Belfast, Northern Ireland
Adam Turkington is a Belfast-based creative producer, cultural organizer, and one of the driving forces behind the city’s contemporary street-art scene. Founder of the Hit the North festival and a longtime advocate for public art, he has helped transform Belfast’s walls from symbols of division into spaces for creativity, community, and shared identity. Working at the intersection of art, placemaking, and social change, Turkington connects artists, neighborhoods, businesses, and audiences through murals, events, exhibitions, and cultural projects. His work is rooted in a simple belief: great art can help people feel more connected to the places they live and to one another.
Belfast, Northern Ireland
“I think good art speaks to people, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a child from a Protestant background, or a granny from a Catholic background, or a refugee from Syria, or an alien from Mars. Good art makes you go, ‘Holy shit… I feel slightly better than I did before I encountered that piece of art.’ And that feeling slightly better has real-world implications in terms of your connection with community and space and place.”
“I had a wall now”:
“There was a mural that was painted overnight on the night that John Peel died… it said ‘Teenage Dreams, So Hard to Beat.’ …I cried when I saw it. I cried because Peel was dead, but also because I had a wall now.
I’d grown up in a city where all the walls and all the murals were for identities that I didn’t really relate to. Suddenly I was like, ‘Oh shit… I have a wall now. There’s a wall that connects me physically with this place in a way that I’ve never been connected before.’
That’s why I always say on the tour, ‘We speak wall here.’ We understand the language of walls.”
Responsibility to the city:
“I want everyone who paints here to be aware of the power they have to make people feel better about the place that they live.
I want them to know that it’s not just a way of paying your bills. It’s a way of building community… making this place better. They have a responsibility in that regard.
We’ve really stood in the way of commercial murals coming to Belfast… We’re trying to raise the tide so that all boats go up.”
The fragile beauty of community:
“For a hot minute… that space… everybody felt it. Everybody felt like, ‘This is incredible. This doesn’t happen very often.’
I’ve had it a few times in my life.
People are dicks, but people are the best.
Whenever people aren’t dicks, and there’s this sense of collectivism and togetherness and community, those are the little beautiful moments you’ve got to grasp with both hands…
There are people who go through their whole lives and never experience that level of community… Whenever you have it, you’ve got to hold on to it as hard as you can.”
Final words:
“I’m not trying to fix the world. I’m just trying to have some fun and make people feel better about life. I’m trying to make the place that I live slightly cooler and look prettier.
I grew up in the Troubles, right? And you think it’s normal until it’s over. And then you realize, ‘Oh my God… that was really shit. This is what normal life is for normal people.’
To read the introduction to this series, follow this link.
The Troubles: Finding a Path Toward Healing in Northern Ireland
To listen to our podcast, follow this link or find us on the platform of your choice.
A Peace of My Mind on Buzzsprout
Credits:
Interview and photo: John Noltner
Field production: summer interns Kate West, Sawyer Garrison, and Kaitlin Imai
Audio engineering: Razik Saifullah