I went on a 4-day trip to Belfast, exploring the city while learning the history of conflict and having many conversations about peacemaking through healing. My main goal was to attend the Action Trauma Summit and learn more about therapeutic applications for collective and ancestral trauma within communities. As my creative practice has taken me on a journey of healing through art, I am beginning to see the potential for raising societal awareness on how collective responses to historic traumatic events become normalised behaviours. There is a lot of recurrence of conflict and violence in the exact locations and within the same community groups. And these places urgently need healing and re-connection, which is the foundation of future peace worldwide.
One of the most shocking discoveries in Belfast was a 'suicide bridge' as I called it when the passerby told me why it was covered with wire mesh and surrounded by sharp fences. Geographically, it is located at the heart of the area that has seen a lot of violence during The Troubles; however, many years after the peace agreement, they are still experiencing the trauma of the past.
There is a lot of wisdom and knowledge that was shared at the summit. An artistic approach could help rethink this issue even further, providing a visual interpretation of community healing through collaboration, which is what we will be aiming to explore at the second 'Conflict and Fragmentation' exhibition.
