The award-winning Golden Thread Gallery re-opened to the public in new premises on Queen Street on Saturday 10th August 2024.
The former Gas Corporation Showroom and Craftworld building at 23-29 Queen Street, Belfast, has been renovated and restored to bespoke specifications to become the gallery’s new city-centre home. Set across two floors, our new venue includes 2 large galleries, a projection room, a Community Participation & Engagement Hub, and Northern Ireland’s first visual art library & archive. Entry to the gallery is free.
Co-Directors Peter Richards and Sarah McAvera and the GTG team look forward to welcoming visitors back to the gallery.
Peter Richards says, “We’re excited to collaborate with you to actively cultivate the rich histories of art in Belfast, fostering its power to inspire and empower our communities for generations to come.”
Co-Director Sarah McAvera says, “We’re delighted that the gallery is now in the heart of Belfast city centre, in a location where we can not only welcome back our existing audiences but be more easily discovered by new visitors. We’ve always been passionate about the power of art as a place to dream, to think outside of yourself, to be creative and to have fun. We work with communities across the city, and our new venue truly has something for everyone.”
We launched two new exhibitions on 10th August too; The End of Art is Peace by acclaimed artist Graham Fagen in the Upper Gallery, and Charlotte, Rob, Robin & You by Northern Ireland based artists Charlotte Bosanquet, Rob Hilken, and Robin Price in the Lower Gallery.
Our new Community Participation & Engagement Hub is a welcoming and creative space, open to all, where we will host free workshops, events, artist talks and community group activities. It includes a Free Library, play area and our Junior Gallery. The Hub has been made possible thanks to funding support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Art Fund.
The NI Visual Art Library & Archive is Northern Ireland’s first dedicated visual art research library open to the public. Thanks to funding support from Ampersand Foundation, this resource will make hundreds of rare art books, reference materials and exhibition catalogues available to researchers, students, and visitors.
The new gallery is an accessible venue with step-free street access, lift to the first floor, a wheelchair-accessible ground-floor bathroom, sensory guide to exhibitions and large-print versions of all gallery texts available. Our library and archive room on the ground floor offers wheelchair accessible workspaces, adjustable seating, magnification aids for people with vision impairment and reading aids for people with dyslexia.
About 23-29 Queen Street
Our new home at 23-29 Queen Street has a fascinating heritage. Originally designed in 1871 by architect William Hastings, the building was remodelled in the 1930s. In 1976 the Craftworld store was established in the building and was a favourite shopping destination for artists and makers for the next 30 years.
Daren Millar, of, LEJA Properties, the owner of the building, is “delighted that the much-loved Belfast building, now restored to reveal many of its original Art Deco features, will house a modern gallery which promises to bring joy to many. Belfast is thriving and it has been an amazing experience to facilitate the renovation of a derelict building to its former glory at the very centre of the City’s ever evolving landscape.”
Architect John FitzGerald of Dickson FitzGerald Architects adds that he is “…delighted to have been involved in this deceptively complicated project. Working closely with the Gallery Directors and under instruction from the building Owner Mrs Daren Millar, we strove to create a modern bespoke Gallery that is fully compliant with current regulations whilst, where possible, retaining and exposing elements of the old building. The facade has been sympathetically restored to reflect the original Art Deco Elevation and will take its place with pride on Queen Street once again”.
Queen Street itself has a history of being a home to art and design, from important printers and stationers’ firms such as John Dickinson & Sons and Robert Carswell & Sons in the 1800s, Craftworld and Bradbury Graphics in the 1970s and 80s, to Platform Arts Studios and Queen Street Studios in the 1990s.
Exhibition Programme 2024-2025
With over 22 years in the arts sector, the Golden Thread Gallery’s experience partner-working with artists is unparalleled. Over this time, we have developed strong, long term and creative relationships with artists and community groups across the city.
Our artistic programme for 2024-25 brings work by internationally acclaimed artists to Belfast audiences, including a specially commissioned new work by Claire Morgan, supported by an Arts Council NI Commissioning Award, which will be shown as part of the 2024 Belfast International Arts Festival.
Our opening exhibition in the Upper Gallery is The End of Art is Peace by Graham Fagen, one of the UK’s foremost contemporary artists. Working across mediums including video, installation, sculpture, photography, and text, Fagen creates works which explore history and culture. Common themes of his work have included Scotland and the transatlantic slave trade, war, plants, journeys, poetry, and popular song, as a means through which to explore the varying forces impacting our contemporary culture and identity.
“’The End of Art is Peace’ is a line from ‘The Harvest Bow’ by Seamus Heaney. It’s a line I’ve pondered for a long time and perhaps the location of our exhibition, in the country where Seamus was born, has brought it back into my thoughts. I’ve talked about my personal conflict when making works of art about war or the transatlantic slave trade. If the end of art is peace does that suggest that the start or the process of art can be conflicting?” – Graham Fagen
The exhibition features video installation ‘The Slave’s Lament’, with a score by Sally Beamish, performed by the Scottish Ensemble and Reggae singer Ghetto Priest, and produced by legendary On-U-Sound founder Adrian Sherwood.
In our Lower Gallery, we present Charlotte, Rob, Robin & You by Charlotte Bosanquet, Robin Price & Rob Hilken, three Northern Ireland based artists with established histories of socially engaged practice; co-creating and working with communities. This exhibition invites “you”, the viewer, to be a core contributor to the new Gallery at Queen Street.
Subsequent exhibitions in our 2024-2025 programme will include Susan Hiller and Shirin Neshat.
About the Golden Thread Gallery
Founded in 1998 on the Crumlin Road in Belfast, Golden Thread Gallery is a contemporary visual art gallery and arts charity. Our mission statement is “Creating a context, challenging perceptions, promoting creativity, delivering contemporary visual art for all”. Our purpose is to broaden access to and improve public experience of visual art in Northern Ireland, by presenting exciting exhibition programmes and supporting Northern Irish artists. We strive to be a welcoming and accessible destination where each and every visitor is engaged, educated, challenged, and inspired by visual art.
We believe that visual art can help people better understand themselves and the world around them, both closer to home and as part of a global village. We state our values as an organisation clearly, from our environmental pledge to paying artists fairly. We devise our programmes to be reflective of the people and the themes around us and work to ensure that there are multiple entry points for audiences to connect with art in different ways and participate in our city’s cultural life.
Our principal funders are the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council.
Gilly Campbell, Director of Arts Development at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland said, “The Arts Council of Northern Ireland is proud to support Golden Thread Gallery and congratulate the whole team there on this exciting new chapter as they launch their wonderful new gallery and continue to bring great art to all.”
Belfast Lord Mayor, Councillor Micky Murray said: “It’s wonderful to see the Golden Thread Gallery open these beautiful, accessible new city centre premises, partly thanks to our Vacant to Vibrant investment in this previously derelict building. It’s so encouraging to see how our Vacant to Vibrant scheme is helping to revitalise our city centre, already helping to bring 20 city centre properties back into use; supporting 80 direct employment opportunities and returning £3.87 in rates income for every £1 invested by council.
“And what better time to open a new city centre gallery to the public, than during our biggest ever citywide celebration of creativity, Belfast 2024? All over the world, city centres are changing rapidly. To thrive, they need to offer a distinctive, authentic experience that includes not only retail, but also welcoming and engaging spaces and opportunities for leisure, culture, living, studying, working, visiting, and socialising.
“That’s exactly what we’re seeking to do in partnership with a wide range of agencies and organisations in Belfast – including Golden Thread Gallery. I’d like to congratulate the building owner Daren Millar, LEJA Properties and Sarah McAvera, Peter Richards and the Golden Thread Gallery team on their vision, and dedication to making it a reality. I wish them every success with their programme of events, research facility and community and artist resources.”
In 2023 GTG received a prestigious Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation award for Civic Arts Organisation of the Year (runner-up) in recognition of our co-creation work devising arts projects with new migrant communities in Belfast. We were the only Northern Irish organization on the shortlist. We also won an Arts & Business NI Award for Creative Community Engagement, for our work in partnership with Translink NI engaging communities around the redeveloped York Street station through art, including working with commissioned artist Kevin Killen to put community ideas and stories at the heart of the specially created public artworks at the station.
Paul Brolly, Chair of the Golden Thread Gallery Board of Directors, concludes “This is an exciting move for the Golden Thread Gallery and a significant milestone in the organisation’s history. Fulfilling a long-held vision to make contemporary visual art accessible to a broader and more diverse audience, our new location not only positions us in the heart of Belfast but also reactivates a historic and much-loved building. The successful relocation of Golden Thread Gallery to the city centre is a testament to the dedication of our co-directors, staff and volunteers, and the Board extends its gratitude to our talented team, whose hard work and passion have made this move possible. We also want to thank our funders and partners, whose support and belief in our vision have been instrumental in creating this vibrant and inclusive gallery where art can inspire and connect people from all walks of life. Together, we are fashioning a dynamic and welcoming creative space that will benefit the cultural landscape for years to come.”
ENDS
Notes for Editors
Media enquiries:
Elizabeth Byrne, Development Manager development@goldenthreadgallery.co.uk
07817932778 / 02890 330920 / www.goldenthreadgallery.co.uk
GTG Co-Directors Peter Richards and Sarah McAvera are available for interview.
GTG is recognised as a charity by the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, registration NIC101097, and our core funders are the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council. We are also currently supported by Art Fund, Future Screens NI, Dormant Accounts NI administered by the National Lottery Community Fund, the Ampersand Foundation, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Arts & Business NI Blueprint funding.
For a more detailed history of the gallery and our role in the arts in Belfast, our new publication, ‘How We Got To…’ tells the story of the Gallery from its inception to today, from artist, curator and GTG Co-Director Peter Richards’ perspective. Copies are available free of charge.