An East Belfast artist has spent the past 10 years collecting old flags, bunting and iconography for his new exhibition that's due to open this week.
John Baucher's new exhibition 'Worship the Last Thread as a Relic' has been over a decade in the making as he has scoured the east of the city collecting the remnants of old flags that he has found then repurposing them to create a series of artwork that explores identity, loss, remembrance and respect.
John was inspired to start the project after seeing a flag near his home slowly decay over time on a lamppost, until one day he found a corner of it and its eyelet lying at the base of the lamppost.
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Originally from Tandragee but a long term resident of East Belfast, the sight of a flag or bunting slowly falling apart over time was something that John would regularly see and he began to look deeper into what these flags represent and the culture behind them.
As a community artist with years of experience working with some of the most disadvantaged communities, he began to think that perhaps there may be away of using these “found gifted and retrieved flags and ephemera” to start conversations about identity and belief. dialogue.
This exhibition is the latest incarnation of some of the work previously exhibited and revamped along with new work, some of which the artist is calling “assembled memories”, which are a nod to overseas trips he made to New Zealand in 2004 and Haiti a year after the earthquake. The syncretic beliefs John encountered are referenced in these assembled memories.
"I’m interested in how we pass on meaning and ownership to simple mundane items. Fridge magnets are a good example of this. The fridge door in many a household is a happy place of memories and places visited - days out, laughter in the sunshine or a wet walk in the forest," John said.
"Now whilst I may be using Victorian pencil boxes and velvet to frame items, the principle is the same. This is my most personal exhibition to date as I have created an 'assembled memory' for my own parents and family. I’ve been guided throughout all of this by a distant relative who served as a chaplain in WWII. “
He added: "This all began 10 years ago when I began noticing the deterioration of a flag on a lamppost close to my house, with it eventually falling to the ground.
"It got me thinking about the symbolism behind it and how these flags, which are meant to be treated with respect, are allowed to decay and fall apart over time.
"Since then I have been gathering flags and bunting from across East Belfast, along with documenting the deterioration of flags, in order to put together an exhibition that will get people thinking about how these are used in our society as symbols of remembrance and how they can mean different things to different people."
John said: "Identity and its emblems as we know are such a sensitive subject, which is another reason I have taken so long with this work. Given the nature of the work and it’s provenance, I have aimed to present it sensitively as possible in a variety of different ways, such as using a Victorian photograph album is used to display flag fragments alongside photographs of lampposts in a tongue in cheek piece called ‘Language of the lampposts’.
"Another piece that may not be apparent at first is a rusted and twisted lamppost from quite a prominent bonfire site which forms the surprising central sculpture.
"Dismantled flags have been braided into multi coloured threads which hint at the geographical/geological ties of this Island nation, while Plinths also display a series of small scale sculptures made using interlocking eyelets further strengthened by cable ties.
"There are underlying meanings to a lot of the work, like loss of empire, rise in commercialism and the respect that we give one another. I think I’d like to see a more benign belief expressed by people rather than the belligerent belief which seems to get a lot more exposure. Yeah that's it’s lets be benign not belligerent. That’s your quote about the exhibition,” he says laughing.
And humour is important and John uses it judiciously and mischievously in a few smaller pieces.
"I have put a lot of work into preparing this over the years and I hope that the exhibition will resonate with the people of East Belfast and beyond."
'Worship the Last Thread as a Relic' will open at the Vault Artist Studios on Tower Street at 6pm on Monday, November 21 and run until December 1.
On November 26, there will be a participatory artists talk and the exhibit will be open daily from 2pm to 5pm.
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