Eyes of the Docks
Looking forward to a maritime event in the Lagan Weir.
Eyes of the Docks
There'll be a huge exhibition underneath the River Lagan all next week (May 22nd to May 25th) and you won't need a submarine or an aqualung to visit it. Set in the Lagan Weir's immense under river concrete tunnel and enormous echoing caverns "Eyes of the Docks" is a highly innovative and unusual multimedia art installation involving artists from Belfast and around the world. ‘Eyes of the Docks' is a touring extravaganza that began its journey in Cork where it was a resounding success, gaining major national press coverage and critical acclaim. Next week it's in Belfast, then Amsterdam, and off around the globe. "We've interviewed a lot of Belfast dockers," explained artist and coordinator Trish Edelstein, "and dockers from a number of other ports, and the whole thing is a tribute to these people." Using huge wood prints, projection, sound, computer graphics and many other media formats the artists from Jordan, the Netherlands, the U.K. and Ireland, both north and south, have come together to tell the fascinating stories of the men who have been the sturdy heart of their national economies for centuries. Belfast's printmaker Jill McKeown will have a special place in the underwater passageway. "Eyes of the Docks" fills the whole tunnel," said Trish Edelstein, "it goes right along the concrete corridors and into the vast caverns." Trish and her multinational colleagues are fascinated by dockers and their traditions. Her own input is particularly poignant. "I use the big thick dockers' overcoats," she explained, "a symbol that they've hung up their coats. Their role is diminishing. In ten years' time all their work will be done by machine." Next week's massive installation has three themes; the difficult lives of the men who toiled on the quays, the romance of it all in terms of "tough guys" and "swagger", and the unionisation of the workplace. "They could bring a dock to a standstill," said Trish Edelstein, "yet there's now a strong sense of the power that's been taken from them" "Eyes of the Docks" taps into the soul of an international culture that is fading out and dying away but as a key part of the development of our societies, deserves to be recognised and celebrated. What better place to celebrate than underneath the Lagan where it runs like the river from Tuesday May 22nd - Friday May 25th , 10.30am to 6.00pm. The Lagan, we hope, will run for a great deal longer!