Moran Been-noon

Irish Arts Center Project Page

Article about the exhibition on the RTÉ Culture section

A 3-person exhibition at the Irish Arts Center, NYC, NY.

'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where—' said Alice.
Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
—so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.
Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.'

—from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, CHAPTER VI

Alice next arrives somewhere, just as the Cheshire cat predicted, but was she the same Alice when she got there? This exhibition seeks to explore travel, travellers, Travellers, journeys, and destinations, and ask how they change each other. Artists Leanne McDonagh, Ellie Berry, and Edy Fung bring to the exhibition a perception of travel that’s tied to their experiences, and each offers the audience a moment of meditation on how travel can influence them, their destination, and their idea of “somewhere.”

Participating artists:
Leanne McDonagh, Ellie Berry, and Edy Fung

Leanne McDonagh is an Irish artist, teacher, and member of the Travelling community. She grew up on a halting site, experiencing first-hand the prejudices and misconceptions society has about Travellers. As an artist, she feels she has a unique opportunity to represent and record her community from within. Her work, which has been exhibited both nationally and internationally since its debut in 2015, features in both private and public collections. She is currently working on a public sculpture funded by the Irish government, under the Percent for Art scheme. She also illustrated Why the Moon Travels, an award-winning short story book written by a fellow Traveller Oein De Bhairduin. Most recently, numerous pieces of her work were acquired by the Irish Museum of Modern Art, where they now form part of the National Collection of Ireland. McDonagh also works as the Traveller education coordinator with Munster Technological University, and is determined to use her educational experiences for the benefit of current and prospective students from the Travelling community. She established the Traveller Graduate Network in 2019, and is developing a work-experience program specifically for members of the Travelling community.

Edy Fung works with the poetics of technology. Primarily composing and performing electroacoustic work as her alias Quantum Foam, she expands her noise semantics in her intermedia art practice, engaging with sound, text, image, video, installation, and exhibition-making. She experiments with the tension between notation and improvisation, digital and analogue, determinism and indeterminacy. Selected exhibitions, projects and performances include FACT, Liverpool (2021), STATIC Complex (2021), Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2021), Fylkingen, Stockholm (2021), Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2021), MUTEK ES+AR Hybrid (2021), Somerset House Studios, London (2020), Videotage, Hong Kong (2020), MUTEK, Montréal (2020), Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin, Derry (2020), GoldenThread Gallery, Belfast (2022, 2019), and CCA Derry~Londonderry (2021, 2018).

Ellie Berry is a visual artist living in Ireland. Her work focuses on outdoor experiences—exploring the landscape and the connections found there. She primarily works through walking: sometimes hiking in remote areas for days or weeks at a time, sometimes taking small steps through familiar places to see them anew. Documenting these experiences through photography, writing and video, her work combines personal experience with reflections and research into how we interact with our outdoor spaces. In 2021, Ellie completed a practice-led masters by research at IADT, in which she researched the power of representation of place in Ireland, and the responsibility of how we represent the environment. This research was grounded in her experience of walking 4,000km around the island.

Engagements

27 March, 2023
Artist Talk at the Irish Arts Center: Ellie Berry, Edy Fung, and Leanne McDonagh | If You Only Walk Long Enough
This exhibition seeks to explore travel, travellers, Travellers, journeys, and destinations, and ask how they change each other. Artists Leanne McDonagh, Ellie Berry, and Edy Fung bring to the exhibition a perception of travel that’s tied to their experiences, and each offers the audience a moment of meditation on how travel can influence them, their destination, and their idea of “somewhere.” Join us for the conversation.

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Photos (here and on main page): Julia Gillard