‘Stop Ruining Everything’: Array Collective's Disruptive Encounters with Art, Irishness and Nation

The socially engaged art of Belfast-based Array Collective is concerned with socio-political issues in Northern Ireland such as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, climate change and language rights. In 2021, Array Collective won the coveted Turner Prize – a British art prize awarded to British contemporary artists – for their immersive installation The Druthaib's Ball (2021). The Druthaib's Ball is a síbín, a ‘pub without permission’, comprised of over 250 artworks, material objects and protest banners; and a 35-minute performance film Wake the Centenary that picks apart ideologies, political institutions, well-worn cultural tropes and imagery. Envisioned as a wake for the partition of Ireland (1921) and marking its centenary, the installation draws upon Array's clever tongue-in-cheek humour. First exhibited in Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry (2021) as part of the Turner Prize exhibition, The Druthaib's Ball then travelled to Galway Arts Centre (August-September 2022) and was most recently installed in the Ulster Museum (February-September 2023). Exhibition programming at various locations offered generative engagements with the work. Array Collective's feminist, queer, and anti-imperialist activist underpinnings unsettle ideas about nation and art, as evident in the debate ignited amongst British and Northern Irish art critics as to the value of such work. This article is underpinned by a conceptual framework that draws together socially engaged art, citizenship, and protest. It considers how Array Collective's art weaves together the processes of performative interaction, participation and challenges to power, bringing visibility to particular social issues through creative activism, emphasising the potential for broader civic engagement through contemporary art. This article argues that The Druthaib's Ball animates a vital space where people gather beyond traditional political spaces and sectarian divides, producing disruptive encounters that unsettle commonly held understandings of art, ‘Irishness’ and nation.