Dublin City Arts Office
The LAB, Foley Street, Dublin 1

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Past Exhibition

A Consideration of All Bodies

March 05 - June 04 2021

The LAB Gallery presents, ‘A Consideration of All Bodies’, a group exhibition of work by Declan Byrne, Philip Kenny, Paul Moore, Hugh O’Donnell and Áine O’Hara. All the artists and the curator have disabilities. 

Here is the exhibitions programme of events. These events are free, but they must be booked via Eventbrite. 

Here are images of the artworks on instagram @aconsiderationofallbodies

‘A Consideration of All Bodies’, contemplates disabled people’s bodies and our ways of navigating a world designed for nondisabled bodies. Rather than explicitly referencing disability, the artworks in this exhibition reflect the artists’ experiences of interacting with their environments. The artists examine bodies, their own and other people’s. What support do bodies need, and how might this support change in the future?

Despite the western world valuing individual autonomy over the collective, our democratic freedom in fact rests on people creating support structures and working together. This has been made even more evident in our current time of Covid 19. Disabled people have always needed support systems. The western emphasis on individual autonomy has undermined and undervalued our experiences. As disabled people, we develop some of our sense of self from this dependence on other people and things, and from our struggle against this dependence. From prostheses, wheelchairs, and canes to chairs and benches in public spaces, to a network of family and friends, to public services like health and transport, the supports we have come in many forms. These are vital to our well-being. The exhibition and events programme for ‘A Consideration of All Bodies’ focuses on how bodies are, are not, or could be supported.

The programme of events will have access for people with hearing and visual impairments. However, the focal point of ‘A Consideration of All Bodies’, is a social narrative for the LAB Gallery, written by the curator Róisín Power Hackett, and designed by Dara Ní Bheacháin. This social narrative is an access tool and will be available to download here and from the gallery’s access page as a PDF for use by all future visitors to the LAB when we return. A social narrative is a great tool for everyone planning to visit the gallery, but it is specifically designed for autistic visitors.

Photographs and videos of ‘A Consideration of All Bodies’, will be available on Instagram @thelabgallery and @aconsiderationofallbodies, Facebook and Vimeo.

This exhibition is supported by Dublin City Council, ARC at IADT, Arts & Disability Ireland and the Arts Council. The artists featuring in this exhibition have also been supported to make their work by A4 Sounds ‘We only want the earth’ programme and Flax Art Studios.

Artists:

Áine O’Hara is a multidisciplinary artist, theatre maker and designer who graduated with a BA in Fine Art from IADT in 2013. Since then they have shown work nationally and internationally. Áine's recent achievements include Mayo Arts Office Navigating a Future Commission (2021), Arts Council Theatre Bursary (2020), Arts & Disability Connect Training Award (2020), Outburst Queer Fringe Award (2019), Oileán AiR programme (2019) and DUETS award at Dublin Fringe Festival (2019). Áine’s work experiments with form, and focuses on connection, conversation, and care. Their long-term ambitions include demanding adequate access to theatre and the arts for disabled and marginalised communities through the creation of large scale, ambitious work as well as the continuation of community building projects like Chronic Chats; a creative and social group for chronically ill people which grew from their research as part of her recent artist residency at A4 Sounds, Dublin. Áine is currently artist in residence at Axis Ballymun. 

For his sculpture works the visual artist Declan Byrne carefully cuts pieces of dried acrylic paint found in painting pallets with scissors, before gluing these small pieces of colour to found objects. There is a remarkable similarity between these sculptures and Declan’s paintings.  In Declan’s paintings he also transforms the world he sees in a very detailed way, by building his work out of multiple small sections of colours. Declan has shown widely internationally, including in Luxembourg, Finland, Germany, Australia, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the UK. He has also shown in Ireland at the Kilkenny Arts Festival, Dublin City Council Offices, The Skibbereen Arts Festival and University College Cork. He has been involved in a number of exchange and engagements projects, including with Project Ability Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland.

Hugh O'Donnell is a visual artist based in Belfast. He works in performance art, drawing, installation and found objects. Found objects really interest him, whether they are an old pipe or a shoe hanging out of a skip. He has exhibited work on a national and international level. Hugh has facilitated many visual art and performance art workshops on a global capacity and has also completed many national and international residencies. He obtained a B.A Degree and a Master's in Fine Art from University of Ulster, Belfast. In addition, Hugh has received a lot of art awards from Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Arts Council of Ireland and international awards for residencies and commissions. He has worked as an audio describer and out-reach workshop facilitator for University of Atypical in Belfast. Recently he has been audio describing for Shape Arts in London. He proudly identifies as disabled and encourages everyone to speak about disability equality issues, especially mental health. 

Paul Moore is a visual artist based in Belfast. He is a graduate of the MA in Art Research and Collaboration from Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. His selected shows include Unsettlement, Platform Arts Gallery, Belfast (2017), G R O U P S H O W, Golden Thread Gallery Belfast (2016). Statəcraft, Irish Museum of Modern Art Project Space, Dublin (2016), lorem ipsum, ADF Gallery Belfast (2015) and Palace Revolution, Galveston Arts Centre, Texas U.S.A. (2014). In 2019, Moore received the ACNI Artist Career Enhancement Scheme to work with Golden Thread Gallery, where he is currently developing work which is informed by VR and the phenomenology of endurance exercise, the body and the landscape, nature and machine, and internal and external experience.

Phil Kenny is a poet based in Dublin. Recently he has exhibited in the Arts and Disability Ireland Curated Spaces online exhibition, ‘The Finest Specimens of Fossilised Duration’. Previously he has performed at Knockan Stockan and Electric Picnic. Additionally, Philip received the Arts Council and Arts & Disability Ireland Mentoring Award in 2019 and has been published in Storytellers edited by Anna Fox.  The poems he writes and performs are personal, sensory, sometimes normal (relatively) and often surreal and abstract. He has mild Asperger’s Syndrome, which connects the world in a way he is familiar with, but often appears obscure to others. For Philip, writing and speaking has ever been a way of connecting people to that world. 

Curator:

Róisín Power Hackett is a curator, writer, and visual artist. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art in 2012 and an MA in Art in the Contemporary World in 2013 both from NCAD. In 2019 Róisín was awarded the ARC LAB Curatorial Scholarship. For this scholarship, she researched inclusion in and access to the arts for disabled people. In 2020, she curated ‘The Finest Specimens of Fossilised Duration’ an online exhibition commissioned by Arts and Disability Ireland. For Culture Night 2020 at the LAB Gallery, she produced the podcast ALL BODIES. In 2018, she curated Towards A Consideration of All Bodies at the LAB Gallery. Róisín has received the Waterford County Council Tyrone Guthrie Bursary (2019), the Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary Award (2018), the Waterford County Council Artlinks Bursary (2017&2016), the Kennedy Wilson NCAD Access Studio Residency (2016) and the Arts and Disability Connect Training Award (2015).

'Artists Talks with Paul Moore and Philip Kenny', transcript available here.

'A Consideration of All Bodies', Disability Language Policy

This is an image of a painting on paper centred on a white wall. The painting is made up of very colourful patches of acrylic paint that are part abstract and part form a figure seated almost in profile in an interior space.

‘Frances Bacon Inspired I’ by artist Declan Byrne, acrylic on paper 38 x 51 cm 2020 

Detail of a painting that is made up of very colourful patches of acrylic paint that are part abstract and part form a figure seated almost in profile in an interior space.

Detail of a ‘Frances Bacon Inspired I’ by artist Declan Byrne, acrylic on paper 38 x 51 cm 2020

This is an image of a painting on paper centred on a white wall. The painting is made up of very colourful patches of acrylic paint that include black, yellows, greens, reds, blues and pink that are part abstract and part form a figure seated almost in profile in an interior space.

‘Frances Bacon Inspired III’ by artist Declan Byrne, acrylic on paper 38 x 51 cm 2020
 

This is an image of a painting on paper centred on a white wall. The painting is made up of very colourful patches of acrylic paint that are part abstract and part form a figure seated almost in profile in an interior space. The colours blue, red, black and green are prominent. The left and right hand side of the painting are edged in yellow.

‘Frances Bacon Inspired II’ by Declan Byrne acrylic on paper 51 x 76 cm 2019

Six lines of a poem and the name of the poet in vinyl in bold black sans serif font on the glass of a gallery. In the background inside the gallery is a colourful painting on a white wall, a flat colourful artwork on a white plinth and on the right hand side part of a chair sculpture. The floor of the gallery is speckled grey. In the glass there is a reflection of the street including a path, cobbles and a parking sign.

An extract from the poem 'Myriad' by Philip Kenny, vinyl on glass, 2021

A large flat screen TV viewed through the glass window of a gallery takes up most of the frame. The TV shows a man with dark hair and glasses reading from a book, the background behind him is black. At the bottom of the screen there is a caption that reads 'A Smell has been collecting in the rear of the pub'. Behind the TV we can see the ceiling floor and wall of the gallery. The street is reflected in the glass.

Still from 'Ode To Sweeney's', a film, by Philip Kenny, 2020

'Ode to Sweeney's' (Captioned), by Philip Kenny, film, duration 7 minutes 48 seconds, 2020, an audio described version is available here.

Two rows of three bright orange hospital chairs with yellow legs are seen for behind. The rows are both angled upwards so it would feel uneven if you sat on them. They are set up in front of a large window that looks out onto the street. The floor reflects the chairs slightly, it's grey with a speckled effect.

'The patient will see you now', by Áine O'Hara, mixed media installation, 2020

This is an image of an archival print photograph on paper on a white wall. The photograph is hung from using pins and black crocodile clips in all four corners. The photograph shows us a white walled room, with a grey carpeted floor, bathed in a yellow light. On the left hand side of the photograph there is a hospital trolly surrounded by translucent plastic yellow curtains and on our right hand side in the background of the room there is a rail with large charts hanging from it.

The patient will see you now', by Áine O'Hara, archival print on paper, 84cm x 56cm, 2021. 

This is a detail of an archival print photograph. It shows a metal rail with large medical charts on it. The image is bathed in a yellow light. Words on one of the charts are visible. Some of the words are obscured by the metal rail, but what the chart says can still be made out, it says:

Detail of 'The patient will see you now', by Áine O'Hara, archival print on paper, 84cm x 56cm, 2021

This image shows two altered or deconstructed dark wooden chairs in a gallery. There is one chair to the left of the frame another on the right. The gallery wall is white and has two paintings on it. The gallery floor has a specked grey effect. The chair on the left hand side is resting uneven on the ground, one of it's legs is slightly shorter than the others. The chair on the right hand side is completely deconstructed and put back together in a strange way with lighter wood.

'Dyslexic I' & 'Dyslexic II', two artworks by Hugh O'Donnell, both are wood of various dimensions, 2021

This image shows a deconstructed dark wooden chair in a gallery. The gallery wall is white and has three paintings on it. The gallery floor has a specked grey effect. On the right hand side of the image there is a column.The chair on is completely deconstructed and put back together in a strange way with lighter wood. There are three legs. One leg is taped with green tape.

'Dyslexic I' by Hugh O'Donnell, wood of various dimensions, 2021

an image of two drawings on paper hung with pins and small crocodile clips from each of their four corners on a white wall. The drawings are of made of rectangles and triangles in black, red, blue and yellow of different sizes against white paper.

'Dyslexic I' & 'Dyslexic II', two artworks by Hugh O'Donnell, both are mixed media on paper, 84cm x 59cm 

'A Man Walks Into A Room' by Paul Moore, video, 2020
 
The film has no words spoken throughout it. We hear background noise of the echoing dance studio, the footsteps of the artists walking about with the VR headset on, the noise of him bumping into things and a buzzing when he switches on the lights.
 

This is a still from a film that is being projected. The screen is split into four rectangles showing different angles of a gym space. Some of the angles show the artist wondering around bumping into things because he has a VR headset on. Sometimes he’s moving his head and his hands around and sometimes he sits on a sofa in the gym. The gym is low lit. Sometimes it’s lit with a yellow light. One of the rectangles shows what the artist is looking at in the VR headset. The VR space is a domestic living room space with seating and orange fabric bathed in a warm light.

'A Man Walks Into A Room' by Paul Moore, still from video, 2020

 

Exhibition Image: Detail of ‘Frances Bacon Inspired III’ by Declan Byrne, acrylic on paper, 38 x 51 cm, 2020. This is a close up of multi-coloured patches of paint that are horizontal, vertical and curved in black and shades of yellow, green, blue, red and pink. Brush strokes and the 3D quality of the paint is noticeable. 

Photographs by Barry Lynch

 

 

 

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