Who is Funding Ireland’s Black Queer Art Scene?

As purveyors of cynical right wing clickbait, The Burkean has taken excessive interest in the nation’s burgeoning black (queer) art scene. 

From a left-wing microgallery sucking up generous amounts of state funding, to BLM inspired art collectives allegedly playing fast and loose with their GoFundMe donations, we remain glued to the content creation of our sassy cultural colonisers.

With this understood, imagine our glee when we stumbled upon the latest offering from our Afro-queer community in the form of  Bla-Q, “an unapologetically queer celebration of Black folk here in Ireland.”

A product of the arts collective OriginsEile, ‘Bla-Q’ is a postering and photography campaign highlighting the contributions of Afro-queer folk to Irish history, existing both on and offline. 

Consisting of rather narcissistic photoshoots with members of the black queer community, the exhibition has been creatively assisted by RTÉ presenter Zainab Boladale and the production firm Goldmouth media.

Following on from the BLM postering campaign of 2020, those passing through Dublin city may have already seen some of these posters dotted around, likely adjacent to the many homeless Gaels savouring their white privilege. 

In short if you’re wondering why out of focus photographs of African homosexuals have appeared in your parish you can blame these folks.

OriginsEile has previously come to our attention for the ire they had generated among the left for the collection of €30k worth of donations for their ‘Black Pride Ireland’ campaign, followed by accusations of their alleged mismanagement of funds. 

In all probability, the rather self indulgent postering campaign is the group burning through the cash they raised last year.

Helping to celebrate Black History Month (its celebrated in October in Ireland), OriginsEile has additionally fundraised using online drag events with a previous art exhibition ‘Divination’ taking a look at the potential for ‘Queer Afrofuturism’ in the Irish context.

Explaining it better than any reactionary clickbait writer ever could, the motivation for the project is in the words of its creators-

“To remind y’all that although Irish history and culture is full of tales of resistance, rebellion and liberation, our Island identity is still largely defined and built upon structures of whiteness. Black Irish history is obscured, deemed unimportant, marginal and difficult to access. But Black folk are still here resisting, rebelling and pushing for liberation every day.”

Certainly to remind us Paddies of our history, the folks at OriginsEile have even taken to augmented ticketing prices at their events for ‘white folx’ at €12 a pop while BIPOCs go free.

So Americanised in their thinking, the concept of an Irish person being indigenous to Ireland is anathema to the organisers. In a country where Irish Catholics have struggled even until the recent conflict in the North for their right to exist on equal terms, these outsiders wade into our civic space transposing American racial politics onto our shores.

While their website remains strangely void of content, their online footprint gives a flavour of the type of art being produced as well as their participation in the Dublin Fringe Festival.

Overall, the exhibition antagonises the senses, not just for being wasteful, but being symptomatic of the extent to which American cultural imports can set the tempo on the Irish art scene. A small mercy is that these exhibits were probably bankrolled by the GoFundme donations of moronic white allies rather than the taxpayer themselves. 

To be clear, OriginsEile is the art of the coloniser rather than the colonised. The mania of last year, which ratcheted up the institutional decay just that bit more, has left a small cadre of well connected activists with deep pockets and even deeper connections to carve out a comfortable existence off a sea of patrons.

Every Bla-Q poster I cycle past is a gentle stab to the heart due to the extent to which this country and specifically our city has fallen prey to late stage American racial politics.

Our resident intellectual Ulick Fitzhugh has opined on the need for aesthetic taste when it comes to germinating any actual national resistance, but surely OriginsEile indicates the sheer dearth of artistic talent we see with the globalist regime.

These people exist solely to service American cultural power and will thrive so long as that Imperium exerts its will on our island.

The space remains open for dissident artists of the right to present an aesthetic challenge, a feat that this publication will go to every end to assist. The popular arts mimic a nation’s soul and the art of OriginsEile is the art of an occupying power seeking to strangle the aesthetic resilience of the Irish nation.

Let us ensure they fail.