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Across architecture and planning to arts and cultural policy, education, urban renewal and marketing, the ambition to reinvent post conflict Belfast as a modern, economically viable city seems constantly thwarted by the city's troubled past and its fractured and disconnected character. While the centre is rebranded for visitor experience, retail, leisure and lifestyle consumption, Belfast's neighbourhoods remain fixated on questions of cultural recognition, conflict management and healing the past. But why do we seem more concerned with bringing down walls and reconnecting communities than in dealing with economic problems? Empowering self appointed 'community leaders' rather than exercising real political power? Formalising moribund community relationships to forging a more progressive politics? And could it be that opportunities to build authentic relationships across the city's boundaries are being challenged by the very thing supposed to support them- relentless political intervention? As the economic crisis threatens to further downgrade Belfast's metropolitan ambitions, has the time come for the city to ditch the fixation with its troubled past and face the future.

Citizen photography is under attack. There may be no overarching ban on photography, but there has been a creeping restriction of everyday photography - by community safety wardens, private security guards, and self-appointed 'jobsworths'.  More acute in English cities, anxieties in NI are growing, tending to be focused on child protection issues. Although shifting and vague, the rationale for banning photography in our streets, public buildings and shopping malls often revolves around 'privacy' or 'security' concerns. Whatever reasons may be given, it is clear that behind contemporary anxieties there lies a deep suspicion of the citizen, who is routinely identified as a predatory or threatening figure.

But surely, the impulse to impose bans on photography in public must be profoundly anti-democratic, preoccupied as it is with safeguarding private interests against the interests of ordinary men and women and limiting citizens' political freedom to ask questions of the world. Is it time to stand up for citizen photography against the impulse to police the public gaze?

Tuesday 29th September 2009 7.00 - 9.00pm

Topical Links

In the years following the GFA, Northern Ireland's visual arts practitioners, studio groups and independent galleries devised informal and dynamic ways of connecting with communities. Although at odds with the management lead, tick box culture of contemporary UK arts policy, NI artists have nevertheless adopted socially engaged practices, placing themselves firmly in political contexts, where notions of local, civic and national identity remain highly contested. In this way, the region has provided a stimulating if somewhat fractious environment for visual artists and curators to make work, where the international acts almost as a surrogate for civic space at home. Ten years on from the GFA, as definitions of culture become ever more politicised and UK models of 'community engagement' are shipped over, a new managerialism is emerging among cultural leaders, alongside an appetite for explicitly instrumental approaches. As the promises of peace give way to the management of difference, the Belfast Salon considers tensions between artists and policy makers in contemporary NI and the implications for civic life and artistic freedom.

Freedom: Why should we defend academic freedom?

Second in the series of summer Salons exploring the meaning of freedom in the 21st century.

Introduced by Dennis Hayes

Tuesday 23rd June 2009 7.00-9.00pm

Freedom: What does it mean & what are its limits

Introduced by Fabian Schuppert

Freedom is a ubiquitous concept. In political discussions, philosophical debates and social disputes freedom is most commonly used as an ultimate value in the name of which a project is being advanced, or a particular proposal is being rejected. However, a fair amount of disagreement exists, not only whether freedom for all is desirable, but also over what freedom actually is. Champions of freedom often argue for freedom for all, and absolute freedom. But what exactly does that mean, and what are the limits of freedom?

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Nothing to fear? Are we sleepwalking into a surveillance society?

The UK Information Commission recently criticized new proposals, which would allow mass data sharing between government and the private sector, warning that a culture of surveillance and control is being hard wired into UK society. The government says that communications interception is "vital" in fighting 'the war against terror', even hinting that social-networking sites will be put under surveillance. But is an ever growing culture of state snooping state actually destroying the moral and legal fabric of the free society everyone claims they want to protect?

Justice Secretary Jack Straw says that most of the public accept the need for greater vigilance in support of the fight against terrorism and anyway it is daft to talk of a police state, given the Labour government's commitment to the Human Rights Act, Freedom of Information and its progressive legislation on race and gender.

Is he right? Are concerns about the erosion of liberties just a preoccupation of the chattering classes? Do most of us value security above freedom? Are our liberties being curbed just because of the war on terror or are there wider currents at work? And anyway what  does freedom mean in the 21st century and how do we stand up for it?

Tuesday 21 April 2009 7 - 9.00pm

Israel and Palestine - states of uncertainty?

In the aftermath of Israel's assault on Gaza, responses in the West have ranged from humanitarian condemnation and calls for sanctions to fears that a resurgence of anti Semitism in Europe may be blurring the line between anti Zionist and anti Jewish sentiments. Meanwhile within Israel, the on going conflict with Hamas is further poisoning relations between Jews and Palestinians, while seeming to strengthen the hand of the religious right and settler movement. In a climate of uncertainty, the Belfast Salon invited a fresh look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, asking if the US sponsored two state solution has finally run out of road, should we be considering a single state for Israelis  and Palestinians as the best hope of lasting peace? Ten years ago, on the eve of the Camp David Peace Summit, Palestinian intellectual, Edward Said, appealed for just such an alliance between "like minded Israelis and Palestinians", which would remove peace negotiations "far away from the treacherous secret channels" of international peace keeping to "actual on-the-ground reality". For Said, the only realistic prospect of peace lay within the imagination of  "those whose vision can extend beyond the impoverishing perspectives of partition and separation". Yet, if the idea of a bi-national state in which Jews and Palestinians enjoy equal rights remains utopian, what's the alternative?

Tuesday 24th February 2009 7-9.00pm

Locus of Control

A panel discussion hosted by the Belfast Salon at the Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, NI

Who Controls and Regulates Public Space

The discussion continued current debates examining the public realm in the specific context of Belfast and in relation to the complexities of serving multiple publics. The main argument centred around the question of 'if public space is to be openly negotiated, how can a participatory vision be realised through political, social and cultural strategies'.

Chair: Karen McMillan, Barrister of Law

Panel Speakers

Emma Cowan - Reconciliation Studies

John Gray - Writer & Historian

Pauline Hadaway - Director, Belfast Exposed Photography

Fiona Ni Mahaoilir - Artist / Phd Researcher, University of Ulster

Andrew McClelland - Heritage Projects Officer, Ulster Architectural Heritage Society

Christoff Gillen - Artist

Acitore Z Artezione - Artist

Tuesday 13th January 2009 

The transformation of the Provisional Irish Republican movement from anti-state insurgency to partners in government is often described as a form of political rehabilitation, where, through skilful management and against all the odds, those at the margins are brought into the fold of mainstream politics. Rejecting the so-called 'great man' or 'betrayal' approach to history, and locating Irish republicanism in a global political context, a new book - The New Politics of Sinn Fein - draws parallels between the movement's accommodation with the British state and its embrace of identity politics, and the broader decline of universalist forms in contemporary politics.

The Belfast Salon discussed these ideas with author Kevin Bean, looking at the redefinition of republicanism in the context of ideological changes that have taken place across the political spectrum over the past 20 years.