Sarah Allen: Gareth McConnell: Details of Sectarian Murals
Regular price
£25.00
Sale
Sorika, 2024, hardcover, 96 pages, 21.5 x 27.6 cm
Gareth McConnell. McConnell was born in 1972 in Northern Ireland and grew up during the Troubles. His new book of photographs (taken in 1997-1999) gives a fanatical attention to Republican and Loyalist sectarian murals in Northern Ireland. The detailed focus of McConnell’s close up photography is so concentrated – only a few square inches of each mural is seen – that the original meaning context of the murals, including their Tricolours, Union Jacks, guns, and signage texts, is lost, completely silencing their strident messaging.
Sectarian murals in Northern Ireland mark territories, pronounce allegiances, celebrate victories, intimidate enemies, define ideologies, and vividly and proudly decorate the often grim pebbledash walls of impoverished urban landscapes (pebbledash being a class signifier). They are described by Sarah Allen, Head of Programme at the South London Gallery, who has written a text for the publication, as ‘By far the most distinctive displays of allegiance [ . . .] Often painted onto the gable end of houses, they are spectacular territorial indicators and boundary markers making plain the reality of segregation.’