an casadh: Opening Performance

The Glucksman and Cork Midsummer invite you to join us at Elizabeth Fort on June 13th for the first activation performance of an casadh (the turn) - an offsite biosculptural installation by artist Laura Ní Fhlaibhín hosted at Elizabeth Fort from June 13th to 20th.

Laura Ní Fhlaibhín’s an casadh (the turn) unfolds at Elizabeth Fort this Cork Midsummer festival as a living installation of sculptural wormeries activated by the artist in her performance rituals tae na bpéist, which consider the historical significance of the site as a women’s convict depot. This work explores kinship, ritual and nourishment, whilst also considering what it means to be implicated in conditions that are at once sustaining and precarious.

Across the duration of an casadh, local earthworms will live within sculptural cocoons processing organic waste into vermicompost. In their interconnected ovoid homes these creatures will turn over the soil to generate rich fertilizer, focusing attention on the ecological co-existence which occurs all around us. Ní Fhlaibhín draws upon personal experience of endometrial illness through sculptural assemblage and ritual to consider health, virility and restoration in an environment seeped with the memory of incarceration.

A publication featuring writings by the artist and invited contributors Beulah Ezeugo, Laura Fitzgerald and Emily Steer will interpolate themes of illness, care and ecological entanglement.

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PARTICIPANTS

Laura Ní Fhlaibhín is an artist from Wexford. She combines myth, personal recollection and oral histories through sculptural elements and writing. Her work often draws upon modes of care - of self and others, humans and animals, objects and materials.

an casadh is curated by Katie O’Grady, curator of Exhibitions and Projects at The Glucksman and has been developed with biologists at University College Cork’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, local community gardening initiatives through Cork City Council, intermittent land-use project Test Site and members of Cork Folklore Project. an casadh is funded by a project award from the the Arts Council of Ireland, and created for the Cork Midsummer Festival.

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ACCESSIBILITY

The performance will take place in person. The Elizabeth Fort has restricted accessibility and more information can be found here. The installation of an casadh will be across the site of Elizabeth Fort and has moments of walking to view it fully. The performance and majority of the installation is located with step-free access, however, one small sculpture is up a set of stairs. For more information email us at info@glucksman.org.