UPROOTINGTALLAGHT
PERFORMING ARTS
FESTIVAL 2023
PHOTOGRAPHY
ARCHIVE
- Content Warning: Some performances in Becoming Tallaght feature nudity and blood.
Replacement by Frances Mezzetti
- "I have gathered peoples stories for many years in my art practice and from these I make a live action bearing witness to the story givers within a given location. Over a period of being present in and around Tallaght Square I invited people I met to share their stories with me around their personal experiences of settling in Tallaght. The result is this collective history which will be part of the performance at the Losset Stone."
- Frances Mezzetti
Tongue Mouthed by Sinéad O’Donnell
- tongue mouthed
cheeking
eyes gated
locked
Splinted trees
Fog
temporal memories
land
Roadside Memorials by Pauline Cummins
- "I have been collecting images of roadside memorials for some time, most recently in Tallaght. They are usually made in the area where a loved one died, and then maintained by family and friends. During my performance we will visit some of these memorials and commemorate each life with a performance at each site."
- Pauline Cummins
The Slut by Lauren Kelly
- Lauren Kelly performs the second live piece of her most recent project The Slut and The Witch, exploring the idea of 'the slut' as a radical non-gender conformity that transgresses social norms. With The Slut, Lauren explores her personal experiences with sexuality while growing up in Tallaght, placing the viewer in a space of ritualistic transgression.
Sreabhadh (Flow) by Francis Fay
- Rolling - an action inspired in part by the Hindu practice known as Angapradakshinam and the Christian tradition of pattern (Irish: pátrn). Both are rituals of devotion requiring physical and mental strength. This action of rolling is a nod to Bohernabreena's ancient significance as a place of pilgrimage and site of one of the most important elements, water, from which life emerged; nourishing the local farmland and sustaining its communities.
Chariot of Fire by Day Magee
- "An image, in an attempt to break free of itself, living between you and me, over and over again." - Day Magee
Day Magee's performance depicts the ascent of the prophet Elijah to Heaven on a chariot of fire, soundscaped by messages between Magee and a man from Tallaght, one of the 'great loves of [Magee's] life'. With tape, Magee transforms the floor into a canvas reminiscent of Patrick Pye's Chariot of Fire. The zip ties around Magee's arms evoke the image of wings while keeping the body in tight restraint.
Dispensation (Saint Paul) by Paul Regan
- During his performance, Paul Regan walked from the site of a centuries-old walnut tree into the gallery space.
"When we first visited that site, I took a walnut from the tree... and afterwards I found it at home in my pocket and I felt guilty that I'd taken it because this tree is sacred and in this exclusive place and I thought, we take things so easily. So I felt an impulse to go back there, to bring something back. Not just the walnuts, but to bring people there."
Red-ire-acting by Elvira Santamaría-Torres
- Elvira Santamaría-Torres uses performance to make time visible. Using the bubbles in the performance space and catching air in a large plastic sheet, Santamaria-Torres draws attention to experiences that can only exist for a brief moment. She contrasts this with actions that unfold over a much longer period of time, such as when she attempts, over and over again, to throw a red thread over a beam near the gallery ceiling.
Unleavened by Michael Dignam
- Michael Dignam's performance weaves together personal and communal feelings of loss in Tallaght's changing landscape. A soundscape composed by Dignam's late friend Al Keegan anchors the performance, and Dignam's live manipulations charts Tallaght's history - from the manual labor of its industrial past through to the automated, data-centric present.
Rebirthing Ritual by The Ljilja
- "The thing that people are most afraid of is the body. The body is the darkness. That's what I wanted to tap into - to represent the darkness that we accumulate inside of us." - The Ljilja
In the Ljilja's performance, her body becomes a vessel for the expression of pain - past, present, and future. The black paint speaks to the darkness that we carry with us, and the blood acts as a cleansing force through which it is released. By witnessing the pain expressed by another, we can let go of the pain we carry ourselves.
Interlinking the Spiritual Body by Various Artists
- The conclusion of the Performance Art Festival Uprooting Tallaght, featued a live presentation from the workshop Interlinking the Spiritual Body: An Introduction to Performance Art from artists Vera Ryklova, Karen Aguiar, Eileen Mc Loughlin, Sé Franklin, Marion Bergin, and Laura Kelly.
This temporary collective integrated their learnings into a site-specific performance where they responded to the idea of 'Tallaght', each with their own unique approach.