Remembered, Heard, Fictionalized, Drawing IN, OUT, OF Belfast

'The title of this project by Jennifer Caffrey seems to list the ingredients and themes of this project: drawing and sound- memory and fiction. ‘Remembered, Heard, Fictionalized, Drawing IN, OUT, OF Belfast’ is a personal portrait of Belfast. An installation with recordings of conversations, of sentences picked up, sketches of house fronts or street corners, photographs of locations.

What occurs again and again in these small drawings, digitalized and projected, is bunting, lines with triangular, colourful flags. Leftovers of festivals, celebrations, parades and parties in the streets of Belfast. Recorded not where tourist would walk, but where the un-glamorous side of life is transformed for a while, an evening, a weekend into something memorable. A halo of everyday life and an exception in an urban routine.
Like an anthropologist, Jennifer Caffrey observed and collected these small details and leftover fragments of life and joy in the city.
Research not of a lost time, but a socially charged present.

‘Remembered, Heard, Fictionalized, Drawing IN, OUT, OF Belfast’, is the result of eighteen months of research and practice in Belfast City as part of a Masters in Art in Public in University of Ulster.

'Within the work, the artist is an observer, a performer and a storyteller.
Using a Collins Street-finder map to decide where she goes.
Purposely not getting involved along the way, taking an anthropological approach.
Identifying how it is, she looks at a place while designing ways to record and respond.
The responses take the form of drawings with fabric and tape. These shapes and patterns play with Bunting that is seen throughout Belfast in the summer months.In this work the bunting is used to circle and highlight places and features. Information is collected that when put together and played with will create an image of Belfast made up of many places. This image is a recreation of an experience of Belfast and will be located in PS² for others to see and get involved in; retelling a story of Belfast.'
Text Jennifer Caffrey