Galway Arts Centre is delighted to announce the opening of Love, Rage & Solidarity, a new solo exhibition by Galway-based, internationally-renowned artist and filmmaker, Treasa O’Brien.
Love, Rage & Solidarity a solo exhibition by Treasa O’Brien
Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick Street, Galway
Running May 24th - June 29th 2025 with a preview at 6pm on 23 May
Love, Rage & Solidarity is a solo exhibition by Treasa O’Brien featuring sculptures, photos, drawings, installations and films, on themes of ecology, community, (de)colonisation, migration, identity, belonging, feminism, folk ritual and our connection to one another.
Using documentary, narrative forms, essay film, sci-fi and DIY tactics, O’Brien investigates the potential of video and filmmaking as an artist and activist. Many of the works explore their own making as part of the work, and challenge ideas of authorship and collaboration.
While many of the videos have been screened in festivals and cinemas and social centres internationally, they have never before been viewed together in a gallery installation setting.
New works created 2024/2025 include: “The Wild Geeze”, an immersive installation with a soundscape by electronic keener and musician Róis, featuring Breda Larkin, Laura Lavelle, Growler and many of Ireland’s taboo-breaking performance artists; a 60m+ haptic sculptural rope made from local materials, woven in collaboration with multiple communities; “Understory” a surreal exploration of a post-human world, shot in Connemara and premiering with a live score in collaboration with Amelian Donegan and Philip Fogarty as part of the opening event on 23rd May at 6pm.
The exhibition also features O’Brien’s invitation to the public to participate in events and discussions in the gallery in “The Room of Encounters” a social space for conversation as well as bring offerings to her “May Altar Plus” - a shrine of feminine and non-binary folk icons, featuring offerings of nature’s bounty to Mary, Brigid, The Morrigan, Anu, Sheela na Gig.
Along with the exhibition there are a number of free events and film screenings at Galway Arts Centre’s Nuns Island Theatre including screenings of O’Brien’s documentaries “Eat Your Children” Saturday 24th May at 7pm, and “Town of Strangers” Tuesday 28th May at 7pm.
For all other events and further information please see www.galwayartscentre.ie
This exhibition has been supported by: The Arts Council of Ireland’s Visual Art Project Award 2024, Interface Inagh Artist's Residency Award 2024, The Galway City Council Platform 31 Artists Award 2022, and Screen Ireland.
About the Artist
TREASA O’BRIEN (she/her) is a mother, visual artist, filmmaker and writer.
She is inspired by grassroots movements, social politics, psychology and philosophy as well as art, literature and cinema. Thematically, her work explores cultural and personal memory, ecology, decolonialism, class struggle, migration, identity, and place. She often employs humour, reflexivity and surreality in her work, and blurs the lines between social relational artist, auteur artist and activist. Her film works explore fiction, documentary, and artist’s moving image, and she is most interested when those distinctions collapse.
Her work employs various media including sculpture, drawing, photography, participative work, sound, video and film. She has made several short films and three feature-length films including Town of Strangers, funded by The Arts Council, and executive produced by Oscar-nominee Joshua Oppenheimer. Town of Strangers was released in UK cinemas in 2023 and received 4**** reviews in The Guardian and the Irish Times, and was named one of the best films of 2023 by The Guardian. She is currently working on a film about The Wild Geeze, a taboo breaking queer-feminist cabaret duo, focused on themes of body positivity, sexuality, eco-feminism, grief and mental health.
Her films and art projects have been shown internationally in festivals, galleries, and social centres, and bought for broadcast. She has worked on productions for Channel 4, BBC4, and the United Nations. She has a degree in Fine Art from Limerick School of Art & Design, a Masters in Fiction Directing and a Ph.D. in Filmmaking by Practice. She has taught film and art at UCL, Goldsmiths, University of Westminster, NUIG, LSAD, UG and ATU Galway. Much of her formal education was undone when she was a participant of Werner Herzog's Rogue Film School.
Treasa’s work has been supported by Screen Ireland, The Arts Council of Ireland, Galway City Council and The Goethe Institute, and by so many friends, family and strangers along the way. She lives with her little one in Galway near the woods and the sea and community.
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