Mouthnotes

About

Pallas Projects/Studios are pleased to present Kate Fahey—Mouthnotes the fourth exhibition of our 2022 Artist-Initiated Projects programme.

1.And out of the vague and limitless body sprang a central mass.
1.2.1 And from its mouth unspeakable things leaked.
1.2.3.2.1. out...into this world...
1.2.3.4.3.2.1. And The stoma moved. The stone moved…..ahem….
1.2.3.4.5.4.3.2.1. moved-Shhhhhhhhhhhh SHHHHHHHHHHHHHssssssssshhhhhhhhhh
1.2.3.4.5.6.5.4.3.2.1. Unbounded. Unfiltered. Unfibbered. I moved down dow- fell into the deep hole.
1.2.3.4.5.6.7.6.5.4.3.2.1. Into the split. Into the- er-ha-AAAAHHHHHH 
1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1. tt Mmmm jumped up - Mmmm looked on- Hhhhhaaaaa carried on.
8.Uhhhhh…oowwwww….A dark gap echothrough-uh
8.7.8. spilled out of me words…and again!
8.7.6.7.8. dum dumdum…pushed out-broke-out tunneled
8.7.6.5.6.7.8.leaked..... spillllllll-llllllips....drips...
8.7.6.5.4.5.6.7.8. out of my unstoney face- gObblers
8.7.6.5.4.3.4.5.6.7.8. HnnnnnnNNNNNNNnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNnnnnnnn
8.7.6.5.4.3.2.3.4.5.6.7.8. then- spat
8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.then eeeeeeeee----uuuuuuuu 

This exhibition’s starting point is An Cloch Labhrais (The Speaking Stone), a huge glacial erratic made from conglomerate puddingstone rock. Located in Co. Waterford, it is known as a ‘truth’ telling oracle stone. According to legend, the dramatic crack in the stone occurred after a woman perjured herself in its presence – her untruth causing it to split in
two. Mouthnotes reclaims the stone's split, and reimagines it as a mouth from which a multitude of utterances and un/speakable things leak and spill. Through this disorderly form of self-expression, non-conforming vocalisations flow up to her mouth and out through her tongue*. The installation for Pallas plays with the fabric and history of the exhibition site, a former school, simultaneously stuttering and echoing the order of language, numeracy, and structured behaviour. Breaking away from preconfigured expectations and narratives, mouths and voices separate and reunite, unearthing an imagined enunciation**.  In the exhibition, these plural erratic agencies emerge through a series of sculptural, textual and audio-visual Mouthnotes.

* Carson, Ann. The Gender of Sound in Glass, Irony, and God. New York: New Directions Books, 2005.
** LaBelle, Brandon. Lexicon of the Mouth: Poetics and Politics of Voice and the Oral Imaginary. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014.