My concrete poetry project The Land Where Nothing is is a commissioned work by Fire Station Studios and ADI in association with The Lab Gallery Dublin. The show, A Different Republic, also includes artists Aideen Barry, Amanda Coogan and Corban Walker, as well as an accompanying essay by Nathan O'Donnell. The show runs till February the 5th, with a talk by the artists on February 1st. The Land Where Nothing Is consists of a film projection with eleven poems, with accompanying audio as well as one large window text, to be read from outside.
Film still from The Land Where Nothing Is
Info below taken from Dublin City Arts Office website, more on the rest of the work, artists and the project can be found here.
Photograph property of Lab Gallery Dublin.
'Suzanne Walsh’s work is a set of concrete poetry made from fragments of lines from the poems of both Thomas McDonagh and Francis Ledwidge as well as comments collected from online Irish Facebook groups that discuss housing, environmental issues and wildlife identification. Linking these is the sound of the bittern, due to its connection to McDonagh and Ledwidge, a bird that is currently extinct in Ireland. McDonagh translated the poem 'The Yellow Bittern' (Cathal Bui Mac Giolla Ghunna) from Irish to English. After his execution his friend Francis Ledwidge wrote a poem 'Lament for Thomas McDonagh' that begins 'He shall not hear the bittern cry'. The poems question exclusion, identity and existence in today's Ireland.'
November 17 - February 05 2017
'A Different Republic explores universal human rights in a year of commemorations, being both the centenary of 1916 and the 20 year anniversary of the Irish government’s landmark report of the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities ‘A Strategy for Equality’. Fire Station Artists’ Studios and Arts & Disability Ireland in partnership with The LAB Gallery are delighted to present this new work that reflects on the current state of the nation from different perspectives.
This exhibition marks the final exhibition in the LAB Gallery’s programme for 2016 which saw a series of new commissions responding to ideas of commemoration developed for the gallery by artists Bridget O’Gorman, John Beattie, Sabina MacMahon, John Byrne, Chad Keveny and Jane Locke in collaboration with research partners including the ESB Centre for the Study of Irish Art, the National Gallery of Ireland, the National Museum of Ireland and MA Art Research Collaboartion iadt.
Audio description, speech to text and Irish Sign Language will be available at the preview. Audio description and additional audio information will be available throughout the exhibition using Discovery Pens this service is useful for audiences with visual impairments.'
Photograph property of Lab Gallery Dublin.
Photo from Gallery Weekend performance, reading of poetry with processed audio along with Amanda Coogan, photograph by Jennie Guy