This project aims to help us understand Ireland’s cultural entanglement with Catholicism, and how it manifests in the lives of ordinary people, rather than the more formal institution of the organised Church.
The project includes a moving image piece that blurs the lines between meditation and prayer, in order to emphasise their similarities. Reflection and stillness are simple established practices that benefit our mental health, which historically have been packaged differently to be accepted by the popular culture of the time.
The series of publications seek to understand the phenomenon of moving statues that swept Ireland in the mid 1980s. By collating archival news reports, various analyses of the phenomenon, and ephemera of the time, these booklets, contextualises the response of religious communities to a shifting Ireland at a turning point in our cultural identity.
I have also created an installation that investigates the nature of rites of passage and their shift from religious rituals to an opportunity for familial gathering. Presented on nostalgic materials, this installation holds a collection of stories, memories and snippets of what makes an Irish celebration so memorable, not separate from religion, but being facilitated by it.
