JESSE JONES: TREMBLE TREMBLE

Official Launch: Thursday 7 June at 6pm

Opening Hours: 11am – 6pm
Late Night Opening: Thurs – Fri, 11am – 8pm,
excl. 5 and 12 July

Jesse Jones threw a spotlight on feminism and women’s issues with her work Tremble Tremble when she represented Ireland at the 57th Venice Biennale / La Biennale di Venezia in 2017. Since then the political landscape has changed dramatically, with calls for change echoing around the world. In the wake of #MeToo, #IBelieveHer, revelations about the gender pay gap, and in the year that that saw Irish citizens go to the polls for an historic referendum vote, Jesse Jones returns to Dublin with the Irish premiere of this timely work. Jones will transform Project’s Space Upstairs into a multi-media installation which re-imagines feminist history and law, presenting an artwork she describes as a “bewitching” of the judicial system.
The title is inspired by the 1970s Italian wages for housework movement, during which women chanted “Tremate, tremate, le streghe sono tornate! (Tremble, tremble, the witches have returned!)”. Jones’ work emerges from a rising social movement in Ireland which calls for a transformation of the historic relationship between the church and the state. In this time of change, Jesse Jones returns to the witch as a feminist archetype and disrupter who has the potential to transform reality. Tremble Tremble imagines a different legal order, one in which the multitude are bought together in a symbolic, gigantic body, to proclaim a new law, that of In Utera Gigantae.

Images: XXXXXX

Tremble Tremble is a collaboration with theatre artist Olwen Fouéré, sound artist Susan Stenger and commissioner and curator Tessa Giblin, Director of Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh. It was originally commissioned for the Pavilion of Ireland of the 57th Venice Biennale (2017), and produced with Project Arts Centre.

A book, published in English and Italian, features the writing of Silvia Federici, Tina Kinsella, Lisa Godson, and Tessa Giblin. Designed by Åbäke, with photography by Ros Kavanagh. Tremble Tremble / Tremate Tremate is co-published by Mousse Publishing and Project Arts Centre and is now available to purchase from the Bookshop at Project Arts Centre.

Born in Dublin in 1978, Jesse Jones is an artist. She studied sculpture at NCAD before completing an MA in visual arts practice at IADT in 2005. She teaches in Fine Art programmes at CIT Crawford College of Art & Design in Cork, and has worked and exhibited extensively both at home and abroad.
Jones’ work takes many forms; from gallery based films, installations and sculpture, to large scale public events and performance. She has collaborated with diverse groups; from opera singers and marching bands to activists. Her practice largely aims to excavate the hidden meaning within our popular collective consciousness, and she explores how historical instances of communal culture may hold resonance in our current social and political experiences. Her practice also reflects and re-presents historical moments of collective resistance and dissent. Politics have always been important to her artistic thinking.

“…artist Jesse Jones has pulled off a triumph. Tremble, Tremble is a Pandora’s box of a film installation which unleashes a stagey, supernatural yet utterly compelling witch on the audience.” Moira Jeffrey, The Scotsman

“…a small, but potent reminder that change is possible: what is imagined in art can eventually become law, and what is law can eventually become history” Sunday Business Post

“…the persistence of the feminine as a parallel, subversive reality – embodied in the witch, demonised, hounded and suppressed.” Irish Times

The Irish presentation of Ireland at Venice is supported by the Arts Council as part of its commitment to promote the visual arts to Irish audiences.
Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council. In 2017 it was produced and supported by Project Arts Centre, and the Pavilion Production Manager was Aaron Kelly. Principal Sponsor: Dublin Port Company. International Partner: LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. Production Partner: Institute of Art, Design + Technology (IADT).
Proudly supported by CIT Crawford College of Art & Design; Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh College of Art and University of Edinburgh; South Dublin County Council and Rua Red; Dublin City Council; Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and the patrons of Ireland at Venice 2017 and Project Arts Centre’s Visual Arts.: Emma and Fred Goltz, Jennifer and Adrian O’Carroll, Ronald A. Christaldi, Monica Flood, the Kerlin Gallery, Donall Curtin, Jonathan Ellis King, Sue Raethorn, Gearóid Faherty and Martin Mackin.