Orla Barry
Breaking Rainbows
A live performance/installation
Performance June 22-23 at 6pm, exhibition: June 24-August 26 2017
Crawford Art Gallery in association with Cork Midsummer Festival
First shown at Temple Bar Gallery & Studios and premiered as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival (29 September - 5 November, 2017), Breaking Rainbows by Orla Barry, a live performance and installation, continues it's tour to Crawford Art Gallery and the Cork Midsummer Festival.
Exploring the boundaries of art and life, Breaking Rainbows uses the relationship between wo/man and animal, and the cannibalistic, symbiotic tension between (Orla Barry) the artist and (Orla Barry) the shepherd to reflect on the primal and poetic and unpredictable bond we have in the natural world. Presented as both live performance and video installation, Barry's new work is a fascinating journey into the land of shepherding through the lens of "doing" rather than "observing" the job at hand.
Endearing, humorous and challenging, Breaking Rainbows reflects on both our interdependence and disconnection from the natural environment. Made up of a series of vignettes, Barry's work brings us into a journey through time, conceptualisations and effects: from the realms of sheep farming traditions, ancient Greek shepherd's singing competitions, contemporary consumerism and gender roles, to the intimate relationship of caring for a sheep about to give birth.
Interweaving live performance, video, and a 300 kg pile of wool produced on Barry's farm in 2015, with an aural landscape touching different forms of speech, Breaking Rainbows is congruous with Orla Barry's multidisciplinary aesthetic. However, as in her most recent work, Mountain, it also marks a new step in her trajectory by introducing chance procedures and a collaborative approach to the development of the texts. This results in the stories being reinvented and reshaped, defying notions of ownership, authorship and authenticity, and thus also reflecting on the nature of oral storytelling as transferred throughout generations. This is played out in an unpredictable order in which no performance or experience of the installation is the same.
Orla Barry (1969) is both a visual artist and shepherd. She lived for 16 years in Brussels and now lives and works in South East Ireland where she runs a flock of pedigree Lleyn sheep. In her work she deals with the physicality and poetics of oral language. A recent leitmotif is the tension between being an artist and a farmer in rural Ireland.
She has had performances at The Project Arts Centre, Dublin; The South London Gallery and Tate Modern, London; If I Can't Dance, De Appel Amsterdam; and The Playground Festival, Leuven.
She has also had solo shows at Mother's Tankstation, Dublin; CCB, Museu Berardo, Lisbon (with Rui Chafes); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; SMAK, Ghent, Belgium; Camden Arts Centre, London; and Bozar, Brussels. She has been awarded the prize of the Palais de Beaux Arts in the Prix de la Jeune Peinture Belge in 2003 and was shortlisted for the Glen Dimplex Prize in 1999.
Breaking Rainbows is supported by an Arts Council Touring and Dissemination of Work Award.
Breaking Rainbows will also tour to Wexford Arts Centre & Wexford Festival Opera, Wexford: Performance October 20–21 at 8pm, exhibition October 23 - November 18.
Written and directed by Orla Barry; Collaborators Einat Tuchman, Derrick Devine, Marcus Lamb; Performers Einat Tuchman, Dick Walsh; Commissioned and produced by Wexford Arts Centre, Temple Bar Gallery & Studios; Co-production Kaaitheater, ARGOS centre for art and media, Crawford Art Gallery; Funded by Arts Council of Ireland and by Culture Ireland; Supported by Dublin Theatre Festival, Midsummer Festival Cork, Opera Festival Wexford & IMMA’s residency program
Exploring the boundaries of art and life, Breaking Rainbows uses the relationship between wo/man and animal, and the cannibalistic, symbiotic tension between (Orla Barry) the artist and (Orla Barry) the shepherd to reflect on the primal and poetic and unpredictable bond we have in the natural world. Presented as both live performance and video installation, Barry's new work is a fascinating journey into the land of shepherding through the lens of "doing" rather than "observing" the job at hand.
Endearing, humorous and challenging, Breaking Rainbows reflects on both our interdependence and disconnection from the natural environment. Made up of a series of vignettes, Barry's work brings us into a journey through time, conceptualisations and effects: from the realms of sheep farming traditions, ancient Greek shepherd's singing competitions, contemporary consumerism and gender roles, to the intimate relationship of caring for a sheep about to give birth.
Interweaving live performance, video, and a 300 kg pile of wool produced on Barry's farm in 2015, with an aural landscape touching different forms of speech, Breaking Rainbows is congruous with Orla Barry's multidisciplinary aesthetic. However, as in her most recent work, Mountain, it also marks a new step in her trajectory by introducing chance procedures and a collaborative approach to the development of the texts. This results in the stories being reinvented and reshaped, defying notions of ownership, authorship and authenticity, and thus also reflecting on the nature of oral storytelling as transferred throughout generations. This is played out in an unpredictable order in which no performance or experience of the installation is the same.
Orla Barry (1969) is both a visual artist and shepherd. She lived for 16 years in Brussels and now lives and works in South East Ireland where she runs a flock of pedigree Lleyn sheep. In her work she deals with the physicality and poetics of oral language. A recent leitmotif is the tension between being an artist and a farmer in rural Ireland.
She has had performances at The Project Arts Centre, Dublin; The South London Gallery and Tate Modern, London; If I Can't Dance, De Appel Amsterdam; and The Playground Festival, Leuven.
She has also had solo shows at Mother's Tankstation, Dublin; CCB, Museu Berardo, Lisbon (with Rui Chafes); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; SMAK, Ghent, Belgium; Camden Arts Centre, London; and Bozar, Brussels. She has been awarded the prize of the Palais de Beaux Arts in the Prix de la Jeune Peinture Belge in 2003 and was shortlisted for the Glen Dimplex Prize in 1999.
Breaking Rainbows is supported by an Arts Council Touring and Dissemination of Work Award.
Breaking Rainbows will also tour to Wexford Arts Centre & Wexford Festival Opera, Wexford: Performance October 20–21 at 8pm, exhibition October 23 - November 18.
Written and directed by Orla Barry; Collaborators Einat Tuchman, Derrick Devine, Marcus Lamb; Performers Einat Tuchman, Dick Walsh; Commissioned and produced by Wexford Arts Centre, Temple Bar Gallery & Studios; Co-production Kaaitheater, ARGOS centre for art and media, Crawford Art Gallery; Funded by Arts Council of Ireland and by Culture Ireland; Supported by Dublin Theatre Festival, Midsummer Festival Cork, Opera Festival Wexford & IMMA’s residency program
Cork Midsummer Festival 2017 at Crawford Art Gallery
Performances:
Thursday 22 June, 6pm
Friday 23 June, 6pm
Bookings: via Cork Midsummer Festival
Video installation of work open to public in gallery: Saturday 24 June - Saturday 26 August 2017
Monday - Saturday, 10am - 5pm, and Thursday 10am - 8pm. Free entry.
Performances:
Thursday 22 June, 6pm
Friday 23 June, 6pm
Bookings: via Cork Midsummer Festival
Video installation of work open to public in gallery: Saturday 24 June - Saturday 26 August 2017
Monday - Saturday, 10am - 5pm, and Thursday 10am - 8pm. Free entry.
Wexford Festival Opera 2017 at Wexford Aers Centre
Performances:
Friday 20 October, 8pm
Saturday 21 October, 8pm
Video installation of work open to public in gallery: Monday 23 October - Saturday 18 November 2017
Monday - Friday, 10am - 5pm, and Saturday 10am - 4pm. Free entry.
Performances:
Friday 20 October, 8pm
Saturday 21 October, 8pm
Video installation of work open to public in gallery: Monday 23 October - Saturday 18 November 2017
Monday - Friday, 10am - 5pm, and Saturday 10am - 4pm. Free entry.
For further information on Breaking Rainbows contact Catherine Bowe, Visual Arts Manager, Wexford Arts Centre, Cornmarket, Wexford on +353 (0)53 91 23764 or email catherine@wexfordartscentre.ie.
| corkmidsummerfestival_2017.pdf |
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