Cara Farnan ~ Sometimes the river flows backwards,

Launch: 6pm - 8pm, Thursday 9 January
With performance by Jennifer Moore at 7pm

Continues Friday 10 January - Friday 7 February 2020
Studio 12, 1st Floor, Backwater Artists Group, Wandesford Quay, Cork

Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm

Sometimes the river flows backwards,
A mouth swallowing up the salty sea,
Gulping it back and retreating to the foothills of the mountains,
Taking water in, not letting water out.

So as you listen, hold a cup in your hands,
And when the words finally stop coming
lift the cup
and drink the ones you caught

like the river

swallowing the sea.

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Basic Space, in association with Backwater Artists Group, is delighted to present the first solo exhibition by Cara Farnan. The exhibition is comprised of an arrangement of drawings, ceramics, soft sculpture, fabric, found objects, text, and sound (in collaboration with Jennifer Moore). The title Sometimes the river flows backwards, emerged from Farnan’s observations of the reverse flow of water in the river Liffey, which Farnan overlooked when she occupied a studio on Ormond Quay in Dublin.

In this new body of work, Farnan considers how forces, imperceptible to us, inform our psyche. She considers the mouth as a portal, a passageway, a gap in the boundary of the body which separates our internal world from the external world. Mouths are also imagined as pockets, vessels, and containers from which sound is emitted, transporting ideas and beliefs to other bodies, creating a cause and effect. This process of exchange, of attempting to externalise the internal, involves a degree of relinquishing control over our individual sovereignty. In highlighting this, Farnan seeks to show the fundamental ways in which we rely on and are made up of our relationships with the people, places and objects surrounding us.

Underlying the exhibition is a narrative of a character who, out of fear, attempts to keep their voice inside, only to find it expelled in manner of unusual ways. The exhibition visually deconstructs this fantastical story - a landscape of mouths swallows up words, amorphous figures carry pockets of thoughts, and a mouth creates a window that provides a different view.

Cara Farnan (b. 1994, Dublin) is a Visual Artist based in Utrecht, NL. Farnan's practice includes drawing, writing, sculpture, sound, and video. She is drawn to the space between what we know about the world, and what we sense about it. Right now she is curious about mouths, the second person pronoun, what it means for a body to be both material and event, and about materiality at the points where we exchange with the world around us.

Cara received her BA in Fine Print from NCAD, Dublin in 2016, and is currently studying for her MA in HKU, Utrecht. Cara has completed residencies in the RHA School, Dublin; Haihatus, Finland, Cow House Studios, Wexford and Arts Letters & Numbers, New York. In 2018, Cara curated a one-day exhibition, Gathering on Dollymount Strand and produced Emma Brennan’s performance work Heed, to the Mound for Dublin Fringe Festival. Recent Exhibitions include PLATFORM 2019 curated by Sharon Murphy, Draíocht Blanchardstown; Third Thursday curated by Jennifer Park, Arts Letters & Numbers, NY, Some Concrete Possibilities curated by Síobhan Mooney, The Library Project and The Museum of Mythological Waterbeasts, Ormston House, Limerick. This is her first Solo Exhibition.

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Basic Space is an independent art organisation with a programme of residencies, exhibitions and educational events in collaboration with practitioners and art institutions throughout Ireland.

Backwater Artists Group was founded in 1990 by graduates of the Crawford College of Art and Design. Since 1999 the organisation has been located in an old 3 story warehouse and former grain store on Wandesford Quay in the heart of Cork City Centre. The largest purpose-built artists studios in the region, Backwater provides a stable and supportive environment for 45 artists, for the production of visual art and for the establishment of professional art practice.

Jennifer Moore is an artist based in Dublin. Her practice engages with relationships between sensing bodies and their environments. She is interested in the collective and personal exploration of the unknown and the mystical, particularly within the urban, industrial landscape. Sound, writing and collaboration are the main formats through which she experiments and builds work. She has completed artist residencies in Sirius Arts Centre in Cork (2019) and Aras Eanna Arts Centre on Inis Oirr Island (2018). Outside of her practice she produces music and works as a DJ internationally in the area of left-field electronic music. She also works in the area of youth/arts education, focusing on creative technology practices. Building community and accessibility are important to her in all areas of her work.

For further information, please email basicspacedublin@gmail.com

Kindly sponsored by The River Lee Hotel, Cork.

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Accessibility

Studio 12 is on the 1st Floor of Backwater Artists Studios. There is a lift in the building. The the door to Studio 12 is narrow (80cm wide).

Large-print exhibition text will be available.

Please contact us at basicspacedublin@gmail.com if you have any queries regarding accessibility or would like any further information about the exhibition.