IT’S TURNED OUT NICE AGAIN
Portview Trade Centre 2024 part of Outburst Queer Arts Festival
It's Turned Out Nice Again is an installation that culminates two years of practice in East Belfast, inspired by local film director Brian Desmond Hurst (1895–1986). Born in the shadows of Belfast’s industrial heritage, Brian went on to become one of Hollywood's leading film directors of the 1940s and '50s (e.g., Theirs is the Glory, 1946; Scrooge, 1951). Openly queer, Brian Desmond Hurst lived a charismatic life, fuelled by the opportunity to escape a life of abject poverty in Belfast and dream of new possibilities across the world. Surviving some of the greatest atrocities of World War I, Brian recognised the importance of enjoying lives eccentricities, having been rumoured to have uttered, "If only I had had one more bottle of champagne," as his last words from his ‘peppercorn’ rented Belgravia flat in West London.
This new work, located in Portview Trading Estate (formerly The Strand Spinning Mill), weaves together queer and working-class histories through seemingly incongruous assemblages to evoke nostalgic narratives. For me, It's Turned Out Nice Again (an anthem of Northern English working-class culture thanks to George Formby) inserts my Mancunian roots into the heart of East Belfast, reflecting the similarities between two post-industrial ‘powerhouses,’ to quote George Osborne! These similarities seep into familial relationships, gestures of affection, and influences of popular culture.
It's Turned Out Nice Again brings together cross-generational materials that reflect the experience of navigating the 'coming-of-age' period of sensitivity and isolation. Some of this source material includes references to love letters between grandparents while separated, discussing films they had seen in the cinema in the 1950s (Calamity Jane, 1953; The Deep Blue Sea, 1955), footage from The New Union just before its opening (Manchester’s oldest LGBTQ+ bar, established in 1865), a hand-me-down/up-cycled Ted Baker shirt from circa 1998, a thrifted chair from Lavery’s with original chewing gum (date unknown), a closed cruising opportunity despite signage at Gatwick Airport (2024), and thrifted club lounge chairs in Urmston, Manchester (2024).
image credit: David Copeland
Wooden Apex frame with glass trifle bowel, canvas print, domestic strip light, gold foil curtain, dust sheet, screws, denim jacket, raffle tickets
2. wooden frame structure; domestic plaster, dart, iphone, glory hole, pub chair, chewing gum, acrylic nails, ceramic dog, gravel.
3. TV stand, TV screen, dust sheet, pint pots, glass ashtray, looped DVD and DVD player