‘The Unknown’

Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, Ireland, 2016. 

‘The Unknown’, part of ‘Future Histories’, a dawn-to-dusk live art and digital media event involving 20 acclaimed Irish artists at Kilmainham Gaol.

Invited artists were asked to respond to the Jail’s iconic historical associations with the 1916 Rising.

Future Histories was commissioned as part of the Irish Government’s 2016 Centenary Programme. Curated by Aíne Phillips & Niamh Murphy.

My performance work for ‘Future Histories’ occupied two opposite cells and was concerned with unravelling how I feel about the centenary in terms of memory: a memory that is about political and cultural forces and the construction of an Irish identity. How do we remember conflict without bringing that conflict into the present? How can we simultaneously remember and yet stay rooted in the present?

My performance explored the residue of lives lost to the jail and voices held forever within the greater collective memory of 1916.

Sinéad O’Donnell, ‘The Unknown’, Future Histories, Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, Ireland, 2016. Photo Shot: Future Histories.