"Art Is Not A Mirror It's a F***ing Hammer": André Stitt’s confrontational engagement with the legacy of the Troubles

This paper explores a series of public performances staged by Northern Irish artist André Stitt, whose body of work began amidst the extreme violence of Troubles-era Belfast, and evolved to reach global audiences in the years leading up to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Growing up in a working-class, Protestant family during the bloodiest years of the Troubles, Stitt’s work is indelibly marked by his experiences of trauma and addiction, and is shaped by questions of culture, identity, and belonging. Stitt devised a series of public gestures that reflected his desire for art to effect change, and break through the veneer of societal norms. His street interventions offer a powerful insight into the impact of cultural division and the legacy of trauma in Northern Ireland, which remains under explored in contemporary art historical discussion. In this paper, I will chart the evolution of Stitt’s confrontational engagement with the past, from his earliest public performances in Belfast (Art Is Not A Mirror It’s a F***ing Hammer), to his move to London in the 1980s (Duck Patrol), and finally his return to his hometown at the turn of the 21st century (Conviction). I discuss Stitt’s controversial strategy of restaging acts of violence, including punishment attacks, to process the residual trauma of living within a conflict zone, and resolve lingering feelings of guilt, complicity, and shame.