{"id":323,"date":"2019-11-01T13:19:32","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T13:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/carc\/?p=323"},"modified":"2019-11-01T13:30:08","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T13:30:08","slug":"the-orange-the-green-and-the-in-between","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/carc\/2019\/11\/01\/the-orange-the-green-and-the-in-between\/","title":{"rendered":"The Orange, the Green and the In-between"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the occasion of National Poetry Day on 3 October 2019, our postgraduate students Tara Cranna and Arrliya Sugal spoke with Steaf\u00e1n Hanvey about his poetry, his childhood memories, and ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland<\/p>\n

With a growing awareness of highly contested conflicts, the importance of inter-field cooperation has often been highlighted as being essential. Whether it be the alliance of economists and political theorists, social workers and artists – there may be more tools than one initially suspects in the journey towards peace. Steaf\u00e1n Hanvey offers insight into the use of creativity and art when dealing with the memory of conflict through his multimedia projects remembering the Northern Irish conflict, \u2018the Troubles\u2019. Reconstructions<\/em>, published in 2018, is a combination of photos taken by his esteemed \u2018fathographer\u2019, Bobbie Hanvey, and poems written by Steaf\u00e1n himself – remembering his childhood in Northern Ireland during the 1970s. Though coincidental for Steaf\u00e1n, the publishing of the project aligned with the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement and thus quite fittingly striking a nerve in regards to current political debates in the United Kingdom. While it may be a very personal project for Steaf\u00e1n, as he was often present with his father as photos of the conflict were taken, it is nonetheless important for students of political science to study projects such as Hanvey\u2019s in order to gain a more substantive insight into the conflicting and yet simultaneous realities that exist in deeply fragmented Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

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Steaf\u00e1n with Tara (centre) and Arrliya<\/p>\n

Steaf\u00e1n explains the birth of this project being an emotional reaction to a photograph of their shared experiences, which he received from his father and him enjoying \u201cthe process of looking at a photograph and responding to it, to see where it would take me\u201d. He found himself responding to the photo through a poem, using his words to recall these unique memories shared between him and his father. Despite it being initially a coincidental collaboration between his father\u2019s work and his own, the project grew to be an intuitive ongoing process in which not only the memories of \u2018the Troubles\u2019 but also their family history were recalled.\u00a0 These insights gathered in Reconstructions<\/em> thus not only show a snapshot of Northern Irish history but Steaf\u00e1n\u2019s own retrospective awakening in regards to his experiences during this harsh political climate as a child. In our conversation, Steaf\u00e1n recalled the moment in which he first became aware of the exact \u201ctime and place\u201d in which he was living as a 9 year old. He references a song by a fellow Northerner called \u201cThe town I loved so well\u201d, written about the increasingly violent outbursts in (London) Derry. He recalls the time when he \u201clistened to it about 10, 15 times, because it was just so haunting, that’s when I started to connect some of the dots\u201c, thus crediting this song with opening his eyes to the conflict that was ongoing at the time.<\/p>\n

When asked about the potential lessons learned from the recalling of past memories, Steaf\u00e1n engages critically with the role and accuracy of such, as he reflected,\u00a0 \u201cmemories what are they? At best they are ephemeral…which is why I used the word ‘impressions’, because they are foggy\u201d, thus highlighting the need for self-awareness when contemplating upon past conflict.This evaluation becomes an essential element in the attempt to overcome troublesome experiences shared by the many communities involved.These individual stories and memories, as Steaf\u00e1n feels, lead to different narratives that are trapped in a \u201cfog\u201d and the truth can only be found with the transgressing of these frontiers.\u00a0 Clarifying the fogginess of memory so often felt by individuals of such deeply entrenched, divisive conflict such as \u2018the Troubles\u2019 is a primary objective of Steaf\u00e1n\u2019s work, as he hopes to \u201cinvite people in to look at other narratives\u201d of the conflict. It is also these narratives, some full of conflict but also full of community and hope that lead Steaf\u00e1n to explain to us the importance of recognizing the \u201canomalies that exist in a place like Northern Ireland\u201d – not all good, not all bad, not all orange or green. The act of reconciling the gaps inherent in Irish society thus becomes evident in embracing the different tones (\u201cthe many different greys\u201d) that represent their truths. As an artist, Steaf\u00e1n thus recognizes the subjective and sentimental nature of this art and reflected on the possibility of finding one\u2019s own significance within the project. The amalgamation of such individual memories consequently feeds into a larger mosaic of commonality.<\/p>\n

To conclude, the collaborative work exhibited in Reconstructions<\/em> and captured in the performance given at the university through CARC, highlights the tones that coloured the time of \u2018the Troubles\u2019 and the striking resemblance they bear to current times. The project emphasizes the relevant and recurring nature of the Northern Irish conflict, particularly its paradoxical layers embedded within. This illustration allows for an intimate look into the realities of family life, friendships, love, art and memories in the daily lives of the people of Northern Ireland. Ultimately, we feel that the striking photographs taken by Bobbie Hanvey, elevated with the beautiful poems and music of Steaf\u00e1n, remind us of the, maybe only, genuine truth in conflicts\u2026 That nothing is ever clear cut, gone or here, orange or green\u00a0 – it always lies in the in-between.<\/p>\n

You can find more information on Steaf\u00e1n’s work and purchase his latest book here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the occasion of National Poetry Day on 3 October 2019, our postgraduate students Tara Cranna and Arrliya Sugal spoke with Steaf\u00e1n Hanvey about his … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64871,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/carc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/carc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/carc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/carc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64871"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/carc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/carc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/carc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/carc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/carc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/carc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}