Ailbhe Ní Bhriain: An Experiment with Time

About

The exhibition draws us into a world of theatricality and disorientation in which the familiar is re-imagined in light of a destabilised future. A decommissioned medical site is submerged in water; a chameleon is the sole inhabitant of a museum of computing history; a brain-coral becomes the centre piece of an iconic cathedral. Throughout the exhibition, diverse locations, histories and systems of knowledge are mysteriously compressed and conflated. A portrayal of environmental aftermath emerges, weaving a dreamlike narrative around the constructs through which humans have sought to understand and control the world.

An Experiment with Time takes its title from a 1927 publication by the Irish-born popular scientist J.W. Dunne. This book outlined a belief system based on precognitive dreams – a theory of parallel timelines whereby dream narratives predict future events. Using CGI, collage, and assemblage, Ní Bhriain references Dunne's text to explore our current relationship to both past and future, so profoundly unsettled and called into question by the threat of climate disaster. What results is an enigmatic visual vocabulary that connects to the uncertainty, contradiction and loss experienced in this time of crisis.