urban projects: poker corners 2002

golden thread gallery,belfast
curated by gail prentice

Urban projects consists of a series of work derived from interviews with people from Ardoyne and the Bone.

The work is concerned with how people describe their locality and use local knowledge to navigate the urban environment.

A catalogue of the interviews was published to co incide with the exhibition

With thanks to Christine, Connor and Stevie.

POKER CORNERS Christine
'' I know now that all the kids, even my younger brothers, they all played poker and cards in the garden. Yeah gardens and when the peelers came they dispersed. Well I remember them doing that like when I was younger, you know.
I remember the men playing rounders on the brick yard and all too in the summer.

They played poker in the street but they also used also play a thing called 'pitch and toss' It was, in the old days, the old penny or the old ha'penny

(A.O'B Oh.. Throw ha'penny?) C.B. Ah heh, and you had to throw it and see who got closest to the wall. I remember my father and that playing that when they were all out of work and that, they would have played that.

I wouldn't really remember the pitch and toss. I would have been a child but it was always like, at Ardliea St. corner, which was before St Gemma's school was built. It was on the brickyard and it was like, in the middle of Ardliea St it was like one big house and the wall that took you over the brickyard and it was on that wall that the older men played and there was a big stone on the ground. Some of them would have sat on that too.

I think that stone then was taken and was used. Somebody brought that into their house when they were demolishing all their houses they kept it. ……. and it's now on the Celtic Cross that's on the memorial that's within the area.

So the actual stone was used for that. So it was like a wee thing from the area.
Christine

Mixed Media installation 20'.20'. 8'/ 600cm. 600cm.240cm