Via Ferrata Project ongoing

Shipsides and Beggs Projects.

Developed during WW1 by Italian military, Via Ferrata (Iron Way) is a system aiding movement to gain the strategic mountain summits of the Alps/Dolomites. It exists as installed metal rungs and wires up otherwise inaccessible mountainsides.

Developed during WW1, Via Ferrata (Iron Way) is a system aiding movement to gain the strategic mountain summits of the Alps/Dolomites. It exists as installed metal rungs and wires up otherwise inaccessible mountainsides.

These mountainous peaks were the scenes of some of the most extreme and horrific war activity. This Italian Front is often referred to as the forgotten front.

Using experiential and the poetically expanded possibilities of (the term) Via Ferrata it combines field research (climbing Via Ferrata, making drawings, texts and lens based footage) with desk research (WW1 Italian Front in WW1, the development of Via Ferrata and the wider contexts of Modernism, Fascism, Futurism and Environmentalism within European history) and creative studio research. In doing so it imaginatively connects research around the UVF / Ulster divisions in WW1 in relation to contemporary Loyalism and to an expanded concept of Via Ferrata.

Artworks such as 6Star, Ulster Iron Way and Still Not Out Of The Woods explore creative possibilities around the imagery and legacy of WW1 from a Northern Ireland context – cross referenced to wider European contexts and to experiential Via Ferrata.

Via Ferrataferatu (video work) explores physical, psychological space where levels of the experiential and liminal overlap suggesting a supernatural space of embodied perception - a space beyond what is seen.

Marmolada Beez combines experiential with dialogical methods – where an incident whilst climbing Mt Marmolada triggers a creative response allowing poetic connections with history, society and culture.

Ulster Iron Way / Marmolada Beez 2010
Marmolada Beez 2010 (text and image)
Still not out of the woods 2009

Other connected works:

6Star (Shipsides / SBP) 2010
Via Ferrataferatu (Shipsides / SBP) 2010