Preview: 6 pm, Friday, 28th of February Runs: 27th February - 15th March 2020
126 Artist-Run Gallery is pleased to present The Future is Clean and Round by Elva Mulchrone and Rosa Mäkelä, Preview is at 6 pm, Friday 28th of February 2020 curated by Simon Fennessy Corcoran. The Future is Clean and Round is the first in the 2020 & 126 15th Birthday, Meaningful | Encounters programme and was selected through an open call.
Elva Mulchrone will present Eton Mess, a visual snapshot of the UK today and its social mobility patterns. Eton Mess and About Time for a Vigil are commentaries on the historical significance of the constitutional crisis facing the UK and abstractions on the distances between it and “Europe” in geographical and time zones contexts. Along with this Mulchrone will exhibit three video works, Game on Agbadja a performance piece inspired by research undertaken at Columbia University NYC, in November / December 2016, where Mulchrone interviewed various professors, most significantly for the work were the interviews with Jeffrey Sachs and Prajit Dutta. The second, Departures, a commentary/satire on the voting patterns in different Boroughs in the UK, the top end of the departure board comments on areas which voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU, the middle section is Mulchrone’s reflection on areas which appeared split in their vote and the bottom section ventures thoughts on areas which overwhelmingly wished to remain in the EU. The final video piece, The Mobility of Immobility represents graphs of different social immobility patterns in the UK together with an abstraction of what a juxtaposition of those patterns might look like.
Rosa Mäkelä will present an interdisciplinary new piece of theatrical work, The Future is Clean and Round, Mäkelä had developed a piece of work with an insistence on remembering, bearing witness, questioning complacency and responsibility of our role in the world around us as we grow. The Future is Clean and Round studies and mediates on two main themes- growing up and the climate crisis, and more specifically - the collision of these. By exploring the contrast at the core of these, Mäkelä aims to create a sense of the place of a phenomenon such as the climate crisis has in young people's lives when examining the future.
Through the use of installation and live performance Mäkelä will juxtapose the feelings of the optimism and potential in growth and the fear and the threat that the global condition poses. By combining fragments and glimpses into stories of intimate, personal development with the development of the environment and the world around us, this work aims to tackle feelings of uncertainty, disillusionment, resilience and determination.
Mäkelä has created a collaborative piece of work, devising performative sequences which correlate with the exhibited installation. Along with the contrast within the themes of the work Mäkelä also worked with the contrast of using the body and live performance versus static images and fixed installation. By using live performance in a non- traditional theatre setting Mäkelä hopes to challenge the performer/audience relationship, avoiding the conventional role of an audience member being a passive observer. The Future is Clean and Round is an interdisciplinary piece that considers the emotional impact of the climate crisis and growing up within this uncertainty. By juxtaposing the feelings of optimism and potential in growth, and the fear of the threat the global condition poses, she aims to create a sense of the place of a phenomenon such as the climate crisis has in young people's lives when examining the future.
Mäkelä is from County Galway, she graduated from University College Cork with a first class Honours in Drama and Theatre studies in 2019. The work explores this through the use of performance, film, installation and sound.
She has collaborated with filmmaker Ferdia MacAonghusa and Sound Designer Rory Burke.