Metabolic time / Am meitibileach is an exhibition and public programme that considers ideas around time and the preservation of collective memory. It gathers together artworks and methods that interrupt, reroute or circle around ideas of progressive, linear time – time as imposed by the state, by colonising powers, by institutions like museums that seek to define our civic identity. It asks if and how we can recuperate other possible forms of time-reckoning that have been forgotten or suppressed.
Metabolic time / Am meitibileach includes sculpture, video, works on paper, and public events that propose time ordered otherwise: through the body, through natural processes, through discourse with ancestors. The works in the exhibition and public programme imagine forms of preservation, collecting and display that speak to shared intimacies and networks of relation, and invite experiments with different rhythms, configurations and scales of time.
Accessibility
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Biographies
Sara Greavu (Curator of Visual Arts at Project Arts Centre) is a curator, writer and organiser. She has a particular interest in how art can recognise existing social structures, propose alternative histories and genealogies, and prefigure different social relations. Previous curatorial and development roles include Centre for Contemporary Art Derry~Londonderry, VOID, and Outburst Arts, Belfast; in addition to working independently. Institutional and independent projects have included artists such as Renate Lorenz & Pauline Boudry and Phil Collins, and new commissions by Aideen Doran and Eimear Walshe, among others. In CCA she initiated the two-year residency programme, Our Neighbourhood, which engaged with local communities of place and communities of interest, alongside artists Sarah Pierce and Sarah Browne. In 2019, in partnership with artist Andrea Francke, she developed Knowledge is Made Here, an alternative pedagogical practice, produced with queer, trans and non-binary young people. It’s not for you we did it, a research project with artist Ciara Phillips, deals with intertwined political and cultural initiatives in Derry in the 1980s and is part of the 39th EVA International 2020-21.
Cairo Clarke is a curator and writer based in London and Naples. Her work is informed by slowness. It centers forms of knowledge production and dissemination that slip between the cracks, are formed on unstable ground and take on multiple temporalities; supporting strands of theorising taking place in autonomous spaces and holding space for the mess.
Cairo has worked closely with artists to develop and share instances of work across film, performance, printed matter and events as well as sharing self-led curatorial projects across numerous sites including Pompeii Commitment: Archeological Matters, Deptford X and LUX. In 2019 she launched SITE, a publication and curatorial project exploring alternative encounters with artist practice and the dissemination of research. Cairo was the 2020/21 Curatorial Fellow at LUX.
Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh is an artist from Derry with an interest in the intersection of immaterial and material processes. He is a PhD researcher in the art department at Goldsmiths College, London, and obtained an MFA at Goldsmiths 2010-2012. Research explores complexities inherent within post-conflict settings and intergenerational trauma in Ireland. Ciarán has an ongoing research relationship with a family of donkeys. Recent work includes Ferox, CCA Derry~Londonderry, 2022; MIXED BAG, St James’ Hatcham, 2022; Theorem, 2019/ 2021; De l’île au monde: Centre international d’art et du paysage, 2019 and Dobles de Proximida, Santiago Museum of Contemporary Art, 2018.
With thanks to Axel Feldmann, Aidenville Pottery and CCA Derry~Londonderry.
Davinia-Ann Robinson’s practice examines how ‘Presencing’, fugitivity and tactility undo colonial and imperial frameworks through which nature and Bodies of Colour are articulated. This is done by exploring Black, Brown and Indigenous relationships to land and colonial landscapes. Her work addresses personal interactions with ‘colonial emotions’ she has encountered, in local, national and global environments as a Black Female Body, building on her intense relationship with earth as a living material explored through sculpture, sound, writing and performance.
Davinia-Ann has been included in solo and group exhibitions, recent include: Our Other Us – Art Encounters Biennial – Romania (2021), New Contemporaries, Colchester and London (2021), Being Here – Kupfer, London (2021), I Am Unsure As To If It Is Still Alive – Quench, Margate (2021), Bold Tendencies, London (2020), Freedom Is Outside the Skin – Kunsthal 44Møen, Denmark
Gareth Kennedy‘s work explores the social agency of the handcrafted in the 21st century and generates ‘communities of interest’ around the production and performance of experimental material cultures with are familiar, but also strange. Informed by an anthropological approach these works draw on the layered histories of a location. Projects are embedded, evolve over time, and enacted by diverse publics and individuals. With the hyperdigitisation of our everyday, Kennedy is interested in the use of anachronistic processes and technologies to produce ‘critical anachronism’ and generate contemporary encounter. He often works with individuals who hold skills or knowledge that has been transmitted across generations to this end. He is lead coordinator of the FIELD Studio+ elective at the NCAD.
With thanks to Dún Chaocháin Comhar Teo; Treasa Ní Ghearraigh & Uinsíonn McGraith; Séamas Ó Catháin ; Séamas Caulfield; Micheál & Caitlín Ó Sheighin; Willie Creighton and Mickey Monaghan; Pádraig Ó Dochartaigh; Bríd Ní Sheighin & Scoil Náisiúnta Ceathrú Thaidhg; The National Museum of Ireland; Mayo Arts Office, Áras Inis Gluaire & the Arts Council of Ireland: Participation Award.
Raju Rage is proactive about using art, education and activism to forge creative survival. Born in Kenya, raised in London and living/working beyond, they explore the spaces and relationships between dis/connected bodies, theory and practice, text and the body and aesthetics and the political substance. Their current interests are around sustainability, economies, care, and resistance. They are a member of Collective Creativity arts collective and are a creative educator and independent scholar with an interest in radical pedagogy.
Raju has a theirstory in activism, self and collective organised queer/ transgender/ people of colour movements and creative projects in London and beyond from which their politics and works draw on and from.
Raju has trained as a pastry chef and baker, worked in several community kitchens and been part of a baker’s collective.
Rosa-Johan Uddoh is an interdisciplinary artist working towards radical self-love. She is inspired by Black feminist practice and writing.
Through performance, writing and multi-media installation, she explores places, objects and celebrities in British popular culture, and their effects on self-formation. Collaboration is key to Rosa’s work, often working together with children, activists and other artists to explore themes that impact our communities and share knowledge.
Rosa is a lecturer in Performance at Central Saint Martins. She was a finalist for Arts Foundation Futures Awards 2021. Rosa was the Liverpool Biennial and John Moores University Fellow 2018-2019 and was the Stuart Hall Library Resident for 2020. She was a Sarabande: Lee Alexander Mc Queen Scholar.
Rosa’s solo presentations include: ‘Practice Makes Perfect’, Focal Point Gallery (Southend-on-sea, 2021), ‘”She is still alive!”’, Destiny’s (Oslo, 2020), ‘Studies for Impartiality’, Jupiter Woods and ‘Sphinx at the Crystal Palace’, Black Tower Projects (both London, 2019). Group shows include: ‘Brand New Heavies’, Pioneer Works (New York, 2021), ‘Learning by Doing’, 68 Institute (Copenhagen, 2019), New Contemporaries (London & Liverpool 2018) and ‘Black Blossoms’, The Royal Standard (Liverpool, 2017). Recently she has screened work at East London Cable’s ‘TV Dinners E03’ at Tate Modern, 2019.
Imani Mason Jordan (fka Robinson) is an interdisciplinary writer, artist, editor and facilitator. Their research-led practice combines live art and performance, oration, collaboration, poetry and critical theory, exploring themes of black geographies, the afterlives of transatlantic slavery, abolition, radical resistance and the politics of safety. Recent performances include ATLANTIC RAILTON: LIVE with Ain Bailey at Serpentine Pavilion (2021); TREAD/MILL-WIP at Somerset House Studios (2021) & WELCOME NOTE (Quantum Ghost) with Libita Sibungu (Gasworks, 2018; Spike Island, 2019; Dartington Hall/Sensing the Planet, 2021). Alongside Rabz Lansiquot, Imani is one half of the artistic and curatorial collaboration Languid Hands, who are Curatorial Fellows at Cubitt Artists, Angel, until Spring 2022, presenting work by RIP Germain, Ajamu X, Camara Taylor & Shenece Oretha. In 2021, Languid Hands curated the LIVE programme for Frieze London, presenting newly commissioned performances by Rebecca Bellantoni, Ebun Sodipo & Ashley Holmes.
Jasleen Kaur is an artist based in London. Her work is an ongoing exploration into the malleability of culture and the layering of social histories within the material and immaterial things that surround us. Her practice examines diasporic identity and hierarchies of history, both colonial and personal. She works with sculpture, video and writing.
Recent and upcoming commissions include Wellcome Collection, UP Projects, Glasgow Women’s Library, Market Gallery, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Eastside Projects and Hollybush Gardens. Her work is part of the permanent collection of Touchstones Rochdale, Royal College of Art and Crafts Council.
Sinéad Mercier is a lecturer in Planning Law, Environmental Law and Policy at University College Dublin, and an ERC project PROPERTY [IN]JUSTICE/UCD Sutherland School of Law PhD researcher on the topic Grounding the land in the otherworld: fairyforts, holy wells and rag trees in Landscape and Lawscape. She has worked on just transition/environmental/climate change law and policy for a range of government, grassroots, political parties and other organisations. Recent publications include Men Who Eat Ringforts: A study of County Clare’s fairyforts and environmental law co-written with artist Michael Holly and seanachaí Eddie Lenihan, published and edited by Askeaton Public Arts and funded by Clare County Council’s Gaining Ground Programme and the Arts Council.
Donal O’Kelly is a writer and actor. His solo plays include the award-winning Catalpa (Edinburgh Fringe First, London Time Out Critics’ Choice, Best Event Melbourne International Festival), Bat the Father Rabbit The Son (Best Writer and Best Actor nominations Irish Theatre Awards), and Jimmy Joyced! (Best Actor nomination Irish Theatre Awards). Other plays include The Cambria, Running Beast, The Dogs, Hughie On The Wires, Trickledown Town, The Business of Blood, Farawayan, Asylum! Asylum!, Mamie Sighs, Judas of the Gallarus, and The Hand. He was a founder and until 2003 a director of Calypso Productions, and is an associate director of the peace and justice organisation Afri.
Funding
Project Arts Centre is proud to be supported by the Arts Council Ireland and Dublin City Council.