core is concrete 

6th October - 3rd November 2022

‘core is concrete’ is a presentation of three site-oriented responses to Catalyst Arts’ new premises in Belfast City Centre. Catalyst Arts has been open to the public for twenty-nine years. During this span, the organisation has moved five times, occupying five distinct spaces in Belfast. 

‘core is concrete’ is an ongoing engagement with site, made through a series of permanent and temporary structural interventions in Catalyst Arts’ new space, 6 Joy’s Entry. These interventions have been carried out by artists Ben Weir, Niamh Seana Meehan and Tanad Aaron, and developed alongside Catalyst Co-Director Kate Murphy. Each artist has undertaken a material investigation into the hidden, impractical or unused elements of Catalyst’s building.  

The project facilitates the design and development of structures that encourage collective actions, practical problem solving and shared experiences within an arts space. Through these interventions, a dialogue is created between the artists and the structural characteristics of the building that has the potential to out-live the exhibition period. 

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Ben Weir- An object (2022)

Steel beam, steel fin radiator, steel L section, steel grating, threaded rod, nuts, bolts, rubber, paint

to address a fundamental

principle of architecture

An object

radiating heat

within a room

to ease its inhabitation

More accurately, 

eight types of objects

forming one object

an assembly of objects

radiating heat

to address a fundamental

principle of architecture

An object

to appease the body

taking strain from legs

warming backs of thighs

Or rather,

Two objects

or two assemblies of objects

to appease the body:

a public gesture

at ground floor

and one of care

above

both radiating heat

to address a fundamental

principle of architecture

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Niamh Seana Meehan- FLOORMAT, WORDSHIT, EVERYTHING WAS REMOVED FOR THIS 

Will you be annoyed if no one notices? No!…later that night…maybe…much later that night…I don’t think so, but then again, maybe, it’s too late to go back 

A doubtful body that can’t decide the narrative tries to reference the maestro of failure. Walk over it, go on, you never noticed before. 

Constantly breathing out fleeting shit, It probably hasn’t occurred that no one will stay in here long enough to listen

 Light goes off 

Nothing more to say 

Be comfortable and do the same thing as before, don’t think too hard and look above. 

FLOORMAT 

WORDSHIT performed by Tara McGinn and Jack Elmore 

EVERYTHING WAS REMOVED FOR THIS  

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Tanad Aaron- Bored with the Form (2022)

concrete, glass, LED, lead, steel

In a boxed in piece of air an extruded concrete brick stretches out hopefully to reach the other side of the alley, hiding a quiet green glass plumb-bob below it. The embellished electrical conduit travels slowly back towards the only door to the alley, the gallery.

 I used to have this day dream; looking down on myself from above. It always seemed to happen when I was walking somewhere. The way I had just come would have this faint red line along it and in front of me there would be a faint blue line stretching out to wherever I was going. Like those diagrams of blood-flow in the body where blue blood is returning to the heart and the red blood has just left it. I was playing video games at the time and finishing secondary school. 

Documentation: Simon Mills