Film
push

Furthering an investigation for my BA in Visual Arts (2016), this reflection continued throughout my MA in Fine Art (2017), using film as a poetic means to explore concepts of memory and embodiment throughout this body of work. Through exploration I have found that in times of pain or trauma people often choose to remain silent, holding and carrying the pain inside our bodies. This is stored in a veiled nature, quite often a secret to ourselves. However, our bodies need to be heard, to release these secrets, but they do so in code, through body language, gestures and movement. This work explores the nature of these secret scriptures or secret sign language as we communicate with others, using ethnography as a methodology. This piece considers the deeply stored ‘hurts’ that we all experience. In the current climate of #metoo movement and women’s marches the focus of the fourth wave feminism is justice for women and also opposition to sexual harassment and violence against women.
Seaswing
This video piece is part of a consideration on play. I was investigating the importance of play and memory in our lives, the rituals, the personal and social aspects, and as tools to use throughout our lives. This piece portrays the liminal state that we can enter as we get lost in the activity of play. This video reflects on that liminal space where for the participant, there is no exterior stimuli or other everyday distractions. This work also contemplates the isolation, vulnerability and alone-ness of Alzheimer’s Disease.
‘Telling’ Walkthrough
In 2017 I completed my Masters in Art & Process in Crawford College of Art and Design (CIT). My body of work reflected on the body as a living archive. I created two video pieces, one ‘Ju’, in which I filmed the hand movements of a mother, telling me the story of the passing of her son, and ‘push’, a piece I film on Brow Head in West Cork, where I am pushing and being pushed undirected, reflecting on the emotional ‘pushing’ we carry within us. I then created 2 drawings related to each video, and a audio piece which brings these two together.
Archive
In my film ‘Archive’ 2017, I filmed the process of myself knitting a corset of wire to create an object replicating the painful chest constriction often experienced through bereavement.
Furthering an investigation for my BA in Visual Arts (2016), this reflection continued throughout my MA in Fine Art (2017), using film as a poetic means to explore concepts of memory and embodiment throughout this body of work. Through exploration I have found that in times of pain or trauma people often choose to remain silent, holding and carrying the pain inside our bodies. This is stored in a veiled nature, quite often a secret to ourselves. However, our bodies need to be heard, to release these secrets, but they do so in code, through body language, gestures and movement. This work explores the nature of these secret scriptures or secret sign language as we communicate with others, using ethnography as a methodology. This piece considers the deeply stored ‘hurts’ that we all experience. In the current climate of #metoo movement and women’s marches the focus of the fourth wave feminism is justice for women and also opposition to sexual harassment and violence against women.
Portrait of my lost child 2015
This piece was part of a body of work I did around losing a child. I considered the memories that weren’t created and the rituals that were not enacted for this child. After drawing images on tissue paper, I loved the almost ghost like quality they have when they catch a breeze. I hung them on the line to represent the nappies that I never got to hang. I feel that the images on the line evoke a sense of letting go but holding on to just a little piece of the child who has passed on. For each of my babies I knit a blanket for when they were born. This baby never got to have theirs, so as a family we all knit a blanket together. I photographed this and inserted some images into this piece. My son Jai wrote and performed the music.
Embodied Archive
Furthering an investigation for my BA in Visual Arts (2016), this reflection continued throughout my MA in Fine Art (2017), using film as a poetic means to explore concepts of memory and embodiment throughout this body of work. Through exploration I have found that in times of pain or trauma people often choose to remain silent, holding and carrying the pain inside our bodies. This is stored in a veiled nature, quite often a secret to ourselves. However, our bodies need to be heard, to release these secrets, but they do so in code, through body language, gestures and movement. This work explores the nature of these secret scriptures or secret sign language as we communicate with others, using ethnography as a methodology. This piece considers the deeply stored ‘hurts’ that we all experience. In the current climate of #metoo movement and women’s marches the focus of the fourth wave feminism is justice for women and also opposition to sexual harassment and violence against women.
Ju
In this video I am considering the body as an archive. I am exploring how the body stores life experiences, trauma in particular, in our bodies, so coded that we do not realise it ourselves. However, we all want to be heard, and this pain shows itself through our body language and our posture.