CIRCA 113 review

Portadown: Orange Segments and Seeing Orange at Millennium Court Arts Centre

Orange banner, depicting the contested history of the drowning of Protestants in the River Bann in 1641 during a rebellion of Catholics and native Irish; courtesy Millennium Court Arts Centre

If the term culture can be broadly defined as the relationship between citizen and society then it's hardly surprising that it causes so much contention in Northern Ireland.¹ Displays of 'culture' by the Orange Order annually renegotiate this relationship but half way through the first decade of the new millennium this praxis seems to be facing an uncertain future. Portadown has become a major focus for the Orange Order's activities, and a decade after the Good Friday Agreement reports were that this year's Twelfth here was, to say the least, subdued. So subdued in fact that focus found itself on an art gallery in Portadown, rather than on a hill outside, as during nearly the entire month of July the Millennium Court Arts Centre was given over to a display of Orange identity analysed in terms of visual and material culture. Curated by the centre's director, Megan Johnston, the display was divided into two separate exhibitions, Orange Segments: A Historical Look at the Orange Order and Seeing Orange: Northern Irish Artists' Use of Orange Imagery, which attempted to grapple with the historical and the contemporary, as well as their interconnectedness, situated within the framework of MCAC's 'Altering Perceptions' programme which has included, over the past few years, an impressive run of diverse exhibitions. However, after many years of exposure to such imagery on our streets, TV and in newspapers, are perceptions in any way 'altered' after viewing MCAC's Orange exhibitions?

The first exhibition, Orange Segments, aimed to shed light on an array of material objects that have often fallen between disciplines such as history, art history, sociology and anthropology, and have remained peripheral to institutional surveys of the visual and material culture of Protestant historiography.² The objects, drawn almost exclusively from the Orange Order District 1 in Portadown, are presented under the clear curatorial precept of not being "prescribed or celebratory but investigative and questioning" and the objects are very much left to speak for themselves.³ Unprecedented proximity to such objects offers a unique chance to engage with their physical and ideological construction, although much of the secretive, obscure and Masonic symbolism, such as the ladder, coffin, skull and crossbones, etc., which decorates precious objects such as coins and medals, performance pieces such as sashes, banners and lambegs, kitsch paraphernalia such as glassware, ceramics, and much printed ephemera, such as song-sheets, bibles, and hymnals, seems largely one-dimensional. Images are meant to impart religious dogma, and historical figures and events in the Unionist canon are themselves presented (if not fetishized) as divine, from the ubiquitous equestrian King Billy to Edward Carson, who is represented in the rather surprising form of a stained glass panel (itself a medium usually lent to ecclesiastical propaganda). The only interpretation on offer is that by the Order itself who present images as 'facts', many of which can all too easily be deconstructed as inventing or mythologizing. Nearly all the objects coalesce in the spectacle of Orange parades and as Dominic Bryan has pointed out the "dominant discourse used to legitimise parades is that of 'tradition'."⁴ But just like the question of 'interpretation', the very idea of 'tradition' is complex and several of the objects demonstrate that tradition, like interpretation, is often selective.

Dermot Seymour: Border turtle, 2002, oil on canvas, 214 x 152 cm;courtesy Millennium Court Arts Centre

At the very end of the exhibition there is a glance at artistic engagement with the Orange Order, including work by Frank McKelvey and reference to William Conor and John Lavery which links neatly into the next room, where in the second exhibition, Seeing Orange, seventeen artworks by six Northern Irish artists are on display. They range from the painterly work of Rita Duffy, whose dream-like Legacy of the Boyne (like a floating Chagall folk-tale) shows a single, isolated Orangeman magnified, distorted, spinning, in a dark, violent landscape, to Colin McGookin's impenetrable totem of Masonic symbols in Worm. Photo-realism (and an almost journalistic sense of such) is a central preoccupation. Paul Seawright's wall design of photographs, arranged in the shape of a cross, captures fragments of a parade - a sash, bowler hat, white glove, and his contrast of innocence and experience is echoed in Richard Faruqhar's series of photographs taken on Halloween 2004 showing an Orange Hall being use for a children's party. Victor Sloan's DVD installation Walk is the most holistic piece in its recording of a march with a slowed-down, and spine-chilling, soundtrack. Sloan is also represented by two large prints, Route II and Observation point, Derry, whose beautiful silvery surface shows much frenetic and savage overworking. The show concludes with Dermot Seymour's Border turtle, a violent, indelibly resonant image of a headless Orangeman. The suggestion that these artworks are "fragmented and evasive, never overtly critical or explanatory" seems to contradict their very visual and visceral reality, which shows imagery as far from the art of obfuscation as one can get.⁵

Victor Sloan: Route III, 1985, silver gelatin print, toners, gouache, 129 x 189 cm; courtesy Millennium Court Arts Centre

Although perceptions remain unaltered, and as Alan Gailey has pointed out attempts to "merely inventorise traditions" leaves key questions unanswered, credit must go to Johnston for linking visual and material culture and attempting to open the doors of debate and dialogue.⁶ Scholarship on such material has often been descriptive rather than qualitative, and lack of rigorous engagement has resulted in assumptions of cultural dichotomisation in Northern Ireland which have purposely distracted from the real issues at stake. One difference between the two exhibitions was that although both touched upon the same issues of Realpolitik, the historical display of Orange paraphernalia didn't seem to engage with the issues it threw up, such as violence (and no attempt should be made to expunge such associations), its hierarchical and patriarchal systems, and the relevance of religious fundamentalism in an increasingly secular Irish society. In blinding contrast, and what proves a triumph, is the work of local artists, beautifully selected and displayed, where there is a real sense of free and individual engagement. One could assume that visual culture in fin-de-siècle Northern Ireland would be impoverished by years of violence, intolerance and extremism, but the artwork on display here clearly demonstrates that this is far from the case.

Joseph McBrinn lectures at the School of Art and Design, University of Ulster, Belfast.

¹Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, Blackwell: Oxford, 1998, pp. 6-8

²Especially key dates such as 1690 and 1798; for instance see Kings in Conflict: Ireland in the 1690s (Ulster Museum, 1990) and Up in Arms: The 1798 Rebellion in Ireland (Ulster Museum, 1998).

³MCAC Gallery information sheet.

⁴Dominic Bryan, Orange Parades: The Politics of Ritual, Tradition and Control, Pluto Press: London, 2000, p. 155

⁵MCAC Gallery information sheet.

⁶Alan Gailey (ed.), The Use of Tradition, UFTM: Cultra, 1988, p. 65

Orange Segments: A Historical Look at the Orange Order and Seeing Orange: Northern Irish Artists' Use of Orange Imagery, Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown, July 2005

Article reproduced from CIRCA 113, Autumn 2005, pp.84-86
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