Common Fate – Sonja Karl and Liz O’Reilly – Artists-in-residence
Common Fate is an open residency of project work culminating in a series of installations and performances. It is a changing reflection on our personal collections of death and memory objects. It explores the multiple narratives of our inherited possessions and intimacies.
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| Sonja Karl and Liz O’Reilly, Installation, ‘memento-mori – Narratives of Inheritance’ |
Articulate will be open 11am-5pm, Thursday to Sunday until Saturday
May 5th during which time there will be
opportunities for discussion and interaction with the artists in the evolution
of the project.
Saturday 21st
April 1 – 4pm
1.00pm Screening
of award winning documentary – TENDER
The heartwarming story of a community coming together to challenge
mainstream attitudes to dying, death and the business of funerals.
2.30pm Memento
Mori Talking Circle: all are invited to bring a memory object of hand-held size
to share in a group discussion
Sunday 22nd
April: 2:00 – 4pm
2pm Performance
2.30pm Memento
Mori Talking Circle: all are invited to bring a memory object of hand-held size
to share in a group discussion
Saturday 28th
April: 2.00 – 4pm
2pm Artist’s
Talk: Invited artist Sylvia
Griffin presents her contemporary practice of working with memory and trauma.
2.30pm Memento
Mori Talking Circle: all are invited to bring a memory object of hand-held size
to share in a group discussion
Sunday 29th
April: 2.00 – 4pm
2pm Performance
2.30pm Memento
Mori Talking Circle: all are invited to bring a memory object of hand-held size
to share in a group discussion
Friday 4th
May 6pm
Finissage: Performance and closing drinks
Due to the sensitive nature of discussing death and
loss, we ask that there be no recordings of performances or talking circles out
of respect for the participants and observers. Please
arrive 10 minutes prior to performances thank you.
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| Sonja Karl and Liz O’Reilly, Installation, ‘memento mori – Narratives of Inheritance.’(detail) |
After someone dies there are objects left. We call them possessions, and understand them not just in the sense of literal ownership, but in the complex way an object reflects a person back to themselves. However fleeting or lasting, the intimate connection to an object is something we all have, and when death severs that relationship between person and possession, what becomes of it?
This liminal space of loss is where the project Common Fate resides, as an exploration of collections of objects left behind after death and an extrapolation of their resonance as possessed or known objects or lost intimacies. After death some possessions are highly visible, all over a person's house: next to their bed, in their bathroom cabinet, in the kitchen or in the drawers of their desks. However a great numbers of possessions are hidden, sometimes never seen by loved ones until after death.
Who possesses these visible and hidden objects now? When we see the material things in someone's possessions as a collection of intangible and intimate connections between them and the actual object, we can also see narratives around the transferral, dispersal or disposal of these possessions as layered and intricate relationships, family history and cultural inheritance.
Common Fate aims to reach out to the community; to initiate conversations, to provoke memories and stories, opening up expressions around diverse cultural concepts of death in order to bring to the fore what closure really signifies.
Sonja Karl and Liz O'Reilly will be artists in residence in Articulate project space from 20 April 2018, using their personal collections of 'death objects' as the basis for Common Fate, from experimentation to installation, incorporating a dialogue with the community, finishing with a closing on the third weekend.
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| Sonja Karl and Liz O’Reilly, Installation, ‘memento mori – Narratives of Inheritance.’(detail) |