IN/1020

Government-funded art 'reimaging' the north

Don't know your artwork from your elbow? If the proliferation of very public art is anything to go by you had better start paying attention.
Maeve Connolly reports
LOVE it or hate it, there are new and very distinctive pieces of public art springing up all over the north.
In the past five years the government has invested almost £3 million on commissioning artwork.
Both the Department of Social Development (DSD) and the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCal) have spent heavily and the results are clear for all to see.
Among the most recognisable pieces of art are the £200,000 Spirit of Belfast which is located in Cornmarket in the city centre and has been nicknamed 'The Onion Rings'.
Made up of large interconnecting steel rings, the sculpture is designed to reflect the linen and shipbuilding industries which were vital to the city in previous centuries.
In Strabane, Co Tyrone, an eight-foot bronze statue of a pig entitled 'Where Dreams Go' but known locally as 'Ambrose the Pig' was unveiled last year, while in April in Bellaghy the 'Turf Man' statue was erected in honour of the Co Derry village's most famous son, Seamus Heaney.
DCal has invested £2 million through the Arts Council since the 2005/06 financial year.
Included in this figure is the Omagh bomb memorial which received £150,000 from the council.
However, not all the funding was earmarked for "art visible to the entire community.
Almost £500,000 has been provided to projects in health care facilities around the north, including Derry's Altnagelvin Hospital, Muckamore Abbey Hospital, the Northern Ireland Cancer Care Centre at Belfast City Hospital and a mental health facility in the Craigavon and Banbridge Community Health and Social Services Trust.
The DSD, meanwhile, has been funding public arts projects through its Streets Ahead project in Belfast, its North West Development Office, Regional Development Office and the Housing Executive.
Murals, sectarian or otherwise, are a particular area of interest for the department, with the Housing Executive spending more than £50,000 on 're-imaging projects' in areas of Belfast, Newtownards, Larne, Bangor and Carrickfergus.
For example, the replacement of two sectarian murals on Belfast's lower Newtownards Road is to cost £3,000 while £15,000 was spent last year in Bowtown, Newtownards, Co Down, on repainting a mural.
In Larne, Co Antrim, a project to paint murals on an underpass depicting walls, trees and greenery cost £10,000 and a further £5,000 was spent depicting cartoon characters on blank walls and boarded-up windows in Sunnylands, Carrickfergus, Co Antrim.
Eradicating graffiti also comes under the Housing Executive's arts budget, with £5,000 ear-marked for a YMCA-led youth project to paint over graffiti in parts of Bangor town centre in Co Down.