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not only the earth we share
Who Makes The City
The Production of Daily Life
Project Information

Project

Information

not only the earth we share and The production of daily life, were a three-year project designed and delivered by Sol Archer, the first artist invited to participate in the art organisation Household’s long-term artist-in-residence programmes in city neighbourhoods.

“The cultural common, Hardt and Negri write, “is dynamic, involving both the product of labor and the means of future production. This common is not only the earth we share but also the languages we create, the social practices we establish, the modes of sociality that define our relationships, and so forth.” It is built up over time and, in principle, open to all. In this way it is possible even to view “the metropolis as a factory for the production of the common.” The human qualities of the city emerge from our practices in the diverse spaces of the city, even as those spaces are subject to enclosure both by private and public state ownership, as well as by social control, appropriation, and countermoves to assert what Henri Lefebvre called “the right to the city” on the part of the inhabitants.”

David Harvey (2012)

Household is an art organisation that works with artists and communities to meaningfully respond to public places. It collectively develops and produces art activities for and with communities of visual artists, writers, curators, residents and visitors in Belfast that take place across the city, often in unexpected spaces. Household values the production of high quality art, relationships with collaborators and partners, and working in ways that connect with and benefit people and place. The organisation is interested in telling untold stories, asking unspoken questions, and revealing hidden narratives through creative, engaged visual arts programming.

Sol Archer is a Netherlands-based artist who works through long-term collaborations with professional and non-professional groups and mixed communities of interest and place. He considers the encounter as a space of production and uses video as an apparatus for creating collective experiences and new work. He is interested in developing strategies for creating agency and auto-representation within groups, and platforming and supporting groups who see community building as acts of resistance.

The production of daily life examines the pasts, presents, and futures of Sailortown through performative collaborations with various groups intersecting, identifying, or operating in the area.During his residency, Sol met with Sailortown’s former elderly residents, local grassroots organisations, and children and young people living in social housing in the area, and filmed them as they spoke about their past, engaged with the present conditions of the neighbourhood, and imagined and questioned its future.  His work positions Sailortown as a microcosm where histories are memorialised and (re)enacted; the forces of regeneration and speculation are at play and can be explored, and community was and is formed.

With

Cadhla
Christopher
Clodagh
Daire
Danny
Giolliosa
Jamie
Kai
KeeganKJ

Alessia Cargnelli
Alissa Kleist
Bernadette Baker
Billy Chambers
Billy Johnson
Billy McIllroy
Breifne Lomac Gillhooly
Brian Quinn
Cecilia Heron
Charlene Fryers
David Browne Murray
Geordie O'Hara
Gerard Kelly
Gerard Rosato
Hugh Mckeown
Jacco Prantl
James Surginor
Jane Butler
Jane Morrow
Jim McDyer
John 'Giovanni' Marsella
John Campbell
John Gray
Jonathan HS Ross
Kathlene McMahon
Liam McCormick

Bananas
Miss Moon

Lea
Lucy
Madison
Mason
Mia
Shayla
Sophie
Sophie


Malachai O'Hara
Marie O'Hara
Marion Steele
Mary Hillis
Mary Lyttle
Michael Macbroom
Michael McKnight
Michelle Young
Niall Carson
Oskar Aitken
Paddy Benson
Pam Cullinan
Paul Rosato
Phil Hession
Robert Martin Gillespie
Robin Price
Rosemary McDyer
Ruaidhri Lennon
Sighle Breathnach Cashell
Sinead Breathnach Cashell
Stephen Lawson
Sue O'Hara
Terry Mckeown
Terry-Bo McManus
Thomas Wells
Tommy


Squinty
Tia

Sol Archer and Household would like to thank the people of Sailortown, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Golden Thread Gallery, DAS Digital Art Studios Belfast, NI Screen, and Sailortown Regeneration, for their kind support and contributions. The production of daily life has been made possible with the support of the Mondriaan Fonds voor Beeldende Kunst and CBK Rotterdam.

In collaboration with Household, Sol Archer spent time with individuals and groups identifying with contemporary and historical Sailortown and it’s surrounding area: elderly former residents, new migrant communities, local grassroots organisations, and children and young people living in a small post-2008 crash social housing complex.

This process involved the documentation of oral histories, with a particular focus on historical conditions of labour in the Docks, seafaring, and the now long-gone mills and factories to which Sailortown provided generations of workers.