'The Ties That Bind' make for compelling viewing
Attending were Jamie Beatty, Róisín Jacob, Leanne Jacob and 'Nell'. Photo: John Power
A very exciting art initiative is currently ongoing at Waterford's, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), focusing attention on emotional, somatic and psychological aspects of shelter.
'The Ties that Bind', is a short film created for GOMA to coincide with Waterford's Imagine Arts Festival, that was filmed and edited by Fillipe Lezo with Shell/ter Artists Collective (S/TAC), composed of Diana Copperwhite, Allyson Keehan, Niamh McGuinne, Sharon Murphy and Geraldine O’Neill.
The exibition opened on October 21 and will run until November 24 and in addition to the short film it also features a collaborative installation titled, 'The Clothesline', along with a selection of works on paper to illustrate the genesis of the project.
Commenting on the exhibition one of those involved said: "The clothesline can signify a variety of feminist and feminised ideas and is a deep-reaching metaphor for the ties that bind families, communities and women together. Strung together it becomes a symbol of the chaos and intersection of lives and cultures within an imposed vertical grid."
The creators said "the lines can be seen to embody twin notions of shelter and exposure; concealment and revelation; reality and fiction; conscious and unconscious."
The Clothesline installation is comprised of a number of painted and printed textile pieces, each depicting a particular source of imagery, approach and palette, associated with the members of the collective as individuals. While each carries the distinctive marks and gestures of each of the five artists of S/TAC, the whole work is unified through over-printing using colour and stencilled motifs which reference a connecting theme of exposure and masking of internal body organs.
"The collaborative installation acts as a symbol of shelter, connectedness and intersection which overtly plays with notions of ‘life on view’, private versus public, acts of display and exposure, domesticity and ‘women’s work’," said the artists involved.
The works on paper were developed and facilitated by an Arts Council funded workshop, which focussed on the embodiment of experience. Using mono-print and stencilling, the first stage of the process, that led to The Clothesline and has culminated in the film ‘The Ties that Bind’, saw an extended collaborative group including the collective, curators, scientists and individual artists create collage and layered prints on paper.
These small prints were originally formed into giant capes and worn before being finally dismantled and sewn into books. In 2023, when the group was invited to exhibit in the National Gallery of Ireland, this work was further developed into The Clothesline using the concepts and processes initiated in the collaborative workshops.
Accompanying these collaborative works are a selection of pieces by each of the artists which provide some hints and suggestion to the particular significance or resonance to each and how that feeds into and is nourished by the participation and collaboration of a collective.
