IRENE KELLY THE BARTLETT, UCL
An Architectural Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful: An Aesthetic Theory of Peace-Process Landscapes in-between Irelands
T
he thesis begins with making a space
an alternative to the ‘mise-en-abyme’ effect,
common ground through dispelling
into an enquiry to be continued. The chapter
for a methodology that constitutes
binary myths as part of the workings in
the Northern Ireland Peace Process. I then
undertook three traverses from different sites – Shannon-Erne Waterway, Divis Mountain next to Belfast City and the watchtower
landscape between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland – exploring the
physical altering of boundaries, and gathered film footage on route. This paper is the
final chapter of my PhD thesis. It borrows Edmund Burke’s enquiry as a medium to
corral thoughts and to position the gathered
footage as a cohesive part of the thesis – that is as a medium to construct a Peace-Process
Infrastructure.
Active politicians during the height of the
troubles now admit that the Northern Ireland ‘situation’ was exacerbated and made to last
for so long because the place was interpreted as remote/insignificant and as a result no imagination was applied.
This paper analyses the ‘enquiry’ as a
mode of investigation of the past in the
Northern Ireland context, while offering
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that is the inevitable enquiry into an enquiry also questions one final binary myth of the thesis; that is Burke’s absolute distinction between the sublime and the beautiful.
The ‘push/pull’ dynamic of experiencing the sublime within these sites works to
reconfigure what is considered remote from a geographical standpoint, by re-gauging distance through the physiological and a
reinterpretation of the ‘time’ of an enquiry.
As ultimately, the ‘hairs on the back of your
neck’ require a present ‘presence’ to stand-up. In overcoming geographical distance, the footage piques involvement in a greater catchment of audience.
This ‘architectural’ enquiry – in
conversation with Hannah Arendt, Yve
Lomax, Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Rosi Braidotti – ultimately binds its aesthetic
theory of peace-process landscapes with a
spatial construction, the in-between rather than the territorial line. This infrastructure makes room for Arendtian action – both deed and word – to positively influence the peace process.