An exhibition of film and fabric works to open in Kilkenny

Rehearsals, a solo exhibition of new fabric and film works by Yvonne McGuinness will open at the Butler Gallery this Saturday.

Rehearsals was developed and inspired by the environs, architecture and people of Kilkenny; past and present. Bound into this collective history is the biography of McGuinness whose paternal family have been involved in the political life of the city for three generations. This legacy of political engagement fuels the work.

Pictures: Stars in their eyes - Oscar winner returns to his Kilkenny school

McGuinness has established a practice that supports individuals and communities in using their voices to question systems of power and to ‘act out’ within them through public, performative interventions. With collaboration and diversity at its heart McGuinness has worked over a six-month period with school children at St. John’s Senior school and with members and developed two new film works with them.

In ‘Priory’ the artist uses the ruin of Callan Augustinian Priory to stage rehearsals, creating a multi-layered, filmic, almost hologrammatic atmosphere. A transmutation of energies occurs, boundaries collapse and unexpected connections occur.

An official makes a speech only to be disrupted by his audience. The passive audience become active participants; all energies, material or immaterial, combine in riotous colour only for the carpet to ultimately get rolled up as the shadow of the building shifts and ‘reality’ returns.

 In ‘Schoolyard’ we observe a group of children haphazardly make a ‘scene’ in 10 minutes. Nobody is in charge, yet there is a symbiosis; something occurs from nothing, that holds the weight of the world. Calamity, catastrophe and comedy intermingle—a biblical scene unfolds holding the resonance of a religious past still permeating the imaginations of children.  Individual portraits speak to the chaos, ‘we are born for this’ one girl shouts through a megaphone in Ukrainian. The films communicate with each other, one from the religious ruin, the other from a schoolyard, testing and ultimately transcending the boundaries of their institutional contexts. These ‘rehearsals of readiness’ conjure up tableaux of absurd preparedness where collapse and chaos, ritual and emergency, coalesce in energetic acts of collective momentum.

Yvonne McGuinness received a BFA from Crawford College of Art, Cork in 1997 and an MFA from Royal College of Art, London in 2003.

The exhibition opens at 3pm on October 21 and runs until January 14.

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