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Andrea Stanislav featured in Totally Dublin

Published March 20, 2009

Andréa Stanislav’s Fogtíogarburn was featured in Totally Dublin. Read the article here or after the jump.

Smithfield: cultural melting pot and meeting place for artistic minds and free souls of Dublin. Not to mention the most desirable postcode for young city dwellers looking to shack up after fleeing mammy’s nest. Cosy dive bars with urban soundtracks and an air of cool aloofness adorn its corners whilst art-house cinemas and intimate galleries line its streets. The monthly horse market has been a prominent feature of Dublin life since the mid 17th century and is one of the few links that remains between us and our Jackeen brethren that made our capital the tradition-steeped city that it is today. On the first Sunday of every month the cobble-locked streets of Smithfield Square whisper back to simpler times of old Dublin and in the crisp air there are eerie echoes of days gone by. Smithfield has long been associated with the ghosts of forgotten tenants; the adjoining houses on Hendrick Street that were haunted by the spirit of a man standing by the fireplace or shoeless footsteps echoing through the corridors.

So what is it about the paranormal and the supernatural that holds such fascination for so many of us? This is a question that Andréa Stanislav seeks to answer in many of her artistic endeavours, the latest of which is Fogtíogarburn, a two part multimedia installation being exhibited in Smithfield. The exhibition draws inspiration from Andréa’s past installations and from the atmospherically numinous nature of Smithfield Market. Two of Andréa’s previous interactive installations have been particularly stirring in her venture to erode the boundaries between subject and object. House of Red on White (2004) was a site specific installation within the confines of a bungalow located on the borders of an impoverished Alabama town. The house was transformed into a shrine of acknowledgement to the local ghosts of Alabama, through a succession of mirrors, mixed media sculptures, pictures and atmospheric soundbites that worked together to give the illusion of people moving through the rooms. The stories were used as a metaphor for the town’s unsettled and racially charged history. 1000 Kisses involved interviewing members of a community about their favourite memories and then transforming those memories into tangible, sensory images and sounds in an interactive installation that featured 22 nine-foot-high mirrored obelisks.

Fogtíogarburn is a spectacle event that explores the past, present and future ghosts of Smithfield Market. The multimedia installation will take place in two parts. Part one will make use of Smithfield Market itself by enveloping it in a mystic fog of pink smoke from which the ‘ghosts’ will emerge in a choreographed performance; a burning tiger, a trotting horse and a projection of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, which was shot in the market in 1965. All the while, beams of piercing, crepuscular light will fracture the smoke which envelopes the market.

Part two of the installation will be set up at Thisisnotashop Gallery. The exhibition will see the video shoot of the Market event projected from the rear of the gallery and through the windows, making it observable to passers-by and passengers of the window’s flanking Luas line, dynamically activating the public sphere once again. Within the confines of the gallery itself, multiple rows of clay figurines will garnish the shelves; the figurines will make tangible the characters from the market installation. Aligned with the figurines will be a series of photographs and sculptures representative of the ghosts of Smithfield Market.

Andréa Stanislav lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and New York City. She is an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Minnesota and regularly exhibits her work both in the USA and abroad. This is her first exhibition in the Republic of Ireland.

Fogtíogarburn opens on Thursday March 19th and will run until April 2nd at Thisisnotashop Gallery, Blackhall Place, Dublin 7garburn