ABSTRACT
In 2019 artist Ursula Burke exhibited “A False Dawn” in Paris’ Irish Cultural Centre, which moved to Belfast’s Ulster Museum in 2020. Artist Candida Powell-Williams’ show “Command Lines” took place in 2019 at Void Derry alongside a site-specific performance, Sonic Arrangements in the Infinite Fill (2019), on the Walker Plinth in Derry/Londonderry. Both projects use magical metaphors to consider a feminist politics in the context of Brexit: reflecting on the historical relationship between Ireland and Britain, the legacy of the Northern Irish “Troubles” (1968–1998), and the political turmoil unleashed by Brexit. Each was created at a time when the shift of power moved from Britain to Ireland in the midst of EU negotiations, with the former forced to concede to a border in the Irish Sea (creating an economic border within the UK). For centuries Protestants and Catholics living off the land in Ireland practised supernatural rituals to protect their cattle and livelihoods. This chapter considers the ways in which the Irish and Northern Irish landscape has long been gendered by Irish, Northern Irish, or British artists and commentators. Burke and Powell-Williams’ otherworldly and surreal landscapes consider what ecological metaphors might mean for the current state of the peace process.
