The sculpture We are all connected, 2019-2022, was invited to hang in Luan Gallery, Athlone (Republic of Ireland) in Summer 2022. For those of you who did not get to visit it, I am thrilled with these wonderful photographs by Benedict Hutchinson which really capture the sculpture and the installation created by curator Valeria Ceregini: she placed the series of kinetic sculptures in glass vessels (Anthology of displacement, 2019) directly beneath the sculpture on a mirrored table which seemed to make the words and artworks quite bottomless. Hutchinson himself was a fellow exhibiting artist and photographer in the Breaking Borders exhibition, so it’s a lovely example of the creative collaborations and overlaps that happen when artists are drawn together. Our thanks to Luan Gallery team and international curator Valeria Ceregini.

About the two sculptures you see here

I was honoured to have been able to showcase the critical moments in the stories of migrants both to and from Ireland, both from present day and from Ireland's long history of displacement', through these two artworks.

In the past, emigration was perceived as inevitable for many generations of the Irish, and between 1841 and 1925 4.7 million Irish emigrants went to the USA. The installation sculpture We are all connected, 2022-2019, brings together multiple stories to form links between diverse individuals who may not realise how much they have in common: Joining two groups of people - those of various ethnicities who have recently migrated to Ireland or are second generation migrants to Ireland, with those of Irish heritage who have migrated and settled around the world. They tell their stories or their ancestors’ stories of migration. These two groups express similar experiences in terms of marginalisation, displacement, longing, loss of culture, loss of language, and a sense of camaraderie within new communities of ‘others’. 

For the 2022 installation of this sculpture, curator Ceregini helped me to reach out to Ukrainian refugees and those in asylum centres in Athlone, to include their stories in the updated version of this ever evolving ever growing sculpture.

The kinetic sculpture series Anthology of Displacement, 2019, consists of 10 glass vessls containing moving ‘cut texts’. It tells the stories of people who live life on the border - be that the edge of a geography, an identity, or even time. For this series I invited personal stories from migrants and newcomers who have crossed physical and mental borders. Each text sculpture tells the story of an individual who feels they live life in between two places.

Time, memory and borders were strong themes in many of the testimonies I collected, so I suspended the words upon ticking clock mechanisms. Within the glass vessels, each tries to synchronise with its neighbour, but is forever separated by the invisible glass border.

What next?

Since the show came to a close last month and the coil of powerful words was wrapped in protective tissue, I could feel those important stories and learnings jostling to get out again into the world. There is always more than one story.

Our studio is currently looking for the next venue or meaningful site for this artwork, if you have a space do reach out, but in the meanwhile we share some images here.

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Learn more about Breaking borders exhibition here.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀