Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh’s Vague Symptom Clinic considers Ireland’s legacies of colonialism, partition, and state violence, and their relationship to intergenerational trauma and inherited chronic illness. The exhibition’s title is taken from the real-life National Health Service (NHS) clinic that attempts to identify the origins or causes of a range of indefinite indicators of disease, including weight loss, fatigue, brain fog and night sweats.
Ó Dochartaigh makes sculptural installations with materials including blown glass, fabricated metal, diagrammatic images, wallpaper, fabric, light, electronic components and bespoke medical tools made of ceramic, marble, and granite.
His works bring together a deep set of associations that range from the macropolitical to the cellular; drawing connections between catastrophic environmental events, international and local political histories, knowledge connected to prison struggles in the north of Ireland, medical trauma, and the inner workings of the disabled body.
Ó Dochartaigh works closely with a range of collaborators and Vague Symptom Clinic includes soft sculptures made with Martha Lewtas, diagrammatic drawings with Axel Feldmann, clay sculptures made with ceramicist Brian Magee and metal works with fabricators GB Engineers.
At the centre of the exhibition are a series of sculptures made in collaboration with glass artist Andrea Spencer, who uses flame-working techniques to produce three-dimensional renderings of diagrams of the internal organs, blood vessels, and nervous systems of humans and animals; parasitic organisms; and the messy effluents of the body suffering from disease. Additional glass work by Scott Benefield and Sadhbh Mowlds.
Co curated by Sara Greavu and Marysia Więckiewicz.
