Glocal Intermissions Symposium - Thursday 13 November 2025
Belfast School of Art, Belfast, BT15 1ED
Thursday 13th November 2025
Please note that purchasing a ticket for either the Thursday 14 November day OR Friday 15 November Symposium day gives access to events on both days to the Symposium.
Join us in Belfast for a landmark gathering celebrating 50 years of Performance Art in Ireland 1975-2925 . Hosted by Bbeyond, this three-day symposium (13–15 November 2025) brings together international and local artists, thinkers, and walkers to reflect, perform, and reimagine the boundaries of live art.
Expect workshops, talks, and participatory performances—including the Unity Walk, a site-responsive group action echoing Alastair MacLennan’s seminal 1975 Parade with students from Belfast School of Art.
Whether you come to witness, contribute, or walk the line between art and life, this is your invitation to be part of a living archive, meet like minded people and celebrate some of what this dynamic every changing art from has brought to the island of Ireland.
Bbeyond is an arts organisation, based in Northern Ireland that focuses on Performance Art. Our membership includes multidisciplined artists from many locations. We are involved in local, national and international projects Bbeyond is committed to promoting the practice of performance art and artists in Northern Ireland and further afield.
Our aim is to raise people’s consciousness of live/performance art as being integral to the world in and around us, inspiring reflection and enriching lived experience.
We host artists of international reputation throughout the performance art world and encourage newer artists to experience performance art practices for themselves.
Bbeyond encourages greater access to and appreciation of this visually based art form, through facilitating modes of active private/public participation, allowing people from all sectors of society, not just the traditional arts, to experience and enjoy performance art directly.
Art as movement. Art as memory. Art is unity.
The purchase of ONE ticket grants access to BOTH Symposium days
The Full Programme for both days is listed below
DAY 1
Thursday 13 November 2025
Location: Enterprise Hub, Belfast School of Art, Block BA, ground floor, Ulster University, York Street
5.30 pm Registration+ Merchandise sales
6.00pm Welcome: Bronagh Lawson, Chair Bbeyond
6.05-6.15 pm Welcome : Claire McComish, Arts Council of Northern Ireland
6.15-7.00 pm Emma Brennan, Zara Lyness & kane stonestreet - Bbeyond New commission artists- how it helps what has happened to our careers
7.00-7.30 pm Brian Patterson - 50 years of an inner evolutionary process within an outer revolutionary context 1974-2024
Questions
8pm Move to Belfast Stories Building (Bank of Ireland, Royal Avenue/North Street) 15 min walk from BSOA
Location: Belfast Stories Building
8.30pm Madison Agnew, Performance
Friday 14th November 2025
Location: The Sanctuary Theatre, Mountpottinger Old Church, 1a Castlereagh Street, Belfast, BT5 4NE
10:00 am Registration + Merchandise sales
10.15-10.20 am Welcome :
10.30-11.15 am Bronagh Lawson, Frankie Quinn - Setting the scene, Northern Ireland 1975 some perspectives
11.15-11.30 am Brian Connolly, Catalyst co director + Deej Fabyc (Live art Ireland) - Performance art festivals, BIFPA , FIX, Convergence
15 min break
12:00-12.30 pm Siobhan Mullan interviewed by Noelle McAliden - The Equinox project
12.30-1:00 pm Dr Pamela Whitaker + Dr Noreen Giffney - Mental Health aspects of performance art
1:00-2:00 pm lunch
2:00-4:00 pm Break Out Sessions
Break out session 1# - Performance Art Workshop - Facilitated by Sinéad O'Donnell
Break out session 2##- Bronagh Lawson, Frankie Quinn + Alistair MacLennan - Anatomy of a peace line performance
Break out session 3### - Rainer Pagel, Brian Connolly + Brian Patterson - Performance Memories in the round - this is a sharing session where participants are invited to share their memories of performance art in Ireland
Location: Conor Lecture Theatre, Belfast School of Art, 1st Floor, room BA-01-09
6:00-6.15 pm Introduction Dr Eleni Kolliopoulou, University of Peloponnese
6.15-6.45 pm Dr Emma Campbell, Array Collective - Ulster University and Array collective perspective
15 min break
7:00 - Emeritus Professor Alistair MacLennan and Sandra Johnston - Question and answer session
Followed by Emma Quin, Catalyst Arts co-director, with a round up of the evening
Performance artist to be confirmed
Step into the liminal. This workshop invites artists to explore the body as archive, gesture as testimony, and space as collaborator. Through guided improvisation, site-responsive exercises, and collective reflection, participants will unearth personal and communal narratives—tracing the invisible threads between memory, ritual, and resistance.
#Breakout session 2 - Anatomy of a Peace-line performance
Bronagh Lawson, Frankie Quinn + Alistair MacLennan
Performance art can bring powerful energy to a site. Bronagh Lawson after working on peace lines* for over 13 years running cross community, cross border development programmes in Belfast from pre ceasefire is particularly interested in performance art and politics. Using performance art as a curator then a practice she will share some experiences and their effect. On the surrounding area.
# Break out Session 3 - Performance memories in the round
Facilitated by Dr Eleni Kolliopoulou, Brian Connolly, Rainer Pagel +Brian Patterson
Do you have performance art memories you want to share ? Many artists have spanned the globe on the dimensional gateway that is performance art . This breakout session allows space for sharing and listening to some of the magnitude of experiences and opportunities that this art from has brought to artists and audiences for 50 years. If you want to share of listen this is the breakout session for you.
Join us in Belfast for a landmark gathering celebrating 50 years of Performance Art in Ireland 1975-2925 . Hosted by Bbeyond, this three-day symposium (13–15 November 2025) brings together international and local artists, thinkers, and walkers to reflect, perform, and reimagine the boundaries of live art.
Expect workshops, talks, and participatory performances—including the Unity Walk, a site-responsive group action echoing Alastair MacLennan’s seminal 1975 Parade with students from Belfast School of Art.
Whether you come to witness, contribute, or walk the line between art and life, this is your invitation to be part of a living archive, meet like minded people and celebrate some of what this dynamic every changing art from has brought to the island of Ireland.
Bbeyond is an arts organisation, based in Northern Ireland that focuses on Performance Art. Our membership includes multidisciplined artists from many locations. We are involved in local, national and international projects Bbeyond is committed to promoting the practice of performance art and artists in Northern Ireland and further afield.
Our aim is to raise people’s consciousness of live/performance art as being integral to the world in and around us, inspiring reflection and enriching lived experience.
We host artists of international reputation throughout the performance art world and encourage newer artists to experience performance art practices for themselves.
Bbeyond encourages greater access to and appreciation of this visually based art form, through facilitating modes of active private/public participation, allowing people from all sectors of society, not just the traditional arts, to experience and enjoy performance art directly.
Art as movement. Art as memory. Art is unity.
The purchase of ONE ticket grants access to BOTH Symposium days
The Full Programme for both days is listed below
DAY 1
Thursday 13 November 2025
Location: Enterprise Hub, Belfast School of Art, Block BA, ground floor, Ulster University, York Street
5.30 pm Registration+ Merchandise sales
6.00pm Welcome: Bronagh Lawson, Chair Bbeyond
6.05-6.15 pm Welcome : Claire McComish, Arts Council of Northern Ireland
6.15-7.00 pm Emma Brennan, Zara Lyness & kane stonestreet - Bbeyond New commission artists- how it helps what has happened to our careers
7.00-7.30 pm Brian Patterson - 50 years of an inner evolutionary process within an outer revolutionary context 1974-2024
Questions
8pm Move to Belfast Stories Building (Bank of Ireland, Royal Avenue/North Street) 15 min walk from BSOA
Location: Belfast Stories Building
8.30pm Madison Agnew, Performance
Friday 14th November 2025
Location: The Sanctuary Theatre, Mountpottinger Old Church, 1a Castlereagh Street, Belfast, BT5 4NE
10:00 am Registration + Merchandise sales
10.15-10.20 am Welcome :
10.30-11.15 am Bronagh Lawson, Frankie Quinn - Setting the scene, Northern Ireland 1975 some perspectives
11.15-11.30 am Brian Connolly, Catalyst co director + Deej Fabyc (Live art Ireland) - Performance art festivals, BIFPA , FIX, Convergence
15 min break
12:00-12.30 pm Siobhan Mullan interviewed by Noelle McAliden - The Equinox project
12.30-1:00 pm Dr Pamela Whitaker + Dr Noreen Giffney - Mental Health aspects of performance art
1:00-2:00 pm lunch
2:00-4:00 pm Break Out Sessions
Break out session 1# - Performance Art Workshop - Facilitated by Sinéad O'Donnell
Break out session 2##- Bronagh Lawson, Frankie Quinn + Alistair MacLennan - Anatomy of a peace line performance
Break out session 3### - Rainer Pagel, Brian Connolly + Brian Patterson - Performance Memories in the round - this is a sharing session where participants are invited to share their memories of performance art in Ireland
Location: Conor Lecture Theatre, Belfast School of Art, 1st Floor, room BA-01-09
6:00-6.15 pm Introduction Dr Eleni Kolliopoulou, University of Peloponnese
6.15-6.45 pm Dr Emma Campbell, Array Collective - Ulster University and Array collective perspective
15 min break
7:00 - Emeritus Professor Alistair MacLennan and Sandra Johnston - Question and answer session
Followed by Emma Quin, Catalyst Arts co-director, with a round up of the evening
Performance artist to be confirmed
Step into the liminal. This workshop invites artists to explore the body as archive, gesture as testimony, and space as collaborator. Through guided improvisation, site-responsive exercises, and collective reflection, participants will unearth personal and communal narratives—tracing the invisible threads between memory, ritual, and resistance.
#Breakout session 2 - Anatomy of a Peace-line performance
Bronagh Lawson, Frankie Quinn + Alistair MacLennan
Performance art can bring powerful energy to a site. Bronagh Lawson after working on peace lines* for over 13 years running cross community, cross border development programmes in Belfast from pre ceasefire is particularly interested in performance art and politics. Using performance art as a curator then a practice she will share some experiences and their effect. On the surrounding area.
# Break out Session 3 - Performance memories in the round
Facilitated by Dr Eleni Kolliopoulou, Brian Connolly, Rainer Pagel +Brian Patterson
Do you have performance art memories you want to share ? Many artists have spanned the globe on the dimensional gateway that is performance art . This breakout session allows space for sharing and listening to some of the magnitude of experiences and opportunities that this art from has brought to artists and audiences for 50 years. If you want to share of listen this is the breakout session for you.
