Mirror States is a two channel projected video installation (RT 18 mins 50 secs looped) that reflects on the intertwined revolutionary histories of Cuba and Ireland. Both islands share a strange United States Military Base in the west – Shannon Airport and Guantanamo Bay.In the 1890’s Cuba was described in irish revolutionary circles as ‘The Ireland of the West’. Ireland later gave Cuba the charismatic Irish revolutionary Che Guevara Lynch; while in return Cuba gave Ireland the more conservative and dour figure of Eamon De Valera whose family came from outside Havana.
Mirror States
Beulah Ezeugo & Caroline Mac Cathmhaoil
22 & 23 July
Cuba largely fulfilled the socialist dream of its uprising. While filming Mirror States in Cuba it felt like the revolution was still happening. Large plazas celebrated their heroes. The images of the revolution were everywhere. Dublin in contrast never developed a similar visual language of commemoration of its revolutionary triumph. The heroes of our rising are hidden in small statues down exhaust-fumed back streets – hardly noticed, their dreams seem forgotten.
Filmed between Cuba and Ireland 2022-2025, Mirror States weaves together original footage, found material and online archives to explore how both islands now commemorate or obscure their political pasts and potential futures. Through mirrored images Mirror States asks what might be rediscovered when the histories of Cuba and Ireland (sometimes parallel and sometimes divergent) are brought into dialogue once more.
With thanks to: Doireann Coady (v.o.), Philip Stewart, Harun Siljak, David Kennedy, David Finn, Nina Blodau, Dazey and the Impromptu Connolly Bookshop choir. With gratitute to all in the Shannon Anti-War Movement.
Dedicated to Margaretta D’Arcy whose thought is always with me – as we fight for roses.
About the artists
1.
Beulah Ezeugo is a curator and writer. Her practice engages with national identity and memory and expands outward through critical writing, exhibition-making, and public programming. Beulah was curator of the 23rd edition of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts and is a co-founder (with Joselle Ntumba) of Éireann and I, a community archive and memory project. She is currently a curator at Peer, a non-profit arts organisation in East London.
Previous projects and awards include Platform Commissions, 41st EVA International (2025), SIRIUS Critic-in-Residence (2024), and 11:11 x Iniva Residency, Stuart Hall Library, London (2024). She was a Research Associate at CCA Derry~Londonderry (2022-24) and a recipient of Glasgow International’s Black Curators Collective Bursary (2021). Her writing has appeared in The Irish Times, as well as in publications by Douglas Hyde Gallery, Durty Books, and Bloomers Magazine.
2.
Caroline Mac Cathmhaoil is an artist and writer working between Dublin and London. Recent shows include Mirror States at Tulca as part of Strange Lands Still Bear Common Ground curated by Beulah Ezeugo; Aer Milam at Pallas Contemporary Projects / Betafest 2025 (curator Aisling Murray); and ‘This is How I Roll’ at Betafest Unsettling the Algorithm – Seeds of Resistance (curated by Aisling Murray and Nora O’Murchú). Writing appears in Winter Papers No. 9, Gorse No. 13 and the Tulca 2025 publication. They previously worked both collectively and individually under the name www.loiteringtheatre.org and are currently completing a practice based phd in Goldsmiths College London. See also: @restlessidiom
Date
22 & 23 July
Times
Film will be screened on loop from 11am - 6pm on 22 July and from 11am - 5:30pm on Weds 23 July.
The Q&A event will take place from 6 - 7pm on 23 July.
Space
The Gallery
Tickets
The film screenings are free to attend, no booking required.
The Q&A event on 23 July is free, but booking is required.
Space
The Gallery
Duration
18 mins
Genres
ExhibitionsVisual Art
https://vimeo.com/
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