On Steady Ground/Unsteady Ground | Cora Cummins and Saoirse Higgins at Municipal Gallery, dlr Lexicon

Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/12/2021 - 13/03/2022
12:00 am

Location
Municipal Gallery, dlr Lexicon

Website
https://www.dlrcoco.ie/en/municipal-gallery-dlr-lexicon/steady-groundunsteady-ground

Email
cking@dlrcoco.ie

iCal

ON STEADY GROUND/UNSTEADY GROUND
New Work by Cora Cummins and Saoirse Higgins
Curated by Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll
Municipal Gallery, dlr Lexicon, Dún Laoghaire

11 December 2021 – 13 March 2022
dlr County Council is delighted to present On Steady Ground/Unsteady Ground, a collaborative exhibition by artists Cora Cummins and Saoirse Higgins, awardees of a Visual Art Commission from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, funded by the Arts Council. Featuring new work in etching, video, photography and sculpture, the exhibition connects the artists’ parallel research interests in environment and landscape change and reflections on losing what seemed permanent.
Residents of the Dún Laoghaire area, Cora and Saoirse have drawn their research and conversations locally from the surrounding landscape and history, and by looking globally towards Everest and the remote island of Papa Westray, one of the most northerly islands in the Orkney Islands Archipelago. In so doing, they set out to create a dialogue between the various levels and stages of experiencing both environmental change and loss, and personal change and loss.
An Cathaoirleach, Cllr Lettie McCarthy said “we’re pleased to present this exhibition of new work by Cora and Saoirse. It is a fascinating body of work dealing with timely and pertinent issues which connect to all of us”

Cora Cummins works through printmaking. She is interested in not only exploring the idea of change connected to actual landscape, but also the wider psychological experience of loss and how the lexicon of grief connects with a geographical lexicon. For this exhibition, Cora has made a large-scale mountain through the etching technique. The etching is accompanied by a sculptural formation of the copper plates used in the printmaking process. Also included is a set of small-scale mezzotints depicting ephemeral subjects – clouds, aurora, waterfalls, collapsing glaciers. Saoirse Higgins is interested in revealing the connections between our vision of the world we live in, our expectations for the future and the tools we use to help us with this process. Her work is process-driven and she often collaborates with local experts and island communities. Saoirse has been marking and recording physical changes in the environment on the small island of Papa Westray. Higgins’ works in the exhibition include two films made in the Orkney Islands, photographs of the Sólhiemjökull glacier in Iceland, marking changes from 1976 to the present; an image of the stone benchmark symbol on the oldest house on Papa Westray which is used to measure rising sea levels; and a star spectra map which contemplates our changing position in the greater universal picture.
Born in Carlow, Cora Cummins studied Fine Art at DIT & NCAD. Cummins works through printmaking, video and publication. She is co-founder of the publication project The Fold. Selected solo exhibitions include The Black Rose, The Green Pool & The Blue Sky, Visual, Carlow 2013, Himmel Und Holle, The Galway Arts Centre, Galway 2010, Retreat, Dunamaise Art Centre, Co Laois 2009, A Means of Escape, The Lab, Dublin 2008, A Thousand Islands, The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon 2007 and Somewhere Someplace, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin 2006. Cora lives in Dalkey and is a lectures on the BA in Art at IADT Dún Laoghaire.
Saoirse Higgins is an artist and researcher from Dublin based between Dún Laoghaire and Papa Westray. She has a practice based PhD from Glasgow School of Art, funded by the Creative Futures Partnership between Glasgow School of Art and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE). She has an MA in Interactive Media from the Royal College of Art in collaboration with the Universidad de Las Islas Baleares, Mallorca and an MSc Media Arts and Sciences from the Media Lab, MIT, Boston.
The exhibition opens on Saturday 11 December and runs until Sunday 13 March 2022 at the Municipal Gallery, dlr Lexicon, Dún Laoghaire. Closed 24 December 2021 – 3 January 2022 inclusive.

For further information, please go to: https://www.dlrcoco.ie/en/municipal-gallery-dlr-lexicon/steady-groundunsteady-ground

Arts Office contact: Ciara King
email: cking@dlrcoco.ie or phone dlr Arts Office: (01) 2362757

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