Agreement
Northern Ireland’s best-known heritage is conflict. It is easy to forget that peace-building is our heritage too.
That this heritage is recent, divisive and at risk, makes it all the more important to recognise, explore and share.
Agreement was a partnership between Ulster Presents, artist Amanda Dunsmore and quarto, and was supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund NI.
The project created space to explore the heritage of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement with communities across Northern Ireland.
Twenty-five years on from the Agreement, we invited people into conversation, reflecting together on how and why we have lived the Agreement, and to what end, and exploring what the the process of coming to agreement means today.
AGREEMENT
by Amanda Dunsmore
Amanda Dunsmore was living in Belfast as we began to inch towards agreement. She wanted to respond to what she saw and felt, through art.
Carefully, one by one, Amanda began creating silent video portraits of people who made the Agreement.
After almost 20 years, the portraits were completed. In 2023, they became something new.
AGREEMENT shows us people who crossed deep divisions to make an agreement that brought peace. In their silence, they offer us space.
Space for thought. For reflection. For connection.
We are the people who have lived the Agreement.
This space is for us.
Over the course of 2023, AGREEMENT journeyed into communities across Northern Ireland.
The task of making peace is ongoing. It means different things to different people. A new generation has joined us in taking the next steps.
The project intentionally engaged with people whose voices tend to be overlooked or ignored in public dialogue. We prioritised people in rural areas, people born since 1998 and people born elsewhere who have made Northern Ireland their home. AGREEMENT was hosted by five groups in community-owned venues in Rathfriland, Omagh, Derry and Glengormley before returning to Belfast at the end of 2023.
All images reproduced courtesy of Amanda Dunsmore