A Long Tearless Night
Posted on 19/05/2010
TALLAGHT COMMUNITY ARTS (TCA) PRESENTS
‘A Long Tearless Night’ by Fifi Smith
Launch 3pm 5th June 2010 Gallery1 Rua Red
Tallaght Community Arts (TCA) is delighted to present A Long Tearless Night, an installation by the artist Fifi Smith, where the viewer is invited to participate in the extraordinary ‘liminal’ human experience which is encountered in the state between wake and sleep.
A Long Tearless Night will be on exhibition at Rua Red South Dublin Arts Centre from June 5 – July 3, 2010.
A Long Tearless Night portrays the artist’s exploration of ‘liminality’, which she explains is the state between feeling and reason, between individuality and conformity, between waking and sleeping, the bewildering sensation where dreams and reality collide.
The title for this exhibition derives from the poem, ‘In a Dark Time’, by the American poet T. Roekthe, which heavily influenced the body of work for this show. This poem depicts the bizarre world our mind enters as we grapple between fragmented and disconcerting images and sounds sourced deep within our minds as we lie between a state of dreaming and waking.
Everyone has entered this strange world at some point, but no one can explain exactly where it is or how they got there. It is this perplexing place or ephemeral ‘moment’ that Fifi Smith is creating in her current exhibition, where the viewer will be immersed in the darkened installation of eight separate rooms, each showing kinetic shadow images, which are magnifications of moving physical objects projected onto the wall, some accompanied by sound.
The viewer will be compelled to travel through the installation of edgy images and familiar, yet unsettling sounds, imitating the transition between sleeping and waking, not knowing whether the experience is a dream or reality. Yet, as the viewer moves through these various sensations, striving to find an answer, They find an unexpected aspect of the installation.…find out what it is!
The Artist
Fifi Smith began her career as an architect in the late 1970s and made the transition into the visual art world during the 1990s, with the realisation of expression through materials such as bronze, steel and mixed media which encompassed far more fluidity in contrast to the rigidity of architecture.
A Long Tearless Night can be seen at:
Rua Red South Dublin Arts Centre (Gallery 1)
Saturday June 5 to Saturday July 3, 2010
10am-6pm (Monday – Saturday)
Admission free