House of Blindness
13 October-01 November 2014
PS2
www.pssquared.org
Once on those streets, I had written a verse of looking through windows into rooms at evening, lamps, sofas, ottomans, books and how I had wished to go inside those rooms, inside those lives, forgetting that someone might pass my window and see my red room and have an identical wish to be in it-but I did not allow for that being ‘inextricably caught up in my own house of blindness’
Edna O’Brien, Country Girl, A memoir (2012)
At the first glance, it all looks like a stage set for a theatre play: there is a comfortable chair outside to relax before one moves inside, where a sliding door is suspended in the foreground and a simple metal bed, a chair, a side-table is placed in the background.But no actors will enter this scenario, no drama will unfold in the sparse bedroom or around the chair on the pavement.
The stage-like scenario with its simple props is an installation by the Irish artist Vicky Smith. She invites us, the visitors, to be the actors, to improvise, to use the furniture, to look at the photographs, a film and books. How important they are for the artist is evident through the choice of the title of the project, a quote from Edna O'Brien's recent memoirs 'House of Blindness'. A metaphor for the inability to look reality in the face and the 'blind' refusal to recognise human and social complexities. Vicky Smith translates the image into a 3-dimensonal experience. A society which loses its sense is like an ill person. For the artist these are questions of identity as a female artist, of dislocation in the two Ireland's and of uncertainties.
As a cure, Smith assembles a group of writers -or more precisely- their books, quotes and radio interviews as part of the installation: Edna O’Brien, Sylvia Plath and Buzz Goodbody. Literature as a homeopathic remedy demands a patient reader, sitting in an armchair or lying on a bed.It will take time to comprehend the personal journeys, the life travels or a simple trip from South to North.
The stage is set for disillusion.
The stage is set for insight.
Vicky Smith is a visual artist who works at Engage Arts Studios in Galway. She has an MA from NCAD’s Faculty of Visual Culture, Art in the Contemporary World (2011), MA Arts Administration and Cultural Policy from Goldsmiths college, University of London (2004) and a BA and H.Dip from Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork (1999) She is currently joint project coordinator of Engage Art Studio Project. Smith is establishing an Arts Education Agency in Galway City; the aim of this agency is to look at participation, art, education and how an intervention within the system, community and the society can enhancance social and cultural experiences . She is working towards a solo exhibition in the Linenhall Arts Centre, Mayo, April 2015. Previous to this she was the chairperson and board member of 126 Artist-led Gallery. (2010-2012) In 2012 she was selected as the artist in residence by Galway Arts Centre. Other exhibitions include: Little Kingdoms Catalyst Arts(2014), Engage Studios,126 Galway(2014), RUA Red Winter Open, Dublin(2013), Too Many Dinner Parties (2013), #00800(2012), Latency, Linenhall Arts Centre (2012), Spectrum Of Activity; Triskel Arts Centre (2011)
13 October-01 November 2014
PS2
www.pssquared.org
Once on those streets, I had written a verse of looking through windows into rooms at evening, lamps, sofas, ottomans, books and how I had wished to go inside those rooms, inside those lives, forgetting that someone might pass my window and see my red room and have an identical wish to be in it-but I did not allow for that being ‘inextricably caught up in my own house of blindness’
Edna O’Brien, Country Girl, A memoir (2012)
At the first glance, it all looks like a stage set for a theatre play: there is a comfortable chair outside to relax before one moves inside, where a sliding door is suspended in the foreground and a simple metal bed, a chair, a side-table is placed in the background.But no actors will enter this scenario, no drama will unfold in the sparse bedroom or around the chair on the pavement.
The stage-like scenario with its simple props is an installation by the Irish artist Vicky Smith. She invites us, the visitors, to be the actors, to improvise, to use the furniture, to look at the photographs, a film and books. How important they are for the artist is evident through the choice of the title of the project, a quote from Edna O'Brien's recent memoirs 'House of Blindness'. A metaphor for the inability to look reality in the face and the 'blind' refusal to recognise human and social complexities. Vicky Smith translates the image into a 3-dimensonal experience. A society which loses its sense is like an ill person. For the artist these are questions of identity as a female artist, of dislocation in the two Ireland's and of uncertainties.
As a cure, Smith assembles a group of writers -or more precisely- their books, quotes and radio interviews as part of the installation: Edna O’Brien, Sylvia Plath and Buzz Goodbody. Literature as a homeopathic remedy demands a patient reader, sitting in an armchair or lying on a bed.It will take time to comprehend the personal journeys, the life travels or a simple trip from South to North.
The stage is set for disillusion.
The stage is set for insight.
Vicky Smith is a visual artist who works at Engage Arts Studios in Galway. She has an MA from NCAD’s Faculty of Visual Culture, Art in the Contemporary World (2011), MA Arts Administration and Cultural Policy from Goldsmiths college, University of London (2004) and a BA and H.Dip from Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork (1999) She is currently joint project coordinator of Engage Art Studio Project. Smith is establishing an Arts Education Agency in Galway City; the aim of this agency is to look at participation, art, education and how an intervention within the system, community and the society can enhancance social and cultural experiences . She is working towards a solo exhibition in the Linenhall Arts Centre, Mayo, April 2015. Previous to this she was the chairperson and board member of 126 Artist-led Gallery. (2010-2012) In 2012 she was selected as the artist in residence by Galway Arts Centre. Other exhibitions include: Little Kingdoms Catalyst Arts(2014), Engage Studios,126 Galway(2014), RUA Red Winter Open, Dublin(2013), Too Many Dinner Parties (2013), #00800(2012), Latency, Linenhall Arts Centre (2012), Spectrum Of Activity; Triskel Arts Centre (2011)
