Imagining the concrete thrill of borderlessness

In the third of our series in support of the ‘National Campaign for the Arts’ series, RITA DUFFY contemplates what the pandemic has meant on life.

WE are all of us, connected. And a katabasic wind has blown us inward on fearful Covid breath.

The robust heartfelt kindness and romance of community reassures us all will be well. Ourselves alone, the ghost of a memory flits through my head. Superstitious ribbons and rags impaled on thorns, suffering on, offering it up, enduring at all costs doing the right thing. Amulets threaded with nostalgia plead for a better future, a borderless place both snug and wide open. With a doorway never needing to be closed. I want to imagine not the threat of freedom or its tentative, grasping fragility, but the concrete thrill of borderlessness.

‘Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within’ - James Baldwin

Rita Duffy is a renowned visual artist from Belfast living and working in Ballyconnell. Her work can be found in several major public collections, including the IMMA and London’s Imperial War Museum.