BAN-EEE-UKT
BAN-EEE-UKT
BAN-EEE-UKT is a collaborative partnership founded in 2017 between artist Lynn-Marie Dennehy and curatorial-practitioner Nic Flanagan who have created a diverse body of work that weaves an intricate tapestry of interactive performative events, printed media, and immersive installation exhibitions.
Dennehy’s research-based practice employs sculpture, printmaking, video and performance, with influences from philosophy, history and mythology. Her work explores the space between culture, art and resistance, drawing parallels between revolutionary periods in history and contemporary society. Her work serves as a testing ground to investigate the ongoing colonial legacies that exist within our cultural subconscious.
Flanagan’s research-based art and curatorial practices examine progressive programming, theories of interaction and disruption within arts spaces as a means for autonomous and respectful interactions between artists, galleries and communities. Works are designed as a playful reproach to Irish culture, both as an internal figure and a disconnected audience member.
Together they aim to create an enriched understanding of contemporary issues and instigate meaningful dialogues as a way of catalysing societal introspection. They do this by employing film theory as a foundation for their experimental artworks. By framing contemporary societal, environmental, and political issues within an easily accessible and universal framework they bridge the gap between theory and lived experience and invite viewers to be active participants in their unfolding narratives.
The Scene Unravelled
In a world where reality is merely a perception, "The Scene Unravelled" places you in a seemingly ordinary setting where a mysterious performer and a visionary director act as puppet masters, guiding you through a changeable, fluctuating scenario. With no linear narrative to cling to you'll have to trust your instincts and adapt your expectations. What was once familiar begins to transform, shifting a twisting to unveil the chaos inherent to our own preconceptions.
Framed as a German Expressionist thriller “The Scene Unravelled” was a closed-door research project that explored experimental drawing techniques through research, interactions and performative experimentations. Tying together Chaos theory and Threshold Fear Theory we created a performative workshop that questioned our fundamental knowledge of traditional modes of art production and presentation. By creating a seemingly stable yet unpredictable environment we used this project as an opportunity to investigate how small changes in a system can result in larger differences in experience and outcome.
Ah Go On!
Ah Go On! was an experimental exhibition that investigated, through artist intervention and performative modes of presentation, the central role that mundane acts and rituals can play within the context of identity and rebellion.
The subject of this investigation was obscured by intentional omission from the offset. Then, over a three week period, the exhibition evolved; transforming and shifting as work was added, removed and rearranged. A final event marked the culmination of this process, at which point the full intention of the works was presented and understood.
Sign Bearers
Using semaphore as a means to slow down the flow of information and obscure meaning making save for a limited few who might still understand it, this performance focused on the past, present and future of Cobh. Taking our departure from the literary tradition of the ‘Aisling’, the poetic representation of Ireland as a woman, this work instead places the hawthorn tree as its main protagonist. The work is set in 1919, 2019 and 2119 with the hawthorn becoming an anthropomorphic representation of Cobh and its historical, contemporary and predicted conversations of Irishness. The hawthorn is the traditional boundary between our world and the land of the ‘Sidhe’ or Faeries, a gateway between worlds and times. The hawthorn is a symbol of both good fortune and bad fortune, of past, present and future. It is an indicator of change and still regarded with both respect and suspicion in Irish culture. Barriers and borders have a central place in Irish history and, sadly, Ireland’s present, but what do they have in store for Ireland’s future?
Sign Bearers featured as part of Part of See You Tomorrow, Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co Cork.
ab f(L)ab
ab f(L)ab was a performative lecture in UCC that explored ideas of body image and fad dieting trends and the danger they pose.
DOLL DÁIL DOLL
A repeated apology 2013/2033.
A system is established, every person entering becomes an accomplice, either willing or not, they are undeniably part of the process.
Performers shout for 'nouns, 'vowels' and so on. Hilarity ensues, the crowd brims with laughter as their 'fem-lib' is read back. They are enjoying the system, because it is for them. The tone abruptly changes. The second performer calls for attention, hands publications to the crowd and leaves the building. They have enjoyed their time, but at whose cost?'
SINK SCRUB SQUEEZE
A performative act of solidarity with the victims of Irish mother and baby homes