pamphlets to coincide with exhibitions
2022, 2023, 2024—
The Ireland That We Dreamed Of, 2022
Last of the Visioners, 2023
A Collection of Disarticulated Bones, 2024
We have produced an annual pamphlet to accompany our public exhibitions since 2022. These texts consider how representations of Ireland, and visions of the so-called ‘west’, have come to shape our national and diasporic consciousness.
Starting with The Ireland That We Dreamed Of, published as part of our solo/collaborative exhibition In a Contrary Place at Sligo Cairde Arts Festival in 2022. The accompanying essay was printed by the Visual Artists News Sheet (VAN) for the September - October 2022 issue and was also featured in Adrian Duncan’s ‘Best Art Books of the Year 2022’, The Irish Times, 26.11.22.
Last of the Visioners was published with The Model, Sligo to coincide with our curated exhibition of the same name in 2023. The text The House That Frank Built was commissioned by Mirror Lamp Press, as part of Issue No. 8.
A Collection of Disarticulated Bones was a catalogue of works from our 2024 exhibition, commissioned for TULCA Festival of Visual Arts in Galway City, and touring to Solas Nua, Washington D.C. and Virginia Tech New Music + Technology Festival at the Moss Arts Centre, Blacksburg VA.
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These pamphlets have variously been supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Fingal Arts Office, The Model Sligo and Solas Nua, Washington D.C.
Artists’ book by Ruth Clinton, Niamh Moriarty and Michael Hill (100 Years Ago Today).
cover image by Richard Hingston, 1924.
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This publication compiles numerous images from the travels of Richard W.G. Hingston (1887-1966) to the Himalayas and neighbouring Pamir mountain range, with many of his photographs published here for the first time. The texts, relayed through the voices of insect and arachnid specimens, convey experiences of time, ecology, displacement, conflict, and loss.
Cork-born Hingston worked as a British medical officer during the first and second World Wars. Later in life he became an explorer in his own right, writing extensively on animal habitats and behaviours. His publications and diaries, housed in the Trinity College Dublin Manuscripts Library, reveal an ambivalent attitude towards the wars of the British Empire as well as some unexpectedly romantic meditations on nature. His lantern slides of colonial explorers and their guides, seemingly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the icy landscapes they were navigating, set the scene for our writing.
The hardback book is the second published collaboration between Ruth Clinton, Michael Hill and Niamh Moriarty, following Wound with a Tear (2016), also published by 100 Years Ago Today. Printed in an edition of 200 copies, Standing Above Every Thing / idle days and minor battles includes a glow in the dark screen printed bookmark, risograph poster/dust jacket, and additional printed inserts.
To order a copy, please contact us at ruthandniamh [at] gmail.com
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Launched at the Zoological Museum, Trinity College Dublin December 2018.
The book and its launch were supported by Trinity College Dublin, through the Provost’s Academic Development Fund, and Fingal County Council.
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Images:
1, 2, 4: Black and white glass slides from Hingston’s travels to the Himalayas and Mount Everest 1920-1924, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin & Jill (Sheilagh) Hingston
3: Standing Above Everything, publication photograph courtesy of Michael Hill & 100 Years Ago Today
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Excerpts:
It is difficult to wait in patience, watching the shifting of the scantiest of fauna. Tiny little things no bigger than my left claw come crashing through, some passing clean through the gaps, others not so fortunate. They catch themselves in a neat little row, struggling and vibrating and looking like drops of black rain, made blurry by the wind. I do not leave my post, seeing no immediate need to intervene. These guests are too small to cause any significant damage so I just let them quiver away to their hearts’ content, quite sure that they will soon exhaust themselves. In time they lie still.
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We keep ourselves well hidden, not knowing why we persevere still, as we burrow into the soft comfort of the earth. This is where we will endure our last transfiguration. We lie in contemplation, our juvenile organs gradually disintegrating as we await the next stage of our lives.
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publication by Ruth Clinton, Michael Hill and Niamh Moriarty
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Wound with a Tear was an offsite exhibition at Trinity College Dublin that centred around a series of interdepartmental memoranda exchanged between the Old Library at Trinity College and The Museum Building next door. The exhibition also included a map of the campus, directions for walking around and a series of site specific interventions. This work was adapted as an artists' book in 2016.
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Introduction from 100 Years Ago Today:
The book serves as a document of Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty's 2014 project in Trinity College Dublin that investigated the ongoing deterioration and renewal of the institution's archives, its buildings and their inhabitants. The book comprises Interdepartmental Memoranda, which guide the reader through this Wildean romance, and photographs of the campus that highlight the growth, decay, patterning, chaos, dust, mould, and the expanse of knowledge embedded within this historical setting.
Jane Lives contributed the title page typography and illustration.
Wound with a Tear is an edition of 100 unique hand-stitched copies, with screen-printed covers. Published January 2016. Out of print.
