Reading the Mobile City Through Street Art: Belfast’s Murals

Abstract

Visual representations populate the streetscapes of all cities, distinguishing different cities in different ways. Through decades of conflict, Belfast has become more resourced than most in visually articulating societal and spatial divisions. But as in all cities the impacts of division are highly uneven. ‘Public art’ in ‘culturally regenerated’ areas such as the Cathedral Quarter (McCarthy, 2006) responds more directly to global economics and trajectories of power, whilst more traditionally working class areas in east, west and north Belfast contain murals that are more reflective of local concerns. The murals in these parts of the city are often found on the ‘peace walls’ and other ‘interfaces’ that separate the communities of the two main cultural groups, marking out space as ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ to certain people at particular times, with mobility greatly restricted as a result (Shirlow, 2002). There is evidence (Shirlow, 2002; Shirlow and Murtagh, 2006; Shortt, 2007) that sectarianism is as deeply entrenched in Belfast as ever, with less integration than ten years ago, particularly among younger people. Belfast has become notorious for its manifest divisions of space and murals are a significant element of the street semiotics that become part of everyday life in the city. Their graphic stories produce mobilities.