Protocol Drawings, 2023
These images represent the nebulous concepts of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Northern Ireland Protocol. The pen drawings represent the first nine articles of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, otherwise referred to as the Northern Ireland Protocol, formerly named the Revised Protocol to the Withdrawal Agreement. The latter is the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement, aka Brexit. The charcoal drawing is titled Bitch-slapping Stormont Back to Work.
The drawings are made using string, charcoal, markers, and tape. I taped 10 pieces of charcoal to 10 pieces of string, and then stuck the strings to each finger. I imagined typing out a letter, as if using the computer keyboard. Sitting above my paper with my hands and fingers outstretched, the strings and sticks dancing about the page like puppetry.
Bitch-slapping Stormont Back to Work is a letter addressed to the Northern Ireland Assembly based at Stormont, telling them to get back to work. The more I “typed” the more I felt like just whacking the page. Was the random mark making a soft power, or powerlessness?
Typing out the Northern Ireland Protocol was the next obvious move. As something that is floating around in the ether, talked about in the news, argued over at meetings, common words in debate here in Belfast, across the island of Ireland, Great Britain, in the European Union…typed words that fuel the unknown future of Northern Ireland…
It felt relevant and timely as a common person to try to embody the agreement made between officials. The absurdity of the situation lends itself to the absurd drawing method.
As an individual I feel distant and confused but Brexit is having a real impact on all citizens. The embodied drawing gives a visible form to that which I cannot verbally communicate and visibly portrays the chaos of the changes I feel.
This collection started as an idea I had for leading the PS2 Open Communal Drawing Session for artists held on zoom. I wanted the session to involve drawing at scale, with energy, and with the objective to translate something that isn’t drawing into drawing.