In Northern Ireland, Belfast's murals tell a new story

DW (English)

The murals in the Northern Irish capital are filled with scenes of grief, violence and death, hallmarks of the area's troubled past. A new generation of artists wants to add a new layer to Belfast’s visual identity.

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00:00The face of Belfast is transforming.

00:03Famous for its political murals depicting decades of sectarian violence known as the

00:08Troubles, its walls are now telling a different story, with a new generation of artists creating

00:15a fresh vision of Belfast today.

00:21The Troubles.

00:22For 30 years Belfast was torn apart by sectarian violence.

00:28More than 3,600 people lost their lives, as conflict divided predominantly Protestant

00:34Loyalists, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK, and mainly Catholic

00:39Republicans, who wanted Northern Ireland to join the Republic of Ireland.

00:44The Good Friday Agreement in 1998 ended most of the violence, but the images of conflict

00:49remain a powerful reminder of the anger and the pain.

00:53It's estimated when we get the ceasefires and after the agreement, we look at our population

00:571 in 10 have directly lost a family member.

01:01And I always say this, it's a small city in a small corner of a small island.

01:05There's so much trauma, there's so much memorialisation of that trauma, it's still very present.

01:11Paul Donnelly lived through the Troubles.

01:14He now leads tours of Belfast's hundreds of political murals, in communities which are

01:21divided to this day.

01:23Murals are massively important in this city.

01:25For both communities, it's about remembering your past, it's about telling the outside world,

01:31here's our story, our experience and our narrative.

01:33And of course, the more cynical would say, it's all about territory.

01:38We control here, you're not welcome.

01:40But Belfast is changing.

01:42And born from the scars of the past, new images are emerging.

01:46With a new generation of artists leaving their own mark on the city.

01:51I just wanted to fill my city with colour and it did not feel as oppressive and to be not

01:58constantly talking about the Troubles, you know what I mean?

02:00And I think that's something that ceasefire babies are what we're doing, even if it's subconscious.

02:05Wee Nulls was born in Belfast shortly before the peace agreement.

02:09She's determined to tell a different story about her city's identity today.

02:14A lot of my work is political, but it's not about the Troubles.

02:18We still have active political murals, it's part of who we are,

02:21but I think that this juxtaposition of the street art murals

02:24makes people feel more at home in more areas of the city.

02:28It's marked the whole city centre as a neutral ground

02:30of it's not just for Catholic or Protestant, it's for everyone.

02:33Wee Nulls is part of an exploding street art scene in Belfast,

02:37powered in large parts by an annual festival.

02:40Run by creative producer Adam Turkington,

02:43it attracts dozens of artists from Northern Ireland and around the world

02:47who are adding to the hundreds of modern artworks

02:50he's helped generate around the city.

02:52I always use the expression, we speak wall.

02:55You know, we understand the language of walls in Belfast

02:58because of that history and that tradition.

03:00So the people here respond in a much more warm and positive way to murals.

03:05You know, murals that aren't from that political tradition

03:08when they come and put beautiful things on the walls.

03:11People here like embrace it like I suspect nowhere else.

03:15Through his work Adam is adding a new visual layer to Belfast's identity.

03:20I always push quite strongly back on the idea that it's empty,

03:23the traditional stuff here.

03:24Like I'm not trying to shut that down.

03:27It's about giving an identity that we can all feel proud of.

03:30Born from a sense of knowing the cost of identitarian politics.

03:36It's an effort that's welcomed by the hundreds of young people drawn to this festival.

03:42When I grew up all the murals I would have seen in and around Belfast were all like paramilitary related.

03:47The level of art that's come through that's just like lovely looking like street art is like phenomenal.

03:52And it's not about like this side or that side.

03:55It's just like something that everyone can enjoy and appreciate.

03:57This is just what Belfast should be.

03:59I think because we spoke a lot of our politics through art we've had that artistic background

04:06that now that we've been able to take on and grow from it and flourish from it.

04:09I think that's showing where the city is going and I think it's about letting go of the past and moving forward.

04:15Paul Donnelly now includes modern works like this to his tours.

04:19They're now part of Belfast's story.

04:21It's a huge shift. We had incidents in this city where people were shot dead with a paintbrush in their hand.

04:27And now we're inviting artists and others to come to our city to challenge us. That's wonderful.

04:34The art here now a powerful tapestry of the pain of the past and hope for the future.

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