Leap Before You Look
“Sinn Féin is now the only organisation involved in the Republican struggle and in Republican activism. Republicans who support the Good Friday Agreement support the political institutions, support the peace process and don’t represent a threat to anyone in the community. We all have a responsibility…to tackle criminality and bring paramilitarism to an end and Sinn Féin will play a full part in this important work.”
I found myself at that exciting crossroads of politics and arts this week at the Golden Bridges conference at Boston’s World Trade Center where delegations from Derry and Donegal, led by their respective mayors Elisha McCallion and Ciarán Brogan, had come to set out their stall. Their message about the northwest gateway to Europe was clear and compelling and underpinned by a rich cultural offering.
And I found more encouragement when I sneaked out of the conference to take in the ‘Leap Before You Look’ exhibition at the nearby Institute of Contemporary Art. Focusing on the artists of the famed fifties Black Mountain College in North Carolina, the exhibition was introduced with this statement: “What was shared at Black Mountain was a sense of art’s possibilities, a belief that art can help change how we see, make us more aware of the world around us, and encourage freethinking.”
Certainly, without the arts we wouldn’t have made the political or social breakthroughs we have witnessed in Belfast. This week, I received almost 400 emails from constituents seeking my support for a motion on marriage equality which will come before the Assembly on 2 November. The blossoming of Belfast’s gay community is, after the peace, the greatest change I have witnessed in Belfast in my lifetime. But I have no doubt that the path of inclusion and respect for difference now being trod by our society was pioneered by our artists.
I replied to all the writers — but not in the heady terms above — pledging my support.
At the Golden Bridges conference, the delegations from Donegal and Derry put forward a powerful investment proposition to Irish American political and business leaders while two US companies which have just invested in Derry — OSV and Metaverse Mod Squad — were recognised for their commitments. The Belfast-Boston sister city relationship was also on song as the 50-strong Belfast Community Gospel Choir raised the roof at the conference before taking on a series of engagements, including singing at service on Saturday evening at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury before an audience of the faithful which included Mayor Marty Walsh.
At a meeting with John Donovan, Chair of the Boston-Belfast sister city board, we discussed plans for Mayor Walsh to accompany four college ice hockey teams to Belfast in late November for the BelPot and his role as Guest of Honour at the Aisling Awards in Titanic Belfast on 27 November.
But it wasn’t all work. I also got to enjoy a jog through the streets of South Boston with Police Commissioner Bill Evans which took place, depending on how early a riser you are, in the middle of the night or the early morning: We set off at 4:45am. On our fogged-in way, we talked about families and fatherhood — rather than art and politics — and how a working class Southie family of six boys, five surviving to adulthood, had produced two fire chiefs and two police commissioners. Not bad for a family raised by a widowed father!
In fact perhaps we were talking about art again: the art of the possible.
