June 30 to July 7

The Wait

Single channel HD video, 3 mins 25 secs, 2020.

June 23 to June 30

Just a Minute

Single channel HD video, 1 min 15 secs, 2020.

June 16 to June 23

‘Saturday, 13th June, 2020’

Single channel HD video, 49 secs, 2020.

 

POLYPHONIC MANIFESTO

I followed a link from my Facebook feed to an article in Frieze Magazine titled ‘Kara Walker on the Post-Lockdown World‘, 26 May 2020.

It’s a wonderfully reflective piece of writing responding to the topic ‘Exactitude’, a theme from Italo Calvino’s ‘Six Memos for the Next Millennium’ (1988).

Under her heading ‘I/me/mine’ Kara wrote:

“Witnessing trauma acts on the body in specific ways. The Event itself creates gaping holes in the fabric of the normal, and lucky survivors patch those holes with questions: ‘What do I do?’ ‘Where do I go?’ To be the witness, from afar, of death or destruction means you’re at the mercy of your senses; you have the choice of turning away from or towards the scene.”

So here we are, turning both towards and away from the scene. revolving at different times and speed with some twirls, pauses, stutters and falls. Rotating and looking, listening, tasting reflecting, dismantling, rebuilding, acting and reacting.

Here, ‘I/me/mine’ is not twisted into ‘we/us/our’. Here, ‘I/me/mine’ is both multiplied and amplified by ‘with’.

 

June 2 to June 9

‘Capturing it’

Single channel HD video, 2 mins 17 secs, 2020.

May 26 to June 2

‘Blowing it’

Single channel HD video, 38 secs, 2020.

 

May 19 to May 26

‘Matching Pairs’

Single channel HD video, 1 min 27 secs, 2020.

May 12 to May 19

‘There is always the Sun’

Single channel HD video, 3 mins 36 secs, 2020.

May 5 to May 12

‘Almost’

Single Channel HD video, 1 min 40 secs, 2020.

Michelle Deignan is an Irish artist and filmmaker based in London. She makes moving image, photographic and print works, for gallery exhibition, for cinema and for other screening contexts. These works critically examine the production and dissemination of culture now and historically, touching on subjects such as local and international identity, nationalism, feminism, class politics and aesthetics. Many of her works have looked at the depiction and comprehension of public space and landscape.

Michelle’s work has been screened and exhibited in international venues such as Whitechapel Art Gallery; Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe; Tramway, Glasgow; Camden Arts Centre, London ; Media Art Lab, Moscow; Irish Film Institute, Dublin; Gaîté Lyrique, Paris; Crawford Gallery, Cork; Konstall Malmo; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin and CAN, Neuchatel. Her work has been supported by Arts Council Ireland, Culture Ireland, Arts Council England and The Elephant Trust. Her moving image work is distributed by LUX.