By Niamh Stewart, UG in International Studies and Politics
Niamh Stewart: Tinted Wheel I’ve just come back to Belfast for my final year of undergrad. When I moved here two years ago, I fell in love with the walkability of the city. I liked that I could walk around for an afternoon down Lisburn or through the city centre and find new shops and cafes to return to and try. This photo was taken in the Botanic Gardens through the tinted lens of my sunglasses. I was surprised to see the Ferris wheel when I got back but it was a nice reminder that life here is going to keep going despite Covid. I was unsure about leaving home and coming back to the city, but sitting outside in the gardens with my new flatmates in the shadow of the Ferris wheel made me feel so content for awhile. The unfiltered photo came out looking quite retro which I liked!
SECOND PLACE
By Matthew Fishback, MA in International Relations
Matthew Fishback: City Refuge Bog Meadows Nature Reserve is an oasis in the middle of a city. This small wetland is a place to step away from traffic and noise, while literally being in between the motorway and a neighborhood. Being among grazing cows, sheep, and goats took me back to where I grew up and I loved it. If anyone needs to get away for a minute this reserve is an amazing spot to sit back and watch nature move by.
THIRD PLACE
By Julia Newton, MA in Conflict Transformation and Social Justice
Julia Newton: Quarantine Although I knew I wasn’t looking forward to quarantine, when I arrived in early September I had no idea what the most painful part of my first two weeks in Belfast would be. When I finally escaped (aka left when I was legally allowed to do so), I walked all over the city to soak up my new home for a year. I walked over 17,000 steps, after two weeks of a daily average of about 250. I nearly fell over from exhaustion that night and was sure I had caught Covid (I hadn’t). But even so, then – and as much as possible in the few weeks since – walking around the City Centre has been the most peaceful part of this transition. Change and adjusting and culture shock are really hard sometimes. But Belfast is beautiful. And walking helps.
This September the International Student Experience team at HAPP ran a photo competition for International students with the theme: ‘Arriving in Belfast’. Below are three of the wonderful entries from our International student community.
By Clare French, MA in Violence, Terrorism and Security
Clare French: A New View of Belfast Arriving in Belfast this time around was unusual given the pandemic. My uncle picked me up at Glengall street and I was grateful to get the soggy, wrinkled mask off of my face. While we made our way through, the memories crept up one by one as if the city was waving back at me. Visions of date nights, Halloween, and Tesco picnics in Botanic filled my mind one by one. But I knew this time would be different. I’ll be here permanently and my interpretation of the city has to be more realistic. Now that I am a resident rather than a visitor, I see this city differently. I see myself splurging on dinner in Victoria’s Square, going for runs in Ormeau Park, studying at Common Grounds, and finding little reminders of home, even if its just a bag of Goldfish.
By Solyane Michaut, Undergraduate in Politics, Philosophy and Economics
Solyane Michaut: On the top of the world I first came in the city with my dad to visit Queen’s in February. It rained a lot, was very cold and extremely windy. And yet, I loved it. In fact I loved it so much that I decided to come here for three years! The first two weeks were dedicated to the visit of my room, the corridor, the living room and the kitchen. That’s on self-isolation… But as soon as I got out, I have been able to enjoy Belfast in its best autumn colours, and start to meet amazing people. From the castle to the MAC with a friend, strolling by cafe and bookstores, saying that I loved everything would be doing an affront to the way I really feel. I’m living a dream, my dream, and it can only get better.
By Mohaddeseh Ziyachi, PhD in Cognition and Culture
Mohaddeseh Ziyachi: Campus I have fallen in love with this Campus since before coming to Belfast! Every day that I walk to the office, I find the Lanyon building and the graduate school more gorgeous than the day before!
I took this photo of my next door neighbours, Gladys and Jack. Jack is in his 90s and they both came out every Thursday to clap for the NHS. They are an inspirational couple and still very much in love. They encouraged others to come out and clap and waved to everyone in the street. They are lovely neighbours to have and I am lucky to live next door.
I entered the photo for the Hold Still photo project run by the Duchess of Cambridge and my photo was chosen as one of the 100 final portraits selected by a panel of judges.
On 7 June 2020, angry protesters, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, pulled down the Edward Colston monument in Bristol. Objections to the depiction of someone who had been involved in the Atlantic slave trade had been made as early as 1920, but had become increasingly strong from the 1990s onward. At the time of its toppling, plans to add a plaque with information about Colston’s controversial background were being discussed by the Bristol City Council. While to some, the toppling of the statue was a victory after many years of protest, others, including Home Secretary Priti Patel, denounced it as an act of vandalism. London-based artist Marc Quinn, by contrast, saw the iconoclastic act as an opportunity to side with the protesters. On 15 July 2020, without Bristol City Council’s permission, he placed a depiction of the Black Lives Matter activist Jen Reid on the plinth. Within a few hours, the Council carefully removed it.
The events in Bristol show that attacks on public statues and artistic interventions can send out strong political messages, calling for societal change and the re-evaluation of past events. As Øivind Fuglerud, Kjersti Larsen and Marina Prusac-Lindhagen argue in the forthcoming book, Negotiating Memory from the Romans to the Twenty-First Century: Damnatio Memoriae, this is a widespread phenomenon. The editors use the term ‘Damnatio Memoriae’ not only to refer to its original meaning, (a modern Latin term for a practice in Ancient Rome whereby those in power posthumously erased widely known individuals from official history), but also to draw attention to the ways in which the production, destruction and in some cases re-production of material artefacts has been used to evaluate past events. In the case of Bristol, both statues will be put on display in a museum setting. Together with Black Lives Matter placards and personal accounts by people who participated in the protest, the exhibition will engage audiences in current debates about slavery, colonialism and racism.
Colston’s memorial will be kept in the state it was in when retrieved from the harbour: damaged and covered with graffiti. According to John Finch, Head of Culture at the City Council, museums need to ‘respond and engage with social issues and current concerns’, so the exhibition will recontextualise the work, presenting a narrative of racial inequality from a present-day, critical perspective.
It seems highly unlikely that Colston’s statue will ever be re-installed on its pedestal in Bristol’s city centre. But how sure are we about that?
As digital photographs and film footage of the falling statue started circulating on the Internet, I was reminded of a photograph, taken in 1918, of another toppled monument. In this case, it was a sandstone Baroque victory column, created by the seventeenth century Bohemian sculptor Jan Jiří Bendl, and pulled down by Czech nationalist radicals, not long after the establishment of independent Czecholosvakia. The sixteen meter tall column carried a statue of the Virgin Mary, and had been erected in 1650 in Prague to commemorate the 1648 victory of the Habsburg army over invading Swedish troops.
The destruction of the Marian Column was a highly symbolic act that marked the start of a new political era. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Czech revivalists had already begun to perceive the column as a symbol of political, cultural and religious oppression. The region had been under Habsburg rule for many centuries. A large monument for the church reformer and martyr Jan Hus, unveiled in 1915 on Old Town Square, reflected the new understanding of the past. Hus, who was burnt at the stake for anti-Catholic heresy in 1415, was anachronistically regarded as Czech national martyr.
The toppling of the Marian column was not approved by all citizens. As Cynthia Paces notes in Prague Panoramas: National Memory and Sacred Space in the Twentieth Century, various organisations, including the Charles-Ferdinand University and the art assotiation Mánes, accused the radical nationalists of pseudopatriotic sentiments, and objected to the destruction of what they saw as a high-quality baroque work of art that had embellished the city centre for 332 years. Prague City Council decided, however, to side with the protesters and sent the remains of the broken statue to the Lapidarium of the National Museum, presenting them as relics of a bygone political era.
Figure 1: The memorial plaque on Old Town Square, in the background the Jan Hus memorial. Photograph by the author, 2018.
One might think that that was the end of the story. In May 1990, however, a group of heritage supporters and representatives of the Catholic Church established The Society of the Recovery of the Marian Column and started to call for the return of the monument. In November 1993, the Society placed a plaque on Old Town Square that read ‘Here stood and will stand again The Marian Column of Old Town Square’ (Figure 1). The words ‘will stand again’ were soon cemented over by protesters (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Cemented over words on the memorial plaque. Photograph by the author, 2018.
This did not, however, discourage members of the Society. In 1996, they commissioned the sculptor and restorer Petr Váňa to create a full-size replica of the monument. Váňa travelled to India to source sandstone and completed the copy of the Virgin Mary statue in 2003. It was temporarily placed in the Church of Our Lady before Týn. As the work progressed, and the Society tried to convince the City Council that the monument should be erected, numerous proponents and opponents made passionate public statements. In an interview with radio Prague in 2013, the architect Zdeněk Lukeš explained that the Marian Column should return because it had been a ‘very important monument from a historical point of view … a wonderful example of Baroque art’. Others argued that the column would draw the attention to a relatively unknown moment in Bohemian history, namely the Swedish invasion, or that it was important not to boil down Catholicism to oppression. According to art historian Ludvík Hlaváček, the planned resurrection was an uninspiring, revisionist gesture that would not add any aesthetic or historical value to the already crowded square.
For decades, the reconstruction of the column was fiercely discussed and rejected several times by Prague City Council. To the surprise of many, the proposal eventually passed by a majority of votes in January 2020. Interviewed by Dnes, atriumphant Váňa claimed that the replica itself had persuaded the members of the council.
I am glad that we managed to bring the column to Prague by boat so that people could see it with their own eyes. I also invited all the deputies to whom I explained the story of the statue and what it would look like. Before that, everyone was talking about something no one had seen, and it was assumed that it didn’t even exist.
Perhaps the original sculptor, Jan Jiří Bendl, would have agreed that the work itself had persuasive power. From an anthropological perspective, however, objects and works of art gain meaning and impact in specific social and political contexts, as they are interpreted in specific ways.
Work on the re-erection of the victory column started on 15th February, and was completed during the quiet days of the Coronavirus Pandemic lockdown. Because of the quarantine, I was not able to travel to Prague photograph the process, so asked a friend, the artist Tadeáš Kotrbá, to send me a photograph of the reinstalled monument (Figure 3). It seems to, once again, have been built for eternity.
Art historian Hlaváček was still underimpressed. When I asked him for his opinion, he wrote that:
It was nonsense to place the column on the square, but they voted for it for populist reasons. I was there yesterday to see it. The square looks now overcrowded, both materially and ideologically. People still talk about Catholicism and Protestantism, as if it has some relevance today. So far, four angels are missing that were part of the original work, which probably shows the difference between Baroque and contemporary sculptural language.
Figure 3: The reconstructed Marian Column in Prague. Photograph by Tadeáš Kotrbá, July 2020.
Returning to the question whether the statue of Edward Colston will ever reappear on its pedestal, the history of the Marian Column suggests that the answers can only be: we don’t know. The column was destroyed more than three centuries after its construction. A replica appeared 112 years after its disappearance. In that time period, unforeseeable political transformations occurred: The Second World War, the Cold War, the Velvet Revolution, the rise of populism, and so on.
Who knows what will happen in 112 years time in Bristol, and for that matter: in the world at large? 2132 is a long time away.
Queen’s University Belfast and the independent public policy think tank Pivotal have together launched a series of podcasts on the impact of Covid–19 on key aspects of life in Northern Ireland.
In the latest episode, Dr Muiris MacCarthaigh from the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics joins Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Greer and Dr Joanne Murphy from Queen’s Management School to discuss leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The episode is hosted by Ann Watt, Director of Pivotal, an independent public policy think tank.
Having experienced a challenging period of restrictions, it remains important to look ahead – in particular to opportunities to come together once again. In that spirit, we are delighted to announce that we will be hosting the 2022 European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) conference here at the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen’s University Belfast.
This is the largest gathering of anthropologists in Europe and we look forward to welcoming everyone to Belfast for what we hope will be a great experience! This is also a great opportunity for colleagues and students to engage with anthropologists located in different countries, and specialising in a wide variety of topics.
MA Candidate in Conflict Transformation & Social Justice
COVID-19 has been referred to as the great pause, where so many plans are put on hold till we can meet again. Large events in particular have been greatly impacted, and it still remains unclear when they will be permitted again. As a postgraduate, this can be particularly concerning as conferences offer unique opportunities to learn and share research. However, if you still wish to go forward with conference planning, I can offer a few strategies to do so.
Recently, I was part of leading a postgraduate committee that successfully transformed our plans for an in-person conference to a virtual one. The ‘True’ Stories: Contesting Narrative of Violence Conference had only recently put out the call for papers when the lockdown began. Fortunately, the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute and HAPP supported the committee’s decision to move the conference online and we were able to continue advertising for submissions. After much hard work, the conference on 25 & 26 of May 2020 brought together activists, academics and practitioners to examine how, why and whose stories of violence are told in deeply divided societies. Over 190 people signed up to attend the live virtual event, reaching audiences across 19 countries. This was much more than initially expected. Split over two days, the conference included 10 speakers from several countries and two keynote addresses from Theo Wilson (activist) and Anand Pandian (John Hopkins Professor of Anthropology). The presentations, highlighting many systemic issues, were particularly timely in providing the opportunity to discuss narratives of injustice and dominant discourses. (Many of these presentations are now available online at https://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/GRI/mitchell-institute/ResearchandImpact/true-stories-contesting-narratives-of-violence/.) The striking success of the conference came down to the commitment of the committee and the support of the university.
Below is a basic guide to planning a virtual conference. Though it by no means covers everything that you may need to do, I hope that it might inspire you host your own conference.
TOOLS:
Our conference was planned using two tools, Eventbrite and Zoom, because we wanted the event to be free and open to the public. Both have great features which made the planning more streamlined. Eventbrite allows for guests to easily sign up for an event, is a great tool to communicate with and automatically monitors impact. The sales recap feature records and places the information you need into Excel sheets automatically. You can also schedule automatic email reminders for attendees. Although you should have a professional email set up for the conference, it can still be easier to reach attendees with Eventbrite. By this point most people are probably familiar with the free Zoom Meetings; however, in order to support a large number of attendees at one time, it is essential to have the Zoom Webinar* feature. There are different levels of this which will determine how many attendees you can have—fortunately for us, HAPP graciously shared their professional account. The webinar option is more secure, as attendees cannot share video or sound. Instead, interactions like questions for speakers can be done in the chat or Q&A feature. Should you know and trust a guest, the host can temporarily promote them to co-host to share video or sound. During our conference we had one person in charge of the tech (the host), controlling who had the ability to screen share and whose video was spotlighted. Overall, Zoom Webinar has a more professional appearance when utilized properly. This leads to the next aspect to consider—roles.
* Should you choose to use Zoom Meetings for your conference, some of the following will not be applicable.
ROLES:
For a Zoom conference to be as smooth as possible, it is important to have very clear roles. The following are some suggested roles for during the conference itself and prior. There can be overlap in these roles, and multiple people can share some of the responsibilities.
During the Virtual Conference:
HOST – The “host” is actually the term used by Zoom for the person in control of the technical aspects of the conference. They will be in charge of scheduling the Zoom Webinar itself and must carefully select the security features. They can set up practice sessions to familiarize themselves with everything. During the conference their job will be to make sure the right person’s video is spotlighted, take over control of screensharing if there is a problem and control who can or cannot join an event. For our conference, we allowed automatic entrance without the “waiting room” because we wanted the host to be free for other issues. This works on webinar since regular attendees don’t have video or sound. Should there be a problem, the host can remove someone. In our conference, the host was also in charge of playing a PowerPoint slide show during breaks. It is crucial this person have a steady internet connection.
On-Screen Host – This person is in charge of welcoming everyone to the conference and introducing the speakers. Their job will be to ensure transitions are smooth on screen, muting themselves and turning off video between to ensure there is no sound interference. They must always be on the ball, reading questions from attendees or thinking of their own to ensure a successful Q&A period. They can also be in charge of the closing—or you can choose to make that a group discussion.
Chat Monitor – This person will introduce the speaker bios into the public chat and respond to questions in the chat (if that is a feature you choose to allow). They will be in charge of making sure no one is a zoom crasher and alerting the host to any issues. They can place written reminders of the end of breaks into the chat too.
Speaker Liaison – this person ensures all speakers are ready and prepared to speak during the conference itself. They can do this by sending private messages in the zoom chat, a Whatsapp message or email depending on the needs of the speaker. Prior to the conference, they are in charge of communication with the speakers, collecting all PowerPoints (so the host can share it if there is an issue) and collecting bios for the programme.
Back-UpSupport– This team member is there in case something unexpectedly goes wrong and a role needs to be filled temporarily. You never know what will happen, so it is important that all team members stay connected throughout the chat.
Email Monitor – This team member will need to check the official email to make sure no attendee is having problems. You might be surprised at the number of last-minute zoom link requests.
Live Tweeter – This team member can live tweet pictures or quotes from the event.
Prior to the Conference:
Committee Lead – This team member is in charge of organizing meetings, connecting with the supporting institution/school and making sure each task is completed. They share notes from each meeting and help assign tasks if no one volunteers. They will have to set meeting agendas and ensure cooperation among team members.
Call for Papers Writers – These team members will need to carefully write a call for papers inviting submissions based on the appropriate theme.
Keynote Liaison – This team member is in charge of working to ensure keynote speakers are kept informed and provide the necessary publicity information. Likely, they will have performed the initial contact and remain in touch so that there is consistency.
Speaker Liaison – see above.
Designer – This team member will be in charge of the designing logos, programmes, certificates and other publicity aspects to prepare for the conference. Once all the speaker info is collected they place it into the programme, create posters and design media for the publicity team. They also create a PowerPoint to be played during breaks of the conference.
Attendee Liaison – This team member will be in charge of the Eventbrite and setting up emails to go to attendees with the zoom link. They will need to send the zoom link a few hours prior to the conference, and a reminder email at conference time. Also, after the conference is over, they can send the follow-up email with links or surveys.
Publicity Team – These team members are in charge of publicizing the conference on social media (setting up event accounts is a good plan), university accounts and other appropriate media. They will need to coordinate hashtags, post frequently and connect with the QUB publicity team. They should also email the call for papers to other universities and follow their social media accounts to advertise the conference.
Team Member – They provide ideas and suggestions, volunteering for tasks as they are able.
TO DO LIST:
Though some may seem obvious, it never hurts to be share! This to do list is about what must be done after you establish the basic plan–pick a theme, write a call-for-papers and set a date. It does not include everything the team must do or the dates by which to do them, but is meant to give you a pretty thorough idea.
Set up an official event email, Eventbrite (some details can be changed later), and social media accounts.
Publicize the call for papers everywhere (and don’t be afraid to look outside of the university system or global north).
Do a countdown for the call for papers deadline (and later the conference itself).
Have each team member read over speaker submission and suggest keynotes.
Get keynotes signed on, and decide when it is best to feature them in the conference.
Select the speakers, collecting abstracts and bios for the programme and connecting to their social media. If you plan to record, send out publicity waivers.
Pick a time that works for speakers and international attendees. (We found 2-6pm to be best as our speakers were primarily from Europe and North America.)
Ensure that each speaker has an appropriate time slot and knows their time limit.
Set a deadline to collect all PowerPoint presentations from speakers, that way if there is a technical issue, the host can share it for them.
Heavily advertise the updated Eventbrite link, emphasizing space limits (and continue this until conference).
Announce the Keynote Speakers – connect to their social media (at least 3 weeks before the Conference) and publicize across several platforms.
Announce the schedule, including all speaker names/times (the next week) and publicize across several platforms. Update the Eventbrite to include this schedule.
Share the official programme with attendees (via your official email account since Eventbrite doesn’t let you share) one week prior to the conference.
Repeatedly send out the programme again until your deadline to sign up closes.
Prepare a PowerPoint to play during breaks (*if you wish to use music, make sure it is royalty free).
Hold a practice zoom webinar with your team members and (if available) speakers to practice screen-sharing and the various settings. You can invite friends to be test attendees too. Make sure everyone is comfortable with their roles and has the information they need.
Set up the conference zoom meeting, being sure that all co-hosts (speakers and team members) are invited via zoom and the desired security features are selected.
Send out the zoom link to all attendees at least 5 hours before the conference. Send a reminder email just before it starts too. (You can schedule this via Eventbrite)
If you are recording the event, hit record at the start.
While the conference is happening, be sure to take notes to use during the closing to thank everyone or live tweet.
Send thank you gifts and certificates to speakers
Send a thank you email to all attendees and speakers with appropriate links to the recording. (We recommend cutting the recording down to individual speakers to make it easier to watch.)
Celebrate! You successfully hosted a conference with international reach.
If you have any questions, you can also reach out to pgr20@qub.ac.uk. There may be a bit of delay in response, but we will get back to you when we can.
