’
Belfast Trust are honoured to showcase Oliver Jeffers’ thought-provoking artwork, ‘Seen: Shining a Light on Society’s Most Vulnerable.’ produced in collaboration with young refugee and asylum seekers and Anaka’s Women’s Collective, Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR) and South Belfast MLA Kate Nicholl. You can read about the background to the artworks here.
The Artwork exhibition will be launched on Monday 16th September at the Grove Health and Wellbeing Centre and will also can be viewed in buildings across the city – including the Arches and Bradbury Health and Wellbeing Centres and the RVH Main Foyer.
People worldwide have communicated their experiences of violence and conflict, human rights violations, poverty, oppression and environmental issues through the form of textile narrative.
The result is a visual record and a form of artistic expression based on personal, and often very poignant testimonies.
This collaborative exhibition at the Ulster Museum will explore the strengths and highlights of the Conflict Textiles collection – its history, international diversity and the important themes it addresses.
Learn more about the Conflict Textiles collection and associated activities through this link.
What to know
- This exhibition will take place in Art Gallery 3 at the Ulster Museum
- It’s free to visit and no booking is necessary.
- Open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00 until Sunday 27 April 2025
Belfast Central Library Presents: ‘Welcoming New Neighbours’
Belfast Central Library is proud to present ‘Welcoming New Neighbours: The Empowering Impact of Refugee Talents on Our Community’, a pop-up exhibition created by Conway Education Centre. This exhibit, available for viewing during opening hours the week of 16th September 2024, highlights the significant contributions of refugees to our community.
In alignment with this year’s theme of ‘OpportUNiTY’, the exhibition celebrates the diverse talents and positive impacts of new communities, demonstrating how their unique skills enrich and strengthen our society. By showcasing these empowering stories, the project aims to foster greater inclusion and respect, counteracting stereotypes and promoting a message of unity and resilience.
This exhibition provides a valuable opportunity to engage with the enriching contributions of refugees, embracing the power of diversity to build a more inclusive and supportive community.
The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement has three parts or ‘strands’. Each of the strands created new institutions and relationships between people and governments here.
North/South Cooperation Bodies were established 25 years ago. This exhibition celebrates the work of these ‘Strand 2’ bodies, who have led North/South cooperation across the island of Ireland.
North/South 25 is part of a wider programme at the Ulster Museum to make 25 years since the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.
This exhibition will take place in Ulster Museum Lecture Theatre from 24th January 2024 to 15th January 2025.
The Inclusive Global Histories exhibition is the start of Ulster Museum’s journey into decolonisation, diversity and inclusion.
Across Ulster Museum, new labels are considering our history, nature and art galleries through an inclusive global lens. These interpretations include multiple perspectives and encourage dialogue. These new interpretive panels are part of the Inclusive Global Histories exhibition located within the History Galleries.
More information on specific objects can be seen via the Ulster Museum website and social media channels, as featured objects from the World History collection have been selected from each of the continents.
A new interpretive guide to decolonising our collections is available online.
Free to visit, Ulster Museum is open Tuesday to Sunday every week, from 10:00 to 17:00.
The tradition of political mural painting here began in 1908, making it the longest, continuous example in the world.
Murals can be found all over Northern Ireland, in both cities and small towns. They have been part of the Ulster Museum collection for over two decades. Like murals do, this exhibition explores themes of identity, cultural expression and conflict legacy.
Bill Rolston has been photographing political murals in Northern Ireland since 1981 and has become a leading authority on the subject. This exhibition will be based on his photographs, many of which have been published through five volumes entitled Drawing Support between 1991 and 2022 and on his website.
What to know
- This Ulster Museum exhibition will be open from Saturday 13th April 2024 and run until December 2024.
- We recommend this exhibition for ages 14+.
- It’s free to visit the Ulster Museum and no booking is needed.
- The Ulster Museum is a shared space, and at times, private events take place in the room where this exhibition is on display, which means there will be days when the exhibition will not be accessible to the public. If you are coming to the museum specifically to see this exhibition, we advise contacting the museum in advance to check if the exhibition is going to be open.
The Bad Bridget exhibition at Ulster American Folk Park (on display until April 2024) tells the stories of the thousands of women who left Ireland for North America between 1838 and 1918. Many of whom found themselves facing troubles and struggling to survive.
Through a sensory experience of the lives of these women, visitors are taken on a journey beginning with their lives in Ireland, their experiences of life alone at sea to seeking jobs once they landed in America; as well as the real life experiences of living in poverty within the tenement housing of the period.
Bad Bridget is a continuing collaboration between the museum, Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University and is based on significant research carried out by Dr Elaine Farrell and Dr Leanne McCormick.
Follow the emigrant journey through the following four themes in our Emigrant exhibition:
People and Places
Delve into the lives of the many different brave and ambitious individuals who emigrated with a closer look at their social class and religious denominations. Learn about the successes and failures of some of the hundreds of thousands of people who left Ulster for North America between 1700 and 1900. Disappointingly, some of the early success stories involve the possession of enslaved persons.
Failure and Opportunity
Explore the reasons people left their friends, family and everything they’d ever known to embark on a journey into the unknown. Factors such as the Great Famine and down turns in trade saw many leave Ulster shores during the 1700s and 1800s, encouraged by letters sent from family and friends who had already made the move to America.
Transport and Migration
During the years of early migration, the first steps to leaving Ulster involved a long walk to the port or a horse and cart ride if you could afford it. From there, many would embark on the long and dangerous 3,000 mile crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Over time, transport evolved and railways replaced the wagon and the ocean could be crossed in less that 14 days by iron steam ships. Experience what this journey would have been like for our brave emigrant ancestors.
Survival and Prosperity
Discover what happened upon arrival in America. What was the 19th and 20th century political scene like in America, and how did this impact the life of the emigrant?
North America was not an open country as the map might portray, but was actually fully populated by Indigenous People. The Indigenous population at the time was dwindling due to skirmishes with settlers and new European diseases. Once white colonists made secure settlements in Virginia and New England they started to spread out. The settlers used treaties, drawn up by white courts, to take land from Indigenous People. The treaties were very generous to the white settlers, often unfair to Indigenous people, and sometimes the treaties were broken by settlers as they wanted even more gains. Since tribes were all unique they were unable to unite to fight the encroachment.
Early Ulster migrants made new homes in this different environment, carving out successful lives for themselves and their families. Some of the richest settlers showed their wealth in the number of enslaved persons that they owned.
The Troubles and Beyond – An in-depth look at Northern Ireland’s history from 1960 to the present day.
This exhibition looks at the impact and legacy of the period referred to as ‘the Troubles’ through objects from the collections and first-hand accounts.
It is designed to be a dynamic space and continues to evolve in response to public feedback, social change, working life, arts and culture and the ever-changing world around us. Recent additions to the exhibition include the George Cross medal awarded to Health and Social Care staff in Northern Ireland and ‘Petals of Hope’, a publication based on the artwork created from the floral tributes left in the aftermath of the Omagh bomb.
In addition, a new co-curated display within the exhibition explores our understanding of identity, where it comes from and the agency we all have as authors of our own stories. Working with a group of eight participants in Northern Ireland from different ethnic, political, social-economic and religious backgrounds, we invited them to share a personal object and story with us and we explored their meaning together and looked at them again with new possibilities.
A highlight of the exhibition is ‘Voices of ’68’. This interactive exhibition features testimonials from 30 political activists, historians and civilians who experienced a pivotal year in Northern Ireland in 1968 when the civil rights movement and political tension came to the fore across the province.
In celebration of Good Relations Week 2024 and its theme of ‘OpportUNITY,’ Rathcoole Library is excited to present the Community Cookbook project. Throughout September 2024, we invite customers and staff to dust off their old recipe books and contribute their favorite recipes to create a shared culinary treasure. This initiative highlights the theme by bringing people together through the joy of cooking and sharing, fostering a sense of community and connection. Join us in building a diverse and inclusive cookbook that reflects the rich tapestry of our local culture and collective experiences.