The “ecological disaster” that has unfolded in Lough Neagh is to be explored as part of a new art exhibition.
Called ‘Nature’s Revolt’, the six-week display in Lurgan aims to bring together shore communities to “show collectively what Lough Neagh means to us all”.
Organisers, the Save Lough Neagh campaign, also say they want the exhibition to “raise our voices together to demand better for this precious natural resource”.
It comes after toxic blue-green algae, or bacteria, bloomed in vast stretches of the lake - the biggest freshwater body in the UK and Ireland - last summer.
Deadly to animals and the ability to make people ill, it led to some bathing bans and warning signs being erected at popular tourist sites.
The art exhibition is due open on Friday at Oxford Island Discovery Centre, on the south shore of the lough.
The organisers said the exhibition is “art meeting activism” and will show how “Lough Neagh is in grave peril”.
“Decades of political mismanagement, pollution and commercial extraction of its resources have left the lough blighted by a pestilence of blue-green algae,” they said.
“Stormont’s dysfunction has not only enabled this disaster, but has greatly contributed to it through their ‘Going For Growth’ policy.”
Pádraig Cairns, an activist and organiser of the exhibition, said: “Growing up on the shores, you feel a deep connection to the lough, so to see it poisoned and polluted so drastically is hard for people to stomach.
“We have been campaigning locally and protesting around the shores on this issue - we want to engage our communities and gather strength in numbers to challenge the rotten establishment that has facilitated this ecological disaster.
“Resistance can be expressed through art and we hope that this exhibition will showcase the best of that.”
