ARC/ Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick 1990
Presented first at the Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick, in 1990 and subsequently, elements were included in Sexuality and Gender at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, in 1991. These works marked my first large-scale installation, combining photography, sculptural objects, and autobiographical performance. The installation Arc used multiple photographs alongside found and organic materials to construct an emotionally charged environment that explored sexuality, memory, body fluids, ritual, and identity within the context of growing up queer in Catholic Ireland during the 1960s, 70’s and 1980s.
The installation incorporated two large triptych photographic works (Arc I and Arc II), incorporating my naked body submerged in an old found tin bath filled with water, floating candles, and dried African marigolds. These images were staged and photographed at night inside my childhood greenhouse, a place that had once functioned as a private sanctuary and space of psychological and emotional comfort in contrast to my troubling school years. The marigolds themselves were grown by me from seeds in the greenhouse earlier during the summer of 1989, before being dried and re-photographed and projected onto the body, creating a cyclical process of return, regeneration, and remembrance. The body became both subject and performer, using the camera as witness to an intimate ritual that balanced vulnerability with defiance.
The installation also incorporated large ceramic garden pots, presented as vessels carrying memories; other elements included a freezer-compressor mounted on the wall and connected to frozen pipes. These industrial elements introduced a cold, mechanical atmosphere that contrasted with the fragile organic materials and life-size bodily imagery. Themes of preservation, decay, containment, and emotional isolation emerged through these juxtapositions.
The work addressed ideas surrounding birth, death, cleansing, and bodily transition, recalling rituals associated with washing the body both at birth and after death. Created during the height of the AIDS crisis and within a society deeply shaped by religious repression, the installation confronted the marginalisation of queer identities in Ireland at that time.
The exhibition at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, curated by Maebh Ruane, was accompanied by the publication A New Tradition: Irish Art of the Eighties, which included Joan Fowler’s essay, Speaking of Gender... Expressionism, Feminism and Sexuality, situating the work within broader debates surrounding gender, sexuality, and contemporary Irish art.
‘All glass structures for gardening purposes should be distinguished by strength, durability, efficiency, and beauty, and all this compatible, with a due regard to enlightened economy. They should be strong to give that security and safety to our protegees which their fragility and our sympathy and love for them so imperatively demand; also that we may be able to visit them at all times, to admire their beauty, and minister to their wants without any fear for our personal safety.’
The Gardeners’ Chronicle, 30 August 1856/ Held in the National Botanic Gardens Library of Ireland.
Essay by John Logan
