ARRAY COLLECTIVE Formed in Belfast, Born in Belfast, Breaffy, East Belfast, Killeshandra, Manchester, Rathfriland, Oirthear Bhéal Feirste, Sligo, Trieste, West Belfast. A group of eleven artists who create collaborative actions in response to socio-political issues affecting Northern Ireland. Situated within a geo-political position that holds many delicate tensions and complex histories, they employ craic and collaboration as a means of resistance.

L-R: Grace McMurray, Laura O’Connor, Sighle Bhreathnach-Cashell, Sinéad Bhreathnach-Cashell, Mitch Conlon, Alessia Cargnelli, Jane Butler, Clodagh Lavelle, Stephen Millar, Thomas Wells and Emma Campbell.

AN DÚN - IMMA Dublin, Ireland 2023-2024. Self Determination: A Global Perspective (new commission)

An dún* is a new multiple narrative installation by Array Collective. Situated across two gallery spaces, ideological and topographical schema are fashioned and accumulated inside a site of destruction and construction. Resting outside of time, we unearth our past, present and future in ever-changing failed experiments of hope. The ‘good room’ deep within a cave, stages rituals of citizenship. Behind the scenes, plans are cooked up and mistakes are made, amidst the labour of daily life.As An dún shifts and repositions, occupying unsteady space between reality and fiction, care and compromise endeavour to make a shared existence livable. *dún1, m. (gs. dúin, pl. ~ta). 1. Fort; fortress. 2. Place of refuge, haven. ~ long, haven for ships. 3. (Secure) residence, house. ~ Dé, Heaven. Sa ~ seo, in this house (of security). 4. Promontory fort; bluff. (Var:gs. & pl. ~a)

Photo credit - Ros Kavanagh commissioned by IMMA

THE DRUTHAIB’S BALL 2021-2023 - The Herbert Gallery and Museum, Coventry (UK), Galway Arts Centre (IE) Ulster Museum, Belfast (NI)

The Druthaib’s Ball, the Turner Prize winning work, has been realised twice over. In Belfast it was a wake for the centenary of Ireland’s partition in the Black Box (a local grassroots venue), and was attended by semi-mythological druids along with a community of artists and activists wearing hand-made costumes. Within the gallery, the event has been transformed into an immersive installation. An imagined síbín (a ‘pub without permission’) hosts a film created from the Belfast event, and a TV showing Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive. A large canopy styled from banners provides a floating roof. The síbín is approached through a circle of flag poles, that references ancient Irish ceremonial sites and contemporary structures, and is illuminated by a dawn-to-dusk light. Array invite us into a place of contradictions where trauma, dark humour, frustration, and release coexist. It is a place to gather outside the sectarian divides that have dominated the collective memory of the North of Ireland for the last hundred years.

Photo credit - Gerry Jones

AS OTHERS SEE US 2019 - Collaborate! Jerwood Arts, London (UK)

As Others See Us is centred on three fictional characters drawn from the pre-christian myths and folklore of ancient Ireland, and cross-bred with contemporary anxieties and fixations in the North of Ireland today. ‘The Sacred Cow’, ‘The Long Shadow’ and ‘The Morrigan’ represent the past, present and future of Northern Ireland, shape-shifting through the crowds at Belfast Pride to the banks of the River Thames in London. Documented through film, photography, sculpture and textiles, the characters lead visitors through the gallery which houses a dedicated archive and resource space that reflects historic and current activism in Northern Ireland around gender equality, human rights and colonialism.

Photo credit - Anna Arca

These images are a selection of past activities, from International Women’s Day marches, to Pride festivals across Ireland to artist commissions as part of commitment to programming alongside exhibition making.

Sheela-na-gigs at International Women’s Day March 2018 | The Bán Bídh at Belfast Pride Parade 2019 | Méabh Meir and Emma Brennan The Sky Gives Way a winter solstice performance at the Giants Ring 2021 | The Melt Gala (2023) Belfast Empire Music Hall | The Red Hand Job of Ulster [Melt Gala Costume from Emma Brennan] 2023 | The Druthaib’s Ball - character banners at Galway Art Centre 2022 | Array Members Emma Campbell and Stephen Miller speak at a #ceasefirenow rally supporting the people of Palestine | Array Collective and friends march at Galway Pride 2022 | Mitch Conlon at The Druthaib’s Ball event hosted at the Black Box Belfast | Janie Doherty performance commission for The Night Draws Near at Ulster Museum as part of the The Druthaib’s Ball exhibition 2023

Thanks to all involved, those who march make work or support us along the way.