Grá Film Screening
Aideen Barry, Not to be Known, 2015

Aideen Barry, Not to be Known, 2015
Performative Film. Single Channel Video with Sound. 5min. 30sec.
Friday 1 August from 10.00am to 4.30pm

Seduced by the concept of the ideal home-maker and the working woman as proposed by the media, Aideen Barry’s stop-motion film, Not to be Known, shows the artist overwhelmed by the monotony and magnitude of domestic chores in nightmarish scenarios. To maintain the tension between reality and aspiration, the artist’s Medusa-like hair of vacuum cleaner hoses prepares and cooks the perfect family meal, irons the laundry, whilst she ‘keeps up appearances’, sitting quietly at the kitchen table, sipping tea, and scrolling through visual images of the ‘dream’ kitchen – i.e. spotless and non-functioning – on her Smartphone. The hair becomes so busy that it demands Barry’s body and drags her upstairs to make the bed, suggesting that adherence to her chores is a far greater need than maintaining an apparent quality of life. Finally, she chops off her vacuum tentacles in an effort to find her life outside the domestic space.

Barry’s performances are often physically and mentally demanding, mirroring similar pressures on the female body which are exerted by our society. The dark humoured, uncanny film expands upon her interests in monachopsis – the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place – and her exploration of obsessional behaviour in the context of suburban normality.

Aideen Barry (Cork, 1979) has a national and international profile. Her means of expression are interchangeable and incorporate performance, film, animation, drawing and sculptural forms. Projects include a solo show at MARFA Contemporary, Texas (2018); The Lexicon Commission Award (2017); By Association – A Performative Response to Carol Rama, commissioned by the Irish Museum of Modern Art and Lismore Castle Arts (2016); and Brittlefield: A Solo Survey, RHA Gallery, Dublin (2016). 

Image caption:-
Aideen Barry, ‘Not to be Known’ film still (2015) Collection Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. Image © the Artist and the Arts & Heritage Trust, UK

Aideen Barry, Not to be Known, 2015. Performative Film. Single Channel Video with Sound. 5min. 30sec. Commissioned by the Arts & Heritage Trust, UK for the Gallery of Wonder. Collection: Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.