Roamer: Artworks made from East Belfast’s ephemera and artefacts

“Most people are right handed,” John explained, “so when you’re up a ladder, at night, after a few beers, you’ve got to get the flag down and put another one up and it’s a natural instinct to throw the old one to the right.”

And that’s where he retrieved them for his forthcoming exhibition entitled “Try we must - the impossible task of squaring the circle” being held in the Vault Artist Studios gallery in Belfast’s Victoria Street.

I met John there this week, in his studio, holding a section of twisted, partially-melted lamppost. It had been too close to an 11th night bonfire and will soon be part of a sculpture.

Scattered liberally throughout his studio are countless other “ephemera and artefacts” waiting to become artworks - the branch of a tree, antique drawing office equipment, wire from burnt car tyres, a torn drum-skin….

But the most prominent evidence of his art, in boxes, on shelves, on the studio floor and on his work bench - flags, lots of flags - cloth, paper and plastic flags.

Torn, tattered and burnt flags. Parts of flags, fastenings, bits of poles and metal eyelets.

John describes his forthcoming exhibition as “an examination of the sensitive subject of identity, emblems and commemoration here in Northen Ireland” mostly using flags, found and/or donated, which he has “deconstructed and reconfigured.”

I wondered what all this ultimately means. “People here (in East Belfast) profess allegiance and loyalty, that the flag is a precious thing,” John explained, “yet, and I think it’s down to commercialism and the throw-away society, it cost a fiver - so what - rip it down. It’s an easy thing to do!”

He says his artwork explores “identity, loss, remembrance and respect” and it all began about a decade ago with a flag which he “walked past for four years taking my son to school.”

After that amount of protracted flapping the flag was a mere tatter of fabric on a rusty metal eyelet. When it was replaced and discarded - on the right hand side of its lamppost - “I just knew I had to pick it up” John admitted.

He mounted the frayed fragment “in a picture frame, elevating it” and named it ‘To worship the last thread as a relic’ - “which comes from the US Navy flag code which I thought was a lovely phrase,” he explained, “and that was the start of it, the key to it all.”

John’s exhibition, being opened on 1st August by Belfast’s High Sheriff, councillor Sammy Douglas, is composed of all sorts of ephemera and artefacts that Baucher salvaged from the streets, alleys, footpaths and flagpoles of East Belfast.

I wondered if he’s like a magpie, hoarding assorted trinkets in his ‘nest’?

“Magpie” he repeated doubtfully “I don’t know, but I get obsessed with things. That might be a better description!”

Does he go looking, or are his ‘discoveries’ by chance? “Mostly I just come across things,” he admitted, “I prefer that, particularly with the photography. I don’t go out saying ‘I’m going to take photos’. I’d rather encounter things. I think that’s more naturalistic.”

Photographs of 150 pallet blocks from various 11th night bonfire sites are incorporated into his photo-montage entitled 'Boney Blocks'.

His exhibition poster shows a sculpture made out of interlocking flag eyelets, secured by plastic cable ties. He is compiling a mosaic with multiple Red Hands cut from Ulster flags. And he has retrieved burnt remnants of a tricolour from the ashes of a bonfire.

“It’s difficult to condense down into thought,” he told me, adding, “There are so many strands and layers and levels to it.”

John’s Great Uncle Gough Quinn, a WWII chaplain, was killed by a mortar in 1943. Gough’s father was a WWI chaplain in the 36th Ulster Division “They’re never very far from my thoughts when I’m working with flags” John explained. His exhibition opens at 6pm on 1st August, and runs daily 12 to 6 until 14th August in Vault Artist Studios, 28-32 Victoria Street, Belfast.