Solo show, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, Ireland. Oct 21-Jan 14, 2023
The exhibition assembles new film and fabric works with spatial interventions alongside elements of material moments from previous public performances: a stage set in waiting.
Mc Guinness’ interdisciplinary practice is often informed and developed from the context and community she is working in and the conditions that arise within it. With collaboration and diversity at the heart of her practice Mc Guinness has worked over a six-month period with school children at St Johns Senior school and members of Equinox, an inclusive theatre company both based in Kilkenny. Through movement, action and improvisation the artist encourages chaos as a starting point and allows things to fall apart only to be repeatedly reassembled by her collaborators. These ‘rehearsals of readiness’ conjure up tableaus, multi-layered atmospheres of absurd preparedness where collapse and chaos, ritual and emergency coalesce in energetic acts of collective control and comedic chaos.