We write this from the mainland, having finished our project and residency on Inis Oírr, and taking some time to reflect.
The final week on the island was intense. Sadbh and I worked long days, measuring walls, calculating distances, drawing maps of areas we had covered, and arranging for photos and prints to be brought to the island.
Shout out to Em Murphy, and Sadbh’s mammy Nóirín for meeting our demands, and arriving out to the island armed with goods for us. We were treated to both pub and homemade dinners by our wonderful guests (Lucy had also joined us by then!), and we were terrible company as we obsessively worked towards our Saturday showing.
“Tomhais” went down really well. We had a strong audience of islanders join us for a screening of our documentary (Shot by the fabulous Emilija and edited with some personal footage by Sadbh); then did a short interactive performance where we invited our audience to join us in measuring walls. Afterwards, we brought them into our studio where we had set up an exhibition of our research and process, and delivered our final measurement.
Did we manage to measure all of the walls? Absolutely not. Did we go a bit mad committing to a futile task? Absolutely. Was it a worthwhile endeavour? I think so.
We successfully engaged the island community with our project, and managed to tick our boxes of durational performance, interacting with the specific Inis Oírr landscape, working cultures, and experimenting in duo work. We set ourselves an immensely difficult task, and managed to come through the other side of it without too many meltdowns. Coming away from it, our attitude has wavered between “We’re definitely not doing this again, hard no, never ever” to “Well we could always try to bring it back for the Stone Wall Festival”…
Will this project go anywhere after this? It’s extremely hard to say, we’re both still processing and reflecting after landing back to real life, and straight into a busy Halloween. What is certain is the powerful impact undertaking it had on us both – physically, mentally, and creatively.
We’d like to extend a massive thank you to Áras Éanna and ISACS for supporting and hosting us on this residency; to Aoife Carry for her guidance and mentoring through this project, to Emma O’Grady for all the help and morale boosts, and to Em for helping us to get all our exhibition ducks in a row. Thank you to all the islanders who participated in this project, and who offered us kind words of encouragement in the process.
Focloír
- Iontaise – Fossil
- Gadhair – Dog
- Gabhar – Goat
- Magairle – testicle
- Meidhreach – Merry
- Magairlín meidhreach – Purple Orchid
- Réisiúntach – reasonably
