Sam’s Eden Cover by Richard Martin [Chris Killp 1980-85 British Photography from The Thatcher Years, Susan Kismaric The Museum of Modern Art NY 1990]

Dear Sam,

What has the last twelve months been? Not being able to see you. To touch you. To hear from you.

The absence of physical contact from our community has made us retire to the ‘virtual’ unreal spaces - creeping, sneaking around in the digital, sterilized shadows that are all too familiar.

We made our Eden in the spaces between the lines, between the verses and between the buildings, we shared our Eden across the vast tundras of time; a bullet piercing history, forcing us to share an impact on and on and on and on, leaving only a hole/a void/ an opening in which to sneak a peek at the future. Have they listened, do they know who we are?

This book is an artefact of now for later. It contains the stories/experiences/dreams/histories of our community

it is for us, for ALL THE QUEERS

it is for you, it is a beginning!

It was cultivated in a time of death (to be dramatic) it was grown out of an unsure future and the fragility of the present - something common to our history …no? - It has been tended to by writers, artists poets and activists and has propagated new networks of thoughts, stories, and ideas. It is more than what you could have ever dreamed,

All my Love,

SAM'S EDEN is a new publication from Catalyst Arts celebrating Queer artists and writers in 2021. This artefact of a non physical exhibition showcases the work of fourteen LGBTQIA+ individuals and groups and explores queer occupation of physical and virtual spaces.

Available to purchase from Catalyst Arts Gallery (Belfast) and Good Press (Glasgow) as well as selection of independent artist book shops in England, Scotland and Ireland (more details to follow)

SAM”S EDEN is a limited edition publication of 100 copies.

Contributors included; Richard Martin, Ruth McCarthy, Day Magee, Claire Biddles, the LGBTQIA Steering Group, Jennifer Mehigan and Bassam Al-Sabah, Charlie Beare, Sorcha Ní Cheallaigh, Mark Cousins, Padriag Regan and Phillip McCrilly, Yarli Allison and Michaela Nash and Richard O’Leary with special thanks to Ben Malcolmson. SAM’S EDEN was designed by Manchester based collective Shy Bairns and curated and edited by Thomas Wells with editorial collaboration by Manuela Moser. Supported by ACNI and Art Fund in Belfast 2020/2021

richard martin.jpg — Richard Martin

**Richard Martin** (he/him) is a Glasgow based multi-disciplinary artist, working with collage and print material being a focus of his 2D work. A some-time collaborator with Belfast artist Sighle Bhreathnach-Cashell, he recently completed his masters degree at Glasgow School of Art.

Ruth McCarthy.jpg — Ruth McCarthy

**Ruth McCarthy** (she/her) is Artistic Director of Outburst Arts in Belfast, developing queer arts and education in the North of Ireland through the annual festival. She works with queer/LGBTQ+ arts producers and activists in the Global South and Caribbean - and more recently North Africa and the Middle East - to support the development of queer arts networks, training, commission and knowledge sharing.

Imp of the Perverse by Arthur Rackham 1856 from Fill Your Boots an essay by Ruth McCarthy — *Imp of the Perverse* by Arthur Rackham 1856 *from* Fill Your Boots an essay by Ruth McCarthy

[still from] The Garden of Jarman by Day Magee

Day Magee .jpg — Day Magee

**Day Magee** (they/them) is a gender queer performance and visual artist based in Dublin. Much of their work has concerned the developmental role of shame-based trauma in relationship to the queer, sick body.

“Post-Will, the young homosexual’s choice was often between being the freak doing a Spice Girls medley or choosing a Whitney song but switching the gender to make it about a girl, something that of course Whitney herself would have been at least indifferent about. Once artistically used, pronouns became a signifier of authenticity, each switch or non-switch either grinned and accepted if it was right (straight) or relentlessly queried if it was wrong (gay). There’s nothing where she used to lie – killing me softly with her song – you go back to him and I’ll go back to black. Each ‘right’ one like a stone in a shoe.”

— from She Needs Your Votes! essay by Claire Biddles

Claire Biddles.jpg — Claire Biddles

**Claire Biddles** (she/her) writes about pop music, film and fandom with a focus on feminist/queer readings and the politics of desire. She is a regular contributor to The Wire, The Line of Best Fit and The Singles Jukebox, and her writing has appeared in publications including MAP, Little White Lies, and Dazed, plus a number of zines, indie publications and exhibition catalogues.
She edits the pop star crushes zine Fuck What You Love and lives in Glasgow, Scotland.

Jennifer Mehigan and Bassam Al-Sabah

**A Paradise out of a Common Field**
The images above are part of an ongoing collaborative practice between Mehigan and Al-Sabah.
**Jennifer Mehigan’s** (she/her) work spans multiple platforms. She is currently a PhD researcher at the Belfast School of Art, with a project engaged in West Cork graveyards, queer Irish garden histories, and inter-species/dimensional/planetary communication
**Bassam Al-Sabah** works across digital animation, painting, sculpture and textiles to convey intricate visions of war, resistance and perseverance. Themes such as displacement, nostalgia and personal mythology are explored through reference to Japanese anime cartoons, which were dubbed into Arabic and broadcast throughout the Middle East from the 1980s to today

The Geographic Tongue - Poems by Padraig Regan, guided cruise with refreshments by Phillip McCrilly [images by Ben Malcolmsom]

phillip mccrilly.jpg — Phillip McCrilly

**Phillip McCrilly** (he/him) is a Belfast-based artist, curator and chef. Interested in the transgressive and interdisciplinary possibilities of food, hospitality and education. He is a member of FRUIT SHOP, a collective of Belfast based artists considering the city’s ecosystem as a fertile site for research. Working within a suburban residential café, they merge food production and grassroots growing initiatives with local food histories.

padraig regan.jpg — Padraig Regan

**Padraig Regan** (they/them) is the author of two poetry pamphlets: Delicious (Lifeboat Press, 2016) and Who Seemed Alive & Altogether Real (Emma Press, 2017) They are currently Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queens University Belfast.

Yarli’s flower propagation series - Yarli Allison 2020 - ongoing

“M: Accents are a mix of all these different layers. But then Mum has never picked up a Northern Irish accent. She’s been living here for 25 years, kept her accent

Y: That’s the identity (laughs) do you find people can’t really identify you?

M: Yeah they ask where are you from,
and I think well that’s a story

Y: You get asked a lot?

M: It’s usually the first thing they ask, people sometimes stop me on the street to ask me what country I’m from, in Belfast, even though I’m half Irish, and I’m like, I’ve lived in this country my entire life, go away (laughs)
—————————————————————————————
Y: I think it happens to a lot of people,
Like when I’m in Hong Kong. Hong Kong people will be like oh where do you live?

It comes so often that we have to answer, where are you from? It’s a really basic question, then we have to spill out all our history; my parents are this, I was born here, I lived here, I’m maybe mixed race, I speak this language. There’s so many things you can pull together. Same with your Mom probably.
——————————————————————————————-
M: In the piece, when they return to Hong Kong, they’re kind of in between

H: Yes because they no longer have the same history and people don’t relate to them cause they see them as outsiders
”

— from Methods for Root Propagation - Michaela Nash (with Yarli Allison)

yarli allison.jpg — Yarli Allison

**Yarli Allison** (she/her) embodies ‘emotional geographies’ to compose fictitious scenarios that are seemingly hopeful and functional, yet on the verge of falling apart. Her recent work, references her early age refuge-seeking experiences with ‘digital gamification’ in cyberspace

Michaela Nash

**Michaela Nash** (she/they) is an artist/arts writer, born in Belfast, NI. She works with photography, video installation and sculpture, and is a member of Lucinda Collective (IR). She recently graduated with a Fine Art Media and Visual Culture BA from NCAD Dublin (2021)

Love Letters - Richard O’Leary [images by Ben Malcolmson 2021)

R: Front of Valentine’s Card - A card sent from Mervyn to Richard, early 1990’s

L: Inside of Valentine’s Card - Mervyn uses coded language, before decriminalisation of same sex relations in the Republic of Ireland in 1993. C was for Closest and M was for Mostest. N was for Nearest and D was for Dearest

Love Letters was an online event for SAM’s EDEN by Richard O’Leary in conversation with Thomas Wells on 18th March 2021

Love Letters - Richard O’Leary [58:30]

richard o'leary.jpg — Richard O’Leary

**Richard O’Leary** (he/him) is a fairy from Cork. A former Oxford don and lecturer in sociology at Queen’s University Belfast, he has abandoned statistical modelling for the archives and embraced performance storytelling. Richard’s fairy stories are true!

ben malcolmson.jpg — Ben Malcolmson

**Ben Malcolmson** (he/him) is a photographer based in Belfast, NI. Ben works with photography, video and sculpture exploring alternative processes with relation to one’ land and identity.
Ben documented projects **The Geographic Tongue** and **Love Letters** for Sam’s Eden.
**Original artworks by Ben Malcolmson will be available to purchase through the Catalyst Arts gallery (*details to follow*)**

shy bairns.jpg — Shy Bairns

**Shy Bairns** are an artist collective interested in the intersections of contemporary art and bookmaking, and the activation of projects within that space. Shy Bairns is a collaborative practice of Izzy Kroese, Erin Blamire, Eleanor Haswell and George Gibson, who have worked together since 2016

Sam's Eden

Dear Sam,

All my Love,