WhyNotSmile: Art Trail 2

Sunday, 10 August 2008

Art Trail 2

Art Trail 2 spans the Donegall Quay to Lanyon Place area, including Gregg's Quay and Hanover Quay on the other side of the river. All of this area was redeveloped about 10-15 years ago, so a lot of the artwork dates from then; it used to be a run-down, rather dismal bombed-out part of the city, but now it's much brighter and busier, and on sunny days (like the one when I visited), it's crowded with tourists and emos.

Two of the pieces are inside the Waterfront Hall, and since I had a bike and was dressed like a tramp, I couldn't get in to see them, but I'll have a look some other time.

The artwork on this trail looks like this:

	Bigfish Everyone who's been to Belfast knows Bigfish; he's a big, blue fish, made up of tiles which are decorated with newspaper articles, photos etc relating to Belfast's history. Bigfish is located at the point where the River Farset meets the Lagan (the Farset runs under the streets of Belfast, and is where Belfast got its name - somehow).
	National Cycle Network Ceramic Map Except that they've taken the really cool map away and replaced it with this. I'm not sure whether this is technically 'art', but since the original map got vandalised, this is what stands in its place.
	Hanover View OK, I couldn't find this. I'm not sure whether it's been moved, or whether it was behind some of the emergency roadworks which were set up yesterday when the quay started to sink into the river, but in any case, I was clearly out of luck.
	Trawl This is really funky, and I have cycled past it lots of times without ever seeing it. It's a little mosaic of a trawler catching fish, and it's very pretty.
	Starboard This is like an outline of a ship, made up of glass tiles; the cool bit is that the tiles are lit up from below (using fiber optics), and some of them have starfish inside.

	Lagan Symphony I've always liked this a lot; it's made up of wavy lines and river birds.

	The Ulster Brewer A man on a barrel, commissioned by Bass Ireland for their 100th anniversary.
	Dreams I have a confession to make: for a long time, I thought this was a series of hoardings surrounding a building site, that someone had painted on to pretty it up a bit. But it is, in fact, art in its own right. It's made up of portraits of 40 children; in the middle bit are, I am informed by my art trail guide, the dreams of 9000 local children.

	Sheep on the Road Lanyon Place used to be a sheep and cattle market, so this is a sculpture to commemorate that. It's a man and some sheep, made from bronze.