Exhibition preview of Vanessa Daws Swimming a Long Way Together

About the Exhibition

This new exhibition by Vanessa Daws is the culmination of the project Swimming a Long Way Together, an ambitious art and swimming project, 2021-2024, curated by Rosie Hermon. The project is a multi-sited celebration of open-water and endurance swimming, its histories and communities, inspired by the pioneer swimmer Mercedes Gleitze.

Launching on the River Liffey, it has since travelled around the island of Ireland – to Midleton, Co. Cork, Donaghadee and Galway – to Brighton and Dover in England, shadowing key locations and moments in Mercedes’ life and swimming career. The exhibition brings together new and existing artworks and documents of the project and of Vanessa’s recent English Channel swim, which she completed 97 years after Mercedes Glietze became the first British woman to complete this crossing.

Central to the exhibition is the first presentation in Ireland of the film ‘At Home in the Water’, which premiered in Brighton in 2022. Meshing together the swimmer’s inward monologue, the physical sensation of the water and the challenge of the open water endurance swim, the artwork invites us to wonder what strange fascination the sea has for us, why we choose to immerse ourselves in it and feel compelled to navigate it.

Vanessa Daws

Vanessa Daws is a long-distance swimmer and visual artist based in Dublin, her art practice works at the intersection of art, swimming and place. Swimming, journey, chance encounter and conversation are the starting points for her projects. Vanessa has been developing a multi-layered way of working with different communities in different disciplines, all connected through particular bodies of water.

Rosie Hermon

Rosie Hermon is a curator and researcher based in London. Raised in Brighton, the birthplace of Mercedes Gleitze. Rosie has spent several years working around and across the English Channel, particularly as a co-curator of the diep~haven festival. More recently she has been thinking in the interstices of international cultural networks as part of her PhD research, bringing her interest in engaging communities of interest across distributed geographies to Swimming a Long Way Together. Vanessa met Rosie when Rosie visited her in her then Temple Bar Gallery, Project Studio in 2017. Here they discussed the English Channel as a starting point for artistic research and a potential project. This idea stayed with them until in 2019 they started to hatch a plan and put in an application to the Arts Council of Ireland Open Call Award. They were successful with this award in 2021 and the rest is ‘Swimming a Long Way Together’ history!

Mercedes Gleitze

Mercedes Gleitze undertook many challenging and pioneering swims in the 1920s and ‘30s, across Ireland, Britain and beyond. She was the first British woman to swim the English Channel in 1927. Mercedes spent much time swimming in Ireland, including swimming for 19 hours from Inis Meáin to Awleen Bay in Spiddal, and attempting to swim across the North Channel 8 times in 1928 and 1929, though this swim was never completed. Mercedes swam in many record-breaking Endurance Swims. An Endurance Swim is where a swimmer swims continually around a pool for many hours without stopping or touching the bottom. In 1930 Mercedes swam for 30 hours in the Eglinton Street Baths in Cork, and 42 hours in the Tara Street Baths in Dublin.

From humble origins Mercedes became celebrated for her swimming achievements, huge audiences would come to cheer her on or to greet her whenever she emerged from the water. Music played a central role, as an accompaniment and support, helping to create a festive atmosphere and raising her spirits as she swam.

Doloranda Pember wrote a book “In the Wake of Mercedes Gleitze” about her mother Mercedes Glitz’s epic and groundbreaking swims. This book and Mercedes’ swims became the source of inspiration for the Swimming a Long Way Together journey. Doloranda has become a friend, advisor and contributor to the Swimming a Long Way Together project.

Artist and Curator Walk Through for Culture Night

For Culture Night Dublin 2024, The LAB Gallery will welcome visitors to view the new exhibition ‘Swimming a Long Way Together’ by Vanessa Daws, curated by Rosie Hermon. There will also be an artist and curator walk through starting at 5pm.