Review Essay Falling into the Sky
The O’Driscoll Building, Skibbereen Summer 2019
Róisín Foley
Falling into the Sky is an artistic collaboration between Bernadette Burns, Wendy Dison, Nicola Kelly, Tess Leak and Gana Roberts. They have been meeting as a group and working on projects together since May 2018. Guided by intuition and inspired by a phrase from John Banville’s novel Ghosts, Falling into the Sky reminds us of the necessity in making art as a means to both process and document the stories within and around us. They meet regularly and take turns to initiate projects and most recently have started to make exhibitions. The collective’s most recent exhibition was situated in the O’Driscoll building, Skibbereen and ran in conjunction with the annual Skibbereen Arts Festival. It was an enclave from which to consider the value and merit of working as a collaborative unit, and how such practice can produce an effective and perhaps even better alternative to operating from within the white cube.
The “pop up” exhibition is now a frequent fixture in the Irish art scene and with the right support it can achieve successful results. Such an approach to exhibiting allows for artists to explore curatorial models outside the bounds and ties of traditional gallery spaces (private or public). Curator Hans Ulrich Obrist briefly outlines the history of exhibition making and curation in his book Ways of Curatingi. He speaks of exhibition making coming out of the necessity for artisanal craftspeople to show their best works during the seasonal festive periods of the Middle Ages. Master craftsmen selected the best works of their apprentices and themselves for display to passing crowds. There is something about these medieval makers who formed these guilds that resonates with artist’s collectives and collaborations such as Falling into the Sky. Perhaps it is the shared belief in doing something together, deciding to set aside personal bias. These artists are favouring creative progression through order implemented by a group, with a view to sustaining a more interesting creative environment in broader society.
In the case of Falling into the Sky, all aspects of exhibition formulation were generated and conducted by the artists themselves. In such practices we are much closer to the original intent of the artists and their work. The first time I visited the exhibition I was greeted by Bernadette Burns and she was able to give me in depth information about each artist. Having the artists look after the exhibition awards visitors the opportunity to learn more about the work, it also provides the artists with first hand feedback.
“Collaboration allows for in-depth communication between artists to try out ideas, test theories and enable creativity to flourish.”ii
The collaborative nature of the project allows for a deeper and more open critical conversation between the artists which would not be possible without organisation. The necessity to develop and exhibit is often quite limiting for artists who live and work in rural environs. Shared permanent artist led exhibition and work space is basically non-existent in West Cork. The desire to cooperatively rent a space is also limited by unaffordable rents. Falling into the Sky have overcome this hurdle by implementing this peer to peer exchange. This dedication and sense of camaraderie is truly commendable and shows how serious they are about their work.
“We are dealing with an unfolding process rather than, or in addition to, a discrete image, object or event defined by set limits of space (the walls of a gallery) or time (the duration of a performance or commission), these questions become decisive in the analysis of the work.”iii
In relation to Falling into the Sky at the O’Driscoll building the above statement fits quite effectively. Work filled the space. The exhibition showed large and ambitious work, collective project work, fun work, serious work, work made with an array of materials, work made from an array of ideas. The deliberate absence of standardised gallery tactics which are used to lead viewers to certain works or to create lineation between artists’ works encouraged inquisitive movement throughout the space. Hence, encounters with particular works were by chance. The display had no sense of hierarchy. Space was not divided, space was used collectively, artists were not assigned an individual space and the works were not categorised by any obvious systems. One was encouraged to move from work to work and to pause when called to do so by a particular piece amidst the gentle expanse of material. An ambience sat in the space, a quiet humming. A sense of suspension, perhaps similar to being caught in a light fog before it passes hung in the space. It stirred a feeling of transience, of inevitable change. The non-lineal experience of the space conjured the true sense of the nature of collaboration.
This deliberate cause to pause mid-air whilst falling into the sky was purposeful. It allowed the artists to spend the necessary time in an adequate space with their work in order to assess the reception of the work in a public place. It also allowed for time to further devise and implement strategies for displaying work that challenge typical exhibition structures. This was not solely an exhibition focused on the collaboration’s projects nor was it a thematic group exhibition of works most often compacted together under titles and metaphors. It was an exhibition with the intention of showing and sharing and trying something new.
In this exhibition co-working coupled with the liberating process of working outside the administered gallery space has evidently created circumstances from which to enable intuitive systems of creativity in the group. Having identified the favourable technical and functional working elements of the group (which are essential to its operation), deeper and more valuable resonances are more apparent.
It did indeed feel like an invitation for the viewer to practice the process of intuitive encounter as is a method practiced by Falling into the Sky. This is applied to projects both instigated by the group and now obviously within their own practices. Intuitive practice can be aligned with process led practice which identifies the making of work as something which occurs by the working through as opposed to working on a project. There is no prescribed product or piece that the artist is working towards. The artist is ordinarily working through an idea with their chosen material and welcomes surprise. Working intuitively follows a similar pattern to making a story and when investigating the artists further it is obvious that they each have an interest in story or telling stories.
“A master storyteller blends the narrative ingredients of traditional legend with description of his local environment, both physical and social, to express thoughts about human relations and the life of the individual”iv
In essence, in order to make a good story you must have knowledge or interest in story or “traditional legend” which you can utilise as a template from which to tell another story. The type of story you wish to tell is limitless. However, a really good story always makes a thought-provoking observation on life and finds a way to connect with the listener (or in the following cases with the viewer). The artists of Falling into the Sky use story in their work. The artists merge intuitive practice with the art of making to create story. Templates or methods of storytelling are visible in the visual language which each artist employs; that is the materials used and the way in which in which the work is made. Personal or cognitive experience is manifested through this making. In this exhibition many works share a similar cause, they share a similar story, though not by intention. Grief does not abound in the exhibition but its presence and obvious influence on the artists cannot escape further enquiry. These works document the story of grief.
Kerri Ní Dorchartaigh writes “Grief is a country that has no definite borderlines and that recognises no single trajectory. It is a space that did not exist before your loss, and that will never disappear from your map, no matter how hard you rub at the charcoal lines. You are changed utterly, and your personal geography becomes yours and yours only, for that brief moment in
time.”v
Grief is a profound notion and one which is most often not openly expressed in artists’ work. Yet, in this exhibition many of the works are in some way linked to the phenomena of grief. Allowing oneself to work intuitively may be the cause of why such a range of works are so close to loss. The working through and story creation as practiced by Falling into the Sky allows the artists the permissions which they might need to process and truly express grief. The process of expressing grief collectively (through peer to peer exchange) also provides a source of open support, which then in turn becomes accessible to the public through these groups exhibitions.
In Wendy Dison’s work she combines her personal experience of grief with a broader societal problem. Boat is her way to map this. Her work is about human experience and most recently it has been about her own experience of grief. Figures (human or non-human) are a common fixture in Wendy’s work. These forms are part of her visual language and are used to engage with the viewer in order to translate human experience. Her solo exhibition The Sound of Ravens opened in November 2019 at The West Cork Arts Centre. The exhibition dealt directly with the notion of grief as manifested through the form of the raven. Knowing this I am given cause to believe that her work Boat is an expanded vision of grief. Coupled with information that her work for Falling into the Sky is concerned with migration and exclusion, we are invited to believe the work is more about how she applies her understanding of grief to the current crisis of migration. The single cotton sheet is the boat, its passengers these indistinct persons. The fate of these passengers rests on our understanding of the sheet. The sheet implies sleep, dreaming, thought and processing: it also implies singularity. Can the sheet be a representation of the artist as she contemplates this collective of passengers? Perhaps this grouping symbolises the crisis of migration in its entirety, of this innate connection which she feels to loss itself.
For Gana Roberts grief is expressed as collective grief from her experience whilst in Lesvos. She literally lays one story out. Lost Lives is a work directly dealing with the migrant crisis in Greece. Having spent time volunteering in Lesvos she was urged to make a work speaking about the tragic story of how 363 individuals were drowned at sea during January 2016 while she was working on the island. Gana and her friends sewed the outline of 363 socks onto a large sheet of heavy cotton. The delicacy of these traces on the sheet, laid flat on the floor, is another way of making a map, of making a story. Gana is mapping empathy and collective grievance. The work can be viewed as a memorial or anti-monument, a reflection on the horrors that are sadly instilled within our society and for which we are all, albeit obliquely, responsible. Gana’s current work blends ideas around the individual and the instability we are collectively faced with in current society.
Material has the potential to convey emotion and experience, for Nicola Kelly this is paramount. Clay is the material which she employs most often as a means to “reflect the precarious nature of human existence”vi. Her piece, 512 is a collection of fragile porcelain vessels arranged on the floor of the space, the flaws glimmer; they are highlighted by a golden glaze. Nicola has spoken about this piece and refers to the work as a way of mapping personal grief. This emotive work holds the viewer in a tense state. The work is within precarious breaking distance, so quickly could one crush one element and in doing so destroy the entire display. I am reminded of moments when my own grief surfaces, unaware that it is just beneath my viewing range-like Nicola’s work. Sometimes a single instance can shatter my stability, yet how beautiful those moments are. And they are the purest most delicate forms of human emotion, like these vessels, where all the deepest flaws and experiences are precious, golden.
Floodgate by Bernadette Burns deals directly with the shooting of Eileen Quinn in Galway in 1920. Eileen Quinn was Bernadette’s aunt who was visibly pregnant when The Black and Tans opened fire on her while she was standing by her front wall in the presence of her three young children. The reasons for the shooting are unknown, such was the way in many of these tragic incidents that occurred during this time in our history. The incident is currently a major element in Bernadette’s work which looks at how the past and the stories that we have from it can become blurred or altered. At present she uses family photographs and a range of archival material in her creative process. Such material may be used in the physical creation of work, or it may provide the contextual depth which her oil paintings are concerned with. Floodgate is Bernadette’s way of transforming this painful story, which is deeply instilled within the collective family and community psyche. Water is used as a cleansing or healing trope in her work; in this painting the artist floods the canvas thus symbolically transforming the memory of the incident. The title Floodgate can be seen as a way of letting this inherent grief become something else, of moving past the point of endless questioning and carrying this sense of deep loss. The children are symbolised as three ladders, this is Bernadette’s way of allowing them to be unconstrained from this situation which must have been monumental in shaping their emotional growth in their formative years. Eileen’s memory is preserved in the wall at the bottom of the canvas. The memory of her is within something that is made of many parts, so the story may very well become fragmented. But these parts are made of stone and stone is a material which endures. This story will be further explored in Galway Arts Centre where Bernadette will have a solo exhibition in January 2020.
Tess Leak’s work at the exhibition was removed from the subject of grief. Tess’ work at this exhibition is deeply involved with intuitive and free practice which is why she forms part of the group. This fluidity and apparent joy in making must come from her closeness to music and sonic arts. The experimental and improvisational nature of her musical projects certainly influences her visual arts practice. It is also apparent that she enjoys making, her work is curious and humorous. In Tess’ work Om, story reveals itself in that the character becomes animate through the curious mind of the viewer who asks “who is Om?” And “where did he get that hat?” Bernadette told me Tess found Om’s hat. It fits him perfectly. Om is a fictional character so he does not have a biography and he can be what you like. He is a puppet which Tess made as part of a group project. He wears a long shawl or cape-like ensemble and a visor cap. He is bright and shiney. I think Om is a sonic being, he transcends dimensions with sound. I think Om is an associate of Sun Ra or of Ziggy Star Dust. He is a self-professed master of intuition.
Falling into the Sky allows for the artists to traverse different aspects of their work collectively. The network of support is primary to the maintenance of the artist’s work. Collective exhibition making helps the artists to draw the necessary lines they need around the work. Most importantly it enhances and invigorates the local and national art scene. The work involved in making this happen is unquantifiable however the positive benefits to the artist’s and broader society are too. When thinking about projects such as Falling into the Sky we must remember the basic potential and functions art can have on all aspects of society. It is quite simple, yet affective. Artists such as those active in Falling into the Sky share their experience of the world, in a way they translate this experience. They provide new ways from which to portray the experience of being human, perhaps enabling viewers to understand their experience of the most phenomenal emotions or events that occur in our everyday lives.
References:
i Obrist, Hans Ulrich with Raza, Asad: Ways of Curating, 2015, Penguin Books, United Kingdom
ii Powell, Jan: Essay-Artistic Collaboration, The Visual Artists’ News Sheet, July-August 2019, Visual Artists Ireland, Ireland.
iii Kester, Grant: Essay-Collaborative Arts and the limits of criticism, CREATE News, May 2013, Ireland.
https://www.create-ireland.ie/publication/create-news-14-grant-kester-on-collaborative-practice-and-the- limits-of-criticism/
iv Bourke, Angela: Essay-Economic Necessity and Escapist Fantasy in Éamon A Búres Sea Stories. Lysaght, Patricia, Ó Latháin, Séamas and ÓLhógháin, Dáithí: Islanders and Water Dwellers, DBA Publications LTD, Dublin, 1999, Department of Irish Folklore, University College Dublin.
v Ní Dochartaigh, Kerri: Essay-Closer; Not too Close, 2019, Crossing the Dissour, Greywood Arts, Killeagh, Co.
Cork. http://crossingthedissour.ie/wp/portfolio/closer-not-too-close-kerri-ni-dochartaigh/
vi Kelly, Nicola: Artists Statement, Falling into the Sky exhibition information sheet. August 2019. Skibbereen, Co.Cork.
