TRACES fanzine #06

This issue presents the essay “Squaring The Circle: Some thoughts on tracing the remains of Long Kesh/Maze prison in Northern Ireland” by Martin Krenn and Aisling O’Beirn. “The Circle” is a term that is commonly used for an area in the “H Blocks” of the former prison Long Kesh/Maze that contained the administrative hub and was continually surveyed using CCTV. Although the prison shut its gates nearly 20 years ago (2000s), the surveillance of The Circle continues to be “broadcast” by a surveillance box monitor, that is one example of infrastructural hardware which made it past the prison gates after its closure. Many other objects and artefacts from the prison still survive, despite much of it being demolished in 2013. As well as artefacts that were once part of the fabric or administration of the prison, artworks made in the prison also exist.

The dialogical art project Transforming Long Kesh/Maze (TRACES CCP5) investigates the material culture of the Maze/Long Kesh site based on collaboration and dialogue.