Upcoming Programs
Please check back as we have several programs we are scheduling for the summer.
Save the date:
The Curator’s Chain on Clubhouse
Archiving Performance: The Virtual, the Ritual, the Body
A program of conversations on performance art in virtual space.
Third conversation:
SATURDAY 29th May, 3pm ECT/8am CT
About Helen Kirwan
Currently artist in residence with the Cyprus Academy of Arts Residency Programme, Kirwan proudly presents the seventh and final performance in her new series of online performances to be broadcasted live to a global audience.
Grief-Work, is a new development in Kirwan’s Memory Theatre series and her direct response to the poignancy of the global pandemic. She has introduced this innovative, virtual approach to the experience of performance art so as to reach out to audiences around the world. During this period of much grief and death, her performances allow a space and time for moments of contemplation.
Kirwan is known for her quiet, meditative performances and moving image installations on the themes of memory and loss; and journeying as a metaphor for loss. Her most recent work exploring these themes, includes her trilogy of videos collectively known as Memory Theatre which were each unveiled at the European Cultural Centre during last three editions of the Venice Biennale.
Grief-Work is part of Kirwan’s ongoing inquiry into mourning and loss. During her seventh performance, Kirwan will offer ribbons to men in black in an outdoor setting at an archaeological site. Since ancient times, during funeral and burial practices in many cultures, including Ancient Greece, ribbons (‘tainia’) and cloth were used as popular grave offerings and as tangible expressions of grief in the face of death. Often these were vermillion red and a number of late Classical and Hellenistic stone markers are decorated with painted and/or low relief images of red ribbons, but other bright colours were also used.