Chapter in new book on Trauma-informed Placemaking

Director, Aisling Rusk, contributed a chapter from the NI context (featuring discussion of our creative investigation 9ft in Common, with Starling Start, to this newly published book on trauma-informed place-making, edited by Cara Courage and Anita McKeown. The book contains fascinating case studies and reflections by practitioners and thinkers, of different disciplines, from all over the world.

Aisling’s chapter explores ways in which trauma-informed place-making has taken place within the existing built environment of the contested, post-conflict city of Belfast, enacted by the ordinary people of that place, as part of their collective healing. It considers two contrasting scales – a landmark building, the locally iconic, frequently bombed Europa Hotel, and the back alleys of houses – and temporalities – after two traumatic events during the Troubles, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Typically, places where atrocities occurred in Belfast city centre have been obliterated in an effort to forget these places of pain and shame. The chapter highlights how existing built fabric, reconceived, can contribute to healing after collective trauma, questioning what policy-makers and place-shapers can learn from these bottom-up interventions and interpretations.

 

Image: in her absence by Anna Donovan, in an East Belfast alleyway, as part of Meadhbh McIlgorm’s Liminal Belfast exhibition, 2022, in the Imagine Belfast festival