- Venue
- University of Atypical
- Starts
- Friday, October 6, 2023
- Ends
- Friday, November 24, 2023
- Address
- 109-113 Royal Avenue, Belfast , BT1 1FF
- Location
- Northern Ireland
- Organiser
- University of Atypical
This work draws on research into historic land ownership in the townlands in the immediate vicinity of the artist’s home in rural County Down.
In the course of carrying out the research, including collecting information from Griffith’s Valuation and maps in the Public Records Office, the artist discovered that an area opposite her house, which is now a tree plantation, had until at least the 1830s been farmland and supported numerous tenant farmers and their families.
The video and installation feature stones from the local area which have been used traditionally for both farm buildings and boundary walls. Drawings, based on the farm buildings still visible on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map of the area now covered in trees, are also used in both the video and the installation.
Other drawings are derived from the Griffith’s Valuation maps (1863) showing each local townland, outlined using thick red lines, and its subdivision into plots or “tenements”, using thinner red lines. In much of the locality these plots, frequently delineated by stone walls, were the parcels of land purchased by tenant framers as a result of the Irish Land Acts, and form the basis of current land ownership.
