Description
Belfast has a history of political mural painting, going back to the beginnings of the 20th century, and particularly exacerbated throughout the time of the conflict, with murals representing geographical, cultural and political separation between communities. Traditional muralism tends to exclude women from political representation, or to reduce them to certain roles, usually linked to (mythical) figures of motherhood. Recently however, new actors have taken the brush, and the street art scene in Belfast has been growing. The politics of street art go beyond the usual green/orange divide, showing women as political actors. Feminist activists especially have taken advantage of this form of expression, and have used street art (murals, but also graffiti and stickers) to demand progress for women’s rights and the rights of the LGBTQI+ community. This paper will explore the way painters have decided to represent those political demands, the choices they have made on which demands to represent, and the links between artists and activists. I will also highlight the ways politically active women in Belfast have interpreted and analysed these new representations. I will rely on visual analysis (especially compositional and semiotic analysis) of murals seen in Belfast between 2022 and 2024 and on interviews conducted with 16 politically active women in 2022 and 2023. The goal is to show the inherent political character of (in)visibility, and the way feminist activists in Belfast have been thinking about visuality in a city that has long been relying on muralism for political communication.
