Tidings
Christine Mackey
October 18 - November 25 2006
Christine Mackey was commissioned by Dublin City Council under the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government Per Cent for Art Programme arising from the redevelopment of Ballybough.
As the Ballybough community is reshaped and rehoused, Mackey sought to explore the impact of relocation on the lives of the residents moving into their new homes. Taking conversation as her starting point, the artist began a process of collaboration without which the work could not have existed.
Each resident’s home became a meeting place and pertinent thoughts emanating from these private conversations, form the basis of both the sensitively executed drawings and textual arrangement for the book. In exchange, the participants were offered a tiding, realised in a variety of forms and activities, amongst which included a poem written for a family, trips to galleries and the theatre, garden work and small works on paper and canvas.
Tidings from here to there, located people on an intimate scale of social practice rendered as both a valuable experience for the artist and participants and perhaps gave a new meaning to the importance of calling a place home. The reciprocal nature of the gift giving as well as the simplicity of the gifts themselves consider the core of community as a place for civic exchange. This process contrasts with the rituals associated with giving presents such as house warming gifts when gifting can seemed swamped by the codes of consumerism exchanged without true feeling.
Mackey’s practice is concerned with the ways in which major changes to our social and physical environments have led to new challenges and practices in the spheres of representation, knowledge and spatial studies. She is interested in the transformation and mapping of space through a discursive configuration between art and geography. Her studio practice, considers mapping both as a territorial investigation and as a collective process of social and symbolic production, and a drawing as a visual mode of inquiry mediating between information and place, situation knowledge and community practice.
Christine Mackey was awarded the Firestation Artist’s Studio Community Award in 2004. She is a graduate of NCAD and Dartington College of Arts in Devon. Forthcoming solo exhibitions include the Context Gallery, Derry, “Doubtin Straits”, Museum of Modern Art, San Jose, and Chicago SOFA. Recent solo exhibitions include “Site-ations International, Wales, the Process Room, IMMA, The Belltable Arts Centre and The Model Arts and Niland. Group shows include Eigse, EV+A and Temple Bar Gallery.
Tidings from here to there includes an essay by Ruth Jones. Copies of the book are available at a special exhibition rate of €10. For further information and images please contact sheena.barrett@dublincity.ie or 222 7848.
Exhibition continues at the LAB, Foley Street, D.1 to 25 November 2006. Open 10am – 5pm Monday to Saturday.
