imagine festival

Launch of Imagine! Belfast Festival 2022. Road testing new ideas…

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The Imagine! Belfast Festival of Ideas & Politics returns for its 8th annual outing next month with another huge range of events involving keynotes such as Michael Ignatieff, Tom Robinson, Kit de Waal, Michael Longley and a host of exciting arts and cultural events. Taking place during 21-27 March, the strictly non-partisan festival offers up an eclectic week of talks, workshops, theatre, comedy, music, exhibitions, film and tours and with over 150 in-person and live events, there’s bound to be something of interest …

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Bill Wolsey on his idea to turn Belfast city centre into a living museum for Belfast? And the role of awkward individuals in making change happen! #imaginebelfast

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Bill Wolsey outlines his idea for Belfast city centre to be a living museum with museum artefacts displayed in shop windows, bring the museum to the people. His idea hasn’t had much traction with the Ulster Museum,but he’s pitched it again as part of Imagine! Festival’s Build Belfast Back Better initiative. He also explains the role of awkward individuals in making progress happen.

To 2031 and beyond … Neil Hegarty’s vision of this island in ten years’ time #imaginebelfast

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Talking to writer and novelist Neil Hegarty about the talk ‘2031’ he will deliver at next week’s Imagine! festival, imagining what this island might look like in a decade and asking whether we’re prepared for the political, societal, environmental changes that will surely have a huge impact on the way life is going to play out?

Queen’s at Imagine Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics…

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This year’s Imagine Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics will run from 22-28 March and will explore the theme ‘The State of Us’ with more than 100 online events, 16 of which are being run by Queen’s staff. All Queen’s events are free to attend. Kicking off the Queen’s events this year is a special panel discussion with some of the key journalists and academics who, for the past few years, have been guiding us through all things Brexit. The Guardian‘s Lisa …

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Build Belfast Back Better – #imaginebelfast wants your ideas

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Ahead of next week’s packed programme, Imagine! festival are calling for your ideas to imagine a better post-pandemic Belfast. How would you Build Belfast Back Better? You can submit up to three ideas that reimagine the city in the face of the pandemic and the challenges presented by Brexit, increased poverty, loneliness and mental health issues.

New Virtual Festival Launched in Northern Ireland as a Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic

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The Imagine! Belfast Festival, forced to abandon over 90 public events because of the Covid-19 pandemic, is going virtual layer this week with much of its programme going online to ensure that audiences don’t miss out. In an imaginative response to the crisis, the popular event has been re-organised as a digital offering with over 25 events streamed during 25-27 March. The virtual festival, the first of its kind in Northern Ireland, will be free to view on the Imagine! …

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Free event – Imagine: The UK’s Future Relationship with the EU…

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The date for the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union draws ever closer. EU leaders have previously agreed the political declaration that sets out the broad aspirations for the kind of relationship the UK and the EU envisage having after Brexit. But what will this so-called ambitious, broad, deep and flexible partnership actually look like? And how will it, and more immediately UK withdrawal from the EU, impact on the many areas of collaboration that have been built up over 45 years of …

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Get your free tickets for our ‘7 Ways to Make Northern Ireland Great Again!’ live event…

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Next Thursday the 23rd of March we are running a live event ‘7 Ways to Make Northern Ireland Great Again!’. We are running it in association with Stratagem as part of the Imagine Festival. We are hosting the event in the Dark Horse Bar and the event kicks off at 7:30pm. Tickets are free and you can book them here… Opinion differs on whether Northern Ireland was ever great. But we’d like you to join the Slugger O’Toole team and our …

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Dialogue Day – Is it time for the public to engage in dialogue?

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We are what we talk. Going by what we read today in social media in Northern Ireland and everywhere else – all that commentary by ordinary people and celebrities: we are fairly outraged people and willing to let loose on each other. This is related to distance and anonymity and clearly not the case when we meet face to face.

Imagining Belfast as a cultural commons…

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“What would Belfast look like, sound like, feel like, taste like, if the city was a cultural commons?” asks the event description on the Imagine Festival’s website.  It was this question that drew me to my first-ever Imagine Festival event, a so-called “conversational seminar” entitled “Imagining Belfast as a Cultural Commons,” hosted by Voluntary Arts Ireland and held at City Hall on Monday. Between the plethora of events organized for this year’s self-described “Festival of Ideas & Politics” and the …

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