A door from a Belfast community centre that was firebombed numerous times offers a thought provoking image of Northern Ireland.
A new exhibition featuring work by artists from Northern Ireland will take place in London's Whitechapel Gallery next week.
Joe McWilliams an artist and lecturer at the Northern Ireland Polytechnic will submit a mixed media piece entitled 'Community Door’.
It features the door of a community resource centre on Alliance Avenue in Belfast which is used by people from both Protestant and Catholic communities. The door was damaged by firebombs on three separate occasions.
The door interested Joe McWilliams from the start for aesthetic reasons, but he also realised that it could be used as a way of looking at the current situation in particular,
The closed nature of Northern Ireland, and the divisions between the communities.
The rainbow theme which has been running through previous paintings by Joe McWilliams is also seen here, and offers a,
Visual invitation to the audience to step up the rainbow and through the burnt door.
He is not too concerned with how people will respond to this work,
I like to think that art and the way I have tackled the door is transforming reality.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 21 April 1978. The reporter is Denis Murray.
