Who Makes the City is a roaming platform focussed on the contemporary urban condition. Each edition introduces international thinkers, practitioners, and activists framing their research, followed by public conversations between practitioners and audience on specific conditions in the edition city.
Belfast is a city throughout which ongoing negotiations on identity and belonging are borne on infrastructure and urban planning. Situated on the island of Ireland but within the political jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, its rich social fabric exists within gaps, open spaces, inner city motorways, and parking lots, determined by the contradictory demands of access and securitisation its unique position and complex history create.
Episode 01: Belfast features videos from Samuel Stein, Brenna Bhandar & Daniel Renwick, Anna Minton & Henrietta Williams, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, and a public conversation featuring Stormont politicians, architects, and activists operating in the city.
Edition 01 was launched at Golden Thread Gallery within the exhibition not only the earth we share, a collaboration between Sol Archer and Household CIC.
It was supported by Golden Thread Gallery, the Mondriaan Fonds voor Beeldende Kunst and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
Episode 01: Belfast features videos from Samuel Stein, Brenna Bhandar & Daniel Renwick, Anna Minton & Henrietta Williams, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, and a public conversation featuring Stormont politicians, architects, and activists operating in the city.
Edition 01 was launched at Golden Thread Gallery within the exhibition not only the earth we share, a collaboration between Sol Archer and Household CIC.
It was supported by Golden Thread Gallery, the Mondriaan Fonds voor Beeldende Kunst and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
Agustina Martire, Mal O’Hara, & Mark Hackett
In conversation at the Black Box, Belfast, July 03 2022.
Agustina, Mal, and Mark speak on the specific conditions of urban planning in Belfast Northern Ireland through their research and histories with Sailortown, following a screening of ‘not only the earth we share’ by Sol Archer in the Docs Ireland Film Festival.
Sailortown was a large working class neighbourhood between the city centre and the docks, which housed thousands of families whose fathers, mothers, and often children worked in the docks, in shipping, and in the factories around the harbour. In the 1960s Sailortown was demolished to extend a still incomplete motorway interchange into the centre of Belfast, a process which is now happening again with further expulsions, and which is reflected in the development of former industrial and heritage quarters of the city.
Agustina Martire is an urbanist and architect from Argentina, and senior lecturer in Architecture at Queen's University Belfast specialised in the study of everyday streets, their fabric, histories and experiences.
Mal O’Hara is a Northern Irish politician who has been the Leader of the Green Party Northern Ireland since August 2022, and was Deputy Leader of the Green Party from 2019 to 2022. Mals parents were both born, raised, and employed in Sailortown before its destruction, and have been key figures in the decades long struggle to bring housing back into the area, and to protect the Sailortown community identity. Mal O'Hara has been a prominent campaigner for clean air, rent controls and climate action.
Mark Hackett is an architect and urban critic, who has been active in community organisation for progressive development in Belfast throughout his career, Marks architectural projects can be seen at https://hackettarchitects.com/