Mapping Alternative Ulster: Strabane

The Mapping Alternative Ulster exhibition is currently running in the Alley Arts Centre, Strabane. A few new maps have been added since the run in Belfast, including a wonderful map of an imagined metro system for Omagh. 'Omagh Metro System' is showing with the work of about a dozen other artist/cartographers, all of whom use maps to promote different ways of looking at where we live.

The map is by Benny Sweeney. Click here for his website.

For more info about the show see; www.mappingalternativeulster.net.

Border Journal: Wrecks

I pass two cars abandoned in a ditch and burnt out. The burning, which might have been two or three years ago, caused all their paint to peel off. Now matt steel and brown rust, the wrecks display the same muted pallet as their surroundings. The seats are covered in moss and the springs have erupted.

New Map, New Symbols

I am working on a new border map. It will chart some defensive structures, as I have done with a previous map, but includes other border elements too. The key is expanding as I widen my notion of how we attempt to claim and control space.

I have no name for the new map yet.

Border Journal: Upland

Upland now. Semi-feral sheep amble along fences trailing woolly dreadlocks. I find a border connection at the bottom of a soggy field, a plank bridge going over a ditch. A donkey stands guarding it. I follow lanes, keeping an eye on the border to my right or left.

Border Journal: After Dark

In this border field tonight, sitting outside my tent, I felt a presence. I don’t mean in a spiritual way. It was a tangible energy, hovering somewhere between warmth and a meaty gravity. I felt it on my skin. I couldn't see anything but the stars and black silhouettes of the trees around the field. Then I heard the distinct splutter of a horse. I stood as the horse approached; it was as black as the night, two stars for eyes.

Border Journal: Kiltyclogher

The border passes through a small lake. Dusk, I make camp by the shore and walk into the nearest village. Tonight Kiltyclogher’s three streets are deserted and dark. No cars pass. The village is hushed. There is a summer heaviness in the air, perhaps all the pollen from the fields all around. I sense domestic comfort behind closed doors, yellow light spills from windows, the flicker from a television. Suddenly lonesome, I peer in the window of a pub. I see a constellation of stars, gleams from bottles, glasses and mirrors. It’s got that warm pub look about it, all browns and golds, lengths of polished brass. But it is Monday, the wrong end of the week. A solitary man is sitting at the bar and looking into his whiskey. There is no one else to be seen, not even staff. I return to my campsite, take my boots off and dip my feet in the lake.

There used to be ...

These photos, published by a newspaper, are a reminder of change.

Border checkpoint, 1980s

The same place today

As I travelled the border I visited many spots that formally hosted checkpoints. Often you can tell a border road was the site of a checkpoint because uprooting the defences has left a gaping lay-by, about the length of a truck and trailer. Empty cans, dead leaves, plastic bottles and shopping bags are blown together in the corners. These areas have become truck stops, or been filled with second-hand cars for sale, left parked with signs in their windscreens: “£2000 ONO” and a mobile phone number, northern or southern or both.

I got the photographs from here.