On Saturday we had the second of our three XBorders: Accord project sessions, this one taking place in the Playhouse Theatre in Derry. 

One of the group, a writer called Sue Divin who is also a community development manager in the city, took us on a guided tour of the walls which certainly blew the cobwebs away and got me thinking about physical borders and changing perspectives. 

One of our other XBorder comrades, Rory Duffy, came up with a good name for us...a "puck" of writers...and this epic video to match!  

We then had a seminar led by Michael Doherty, which touched lightly on his mediation work but delved into his personal history and the history of the city, and the set of historical, geo-political and personal circumstances that led him into this field of work in which he has had a long and distinguished career. 

After all that we were almost too wiped out to write (what am I saying, I am never too wiped out to write) but we had a great session with Maria McManus and Freya McClements on the shifting ways in which we are all starting to think about, write about and feel anxious about borders and barriers - political and otherwise. 

Then, after a long day, it was time for us to pile into the poetry-mobile and head homewards to Belfast, across a countryside sliding into dusk, the border between day and night, along roads crisscrossed with lines of communication. 

I spent this evening doing a site visit and some field recordings for a new project I'm working on as part of House Taken Over, a weekend of talks, performances and artist responses within a historical home in South Belfast, curated by Hickey + Hickey.

House Taken Over is presented as part of the Sonorities Festival organised by the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queen’s which this year has as its focus techno-human encounters and matters such as machine listening and audio coding, and forms of listening, sounding and voicing embodiment and affect.

The exhibition and events programme takes place from 20th - 22nd April 2018. Viewing is by appointment only. For more information, to book an event or to view the exhibition please email: [email protected]