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What we’re actually doing is ripping apart the ac
cepted norm of what is happening in the world. take home, the artists are unflinchingly modest about their own creative output, instead focusing on what outside spectators can bring to the table. “A lot of contemporary art is fabricated to a very high level of gloss which, again, separates it from people – it becomes a product. What we’re trying to show is the process beyond the work, which is why it’s very exposed in that sense. Each work is something that people could do themselves.” The artists resided in the workshop for its first nine days, before passing the baton to Paul O’Neill, a local artist, and other Rua Red custodians. With a spectrum of ages and demographics having crafted works here, the response has been resoundingly positive, bar one misinterpretation. “There was one comment in the comment book – only one out of a tornado of good response – that said, ‘too many negative messages, too much negativity’,” Phillipps continues. “All the works we make are on very heavy subjects, but what we’re actually doing is ripping apart the accepted norm of what is happening in the world. The media has a tendency to normalise things that, were we to encounter them in our daily life, would be traumatically shocking. What we’re doing is countering this idea that these horrors are standard… Just the very act of letting people re-negotiate an image of something that has maybe passed through Left to right: Finnegan’s Woke at Rua Red; kennardphillips, Study for a Head II, 2013; kennardphillips, Profit, 2017 newspapers, television screens and social media, such as a photo of a representation of a victim or victimised situation, that act immediately dissipates some of the power of media’s propagation of normality. So it’s very empowering and obviously, the more committed time you spend on it, you can make really powerful artworks that reach a strong level of resonance.” With media frenzy surrounding Brexit primed Finnegan’s Woke is running in Rua Red, South Dublin Arts Centre, Tallaght until March 29, with kennardphillipps helming an in-house event later this month. See ruared.ie for full details. to reach a fever pitch this month, Finnegan’s Woke couldn’t be more aptly timed – yet as the exhibition’s archival works will testify, history may not repeat, but it certainly rhymes. In other words, the 2006 work Presidential Seal, another response to the events in Iraq, feels as thematically-resonant as the fresh addition of Kill Story (a Trump-inspired montage). Phillipps and Kennard’s proactive nature, and with it, their long-standing resolve, feel infectious. “Right now,” says Kennard, “it’s all about taking action. I think across the world, the gallery has become one of the few spaces where people can engage in a different way to works shown on a screen. It’s really important to think about art in relation to reality – art is always thought about as separate, but it’s a vital tool for engaging with what’s happening in the world. The state of the world now is such that if we don’t get more action against what’s going on, we’re all fucked, basically.” 71