performative occupation interlocutor

What about Love...

7/31/2018

Last night we watched Love... directed by Sandra Jogeva. The screening at Walled City Brewery and was attended by an audience of around 20 people. We ate Estonian chocolate sent by Sandra and watched as the lives of Veronika and her partner Fred unfolded over 78 minutes of our time and almost two years of their lives.

It was a tough watch; lots of verbal abuse, emotional abuse, evidence of physical abuse, alcoholism, drug taking, courtrooms and reflections on tragic past events. A daily struggle with mental health sprinkled with brief moments of sobriety, peace and academic achievement but is ultimately unresolved and the protagonists are lost at sea.
This is reality. This is how it is. These are real people living real lives right now. Who's side do you take, who is to blame, how did this happen, what would help them, who can help them, will they every change, what about the next generation?
All of these questions and more were brought up and discussed with Sandra, representatives of Relate NI and Foyle Women's Aid and the audience in a lively conversation that continued even after the event finished.

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Ancestry of Incarcination

7/18/2018

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There was palpable tension as Léann Herlihy stood a the midway of the concrete steps with a band-saw blade hovering between her legs swinging it above the line of opened Russian dolls that stand on each step all the way to the ground below. I held my breath as I waited for her next move. I wondered if I needed to move the audience out of the way but I also trusted that she wouldn't harm us. Still here she was. Us staring at her in an animal muzzle as we had been for the past 20 minutes or so and now in this moment, when we were hooked into her presence she asserted her power over us. Teasing us with the idea of the blade bounding down the steps as it had previously when she cut the tape that bound the blade into a figure of eight. As it released, the tension made it bounce and land on the steps below.
But she didn't throw the blade and we were safe again. Breathe out.
The muzzle is released and Herlihy moves towards us descending the step, the band-saw safely over her shoulder. She squats at the bottom of the steps and introduces the dolls as her mother, her mothers mother, her mothers mothers mother, her mothers mothers mothers mother....her mothers mothers mothers, mothers mothers mothers mothers mothers mothers mothers mother.

Léann Herlihy, Ancestry of Incarceration, Derry 2018, photo by Jordan Hutchings

I begin to think of those women who brought me here. I do not know anything of my mothers mothers mother. For me the story ends at three generations of female. Where are the rest of them? I think about the many who do not even have one generation to know, the many motherless, the stolen children. Their histories wiped out by systems and institutions and the histories wiped out by silence and shame.
We are at the back of the Walled City Brewery on Ebrington Square. Before now soldiers drilled and fortified here. Today there is a gallery, a creative business Hub, a café and a gastro pub. The public wander around taking snaps of the view over the Peace Bridge. Times change, things move on, but some things we need to carry with us, some things need to be remembered, given time to, considered and cared for. We have the opportunity to choose our direction of progress, to chose what we take forward and how.

Post performance discussion with Léann Herlihy

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Crisis of Identity

7/14/2018

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Sandra Jogeva, Crisis of Identity, 2018

Jõgeva’s provocative work often uses humour to entice viewers, evident in her text-based performance series, ‘Stand-Up Tragedies’. Her drawings 'Crisis of Identity' which were exhibited at Walled City Brewery just yards from where David Shrigley showed his ‘Life Model’ in 2013 are based on her sculpture of silicone breasts. The sculpture as well as a live performance were selected for the Baltic Triennal 2018 curated by Vincent Honoré of Hayward Gallery, London. The series of drawings were commissioned by Art Estonia magazine and printed in the 2/2018 Baltic Edition.
I exhibitied the nine drawings mounted behind glass on a large pink framed mirror in the vestibule area of the gastro pub. The venue is well furnished and already has many eye-catching displays for visitors. The only space that was unadorned in this way was the vestibule area that led to two toilets. I reasoned that this would be an ideal place to hang a mirror especially one that questioned identity. In my experience the main times I enter into conversations with complete strangers is whilst mutually waiting to use the facilities. By placing the artwork here, displayed upon a mirror it would draw people into a conversation either about the artwork and the subjects it alludes to or perhaps they would use conversation to hide their discomfort about being in the presence of nine pairs of breasts.

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What about Love...

Ancestry of Incarcination

Crisis of Identity

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