New Derry exhibition explores housing, fossil fuels and a feeling of belonging

Three artists have taken residency in Art Arcadia, in St Augustine’s Old Schoolhouse, to explore the theme of housing.
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Anne-Marie McKee, David Jacques and Ciara Finnegan have come together to create a collaborative exhibition where they each created three houses, using the same dimensions, with different materials to explore different themes around houses and emotions surrounding them.

The idea for the exhibition grew from a project Ciara was working on since 2018, called The Dollhouse Space.

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Ciara, who lives in the Netherlands said: “I found a dollhouse on the dutch equivalent of Ebay for €15. It wasn’t a bespoke dollhouse, it was just a run of the mill dollhouse made by a factory in the 70s. I then sort of retro-engineered the dollhouse to draw the plans of the house, so that anyone with access to a laser cutter can cut the design out themselves. I really like this aspect of looking at a container for art that is not a hallowed space, that the building is not made for the art. I sent these plans to David and Anne-Marie for this project. Each of the houses are very individual but we have this connection of ideas and processes and the contrast between each project.”

Ciara Finnegan, David Jacques and Anne-Marie McKee.Ciara Finnegan, David Jacques and Anne-Marie McKee.
Ciara Finnegan, David Jacques and Anne-Marie McKee.

Ciara’s house is made from clear Plexiglas and has a number of figures reflecting human emotions and feelings and are reference to Malcolm Turvey’s take on Jacques Tati’s movies.

“We’re looking at how people personalise their houses or maybe they have a sort of idiosyncratic loop to the house,” she said. “We’re asking where we’re at with the housing debate at the moment but, for me, we’re looking at the art potential of the house. This is the first time we’ve all come together and I love that there’s a thread of humour through the work and a kind of healthy disrespect for the art object. I really enjoy the sheer playfulness of it.”

Anne-Marie, who lives in Derry, said: “I’ve been working on this idea of thin places, which is the idea that there are different places in the landscape where there’s a rift or you feel a connection to somewhere else. The sacs, that I’ve been working on, are from a neighbour friend of mine who is a sheep farmer. They are sheep food sacs and I’ve been sewing on a phrase using materials that are from significant moments of my life, so there’s an autobiographical use of materials in it. It’s also connected to this place in Moville, called The Schoolhouse, which is by Cooley, and that ties in with the housing theme of the show. This exhibition is also in a schoolhouse.

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“The idea is that the bags will become props in film work, so what you see at the exhibition is a snapshot of where the work is in progress. It’s an ongoing continuum.”

David Jacques' Dollhouse, which has encountered a mass of oil & gas pipes, refelcting on the fossil fuel industry.David Jacques' Dollhouse, which has encountered a mass of oil & gas pipes, refelcting on the fossil fuel industry.
David Jacques' Dollhouse, which has encountered a mass of oil & gas pipes, refelcting on the fossil fuel industry.

David is from Liverpool but has always felt a strong connection to Derry after a visit during the 90s. His current practice deals with Eco-Political situations using layered, surreal narratives. For the housing residency, he has set up an encounter between the Dollhouse, a mass of oil & gas pipes infused with a wild animism and a puck-like figure known as ‘The Oil Drop Kid’, a distorted take on Esso Oils’ mascot from the 1950’s.

He said: “For the past few years, I’ve been interested in issues around fossil fuels and oil extraction, so I kind of bent that theme into my relationship with the Dollhouse. I’ve resurrected ‘The Oil Drop Kid’ because, in the 50s, he was this positive figure of the future of fossil fuels but he has come back now in a zombified form. My Dollhouse got burned out and burst open with oil pipes.”

The exhibition opens to the public on Thursday 29 September - Saturday 1 October. For more information, visit artarcadia.org.

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