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the artwork, because it is as bold and rich as it
is immense – once I understood the background for Maoliosa’s curatorial framing, I was able to appreciate how apposite Maher and Fallon’s intervention in this series is. The Map is a multi-vocal artwork that speaks to the concrete struggles of contemporary feminist politics in Ireland at the same time as it references textual explorations of femininity from a range of mythic, poetic and theological sources. It is as though the nation’s collective unconscious has been analysed for every allusion to the female gender and the results were transformed into a cartographical survey. As you might imagine then, The Map has too many elements to summarise the artwork adequately – I can only hint at its depth. Its various islands sit upon a vast ocean, which in turn is contained by a stellar, otherworldly void. This void is the unknown, a place beyond the land and sea. In one sense it represents the galaxy, where constellations of stars amount to pictures drawn by points of light, each of which are given evocative titles like ‘Death and the Maiden’, ‘Speculum (the Mirror)’, and ‘The Seven Devils’. It also alludes to ancient seafaring maps by depicting various personae blowing from the edges, a nod to the Greek Anemoi, minor gods who were characterisations of aspects of the wind. The largest landmasses in the ocean are distinguished from one another by colour: they are mustard, green, grey, white and peach. Each island consists of multiple landmarks, including urban structures, natural habitats, historical monuments, and psycho-imaginary zones. In addition to the scale and variety of the geographical features, one of the great joys of this artwork are the names that Maher and Fallon have assigned to their landmarks: Jezebel Heights; The Imaginal Forest; The Swamp of Transgression; The Ballroom of Romance, (its entrance above the Slippery Slope); Spinster’s Grove; Lacrima Peninsula; The Napery; Medea Drive; The Cave of Mitigating Circumstances, etc. In the centre of The Map an archipelago of small islets similarly rhyme and contrast with one another: Utopia, Heterotopia, Gordonia, Myopia, Hysteria, Melancholia, the Isle of Shits, Silly Isle… That said, as much as the creativity of this linguistic surfeit is aesthetically appealing on its own terms, the artwork aims at something more: beyond the irony, there is forceful pathos. There are signs everywhere of an all-tooreal history of violence and neglect, including references to Savita Halappanavar’s tragic death and the X case. The Map represents the suffering of Irish women throughout the ages, and lest you forget, you need only look down: spilling from the bottom of artwork, a copious web of blood-red material spools dramatically on the floor. Intriguingly, Rua Red afforded the artists the opportunity to engage with a writer for the catalogue text, and from this suggestion another artwork has sprung. We Are The Map, a spoken-word performance based on a text written by Sinéad Gleeson, is exhibited in the adjoining gallery. Maher and Fallon are experienced collaborators, and the vividness of their artwork speaks to the strength of their creative partnership, but Gleeson’s lyrical intervention fits in neatly with their established aesthetic, a perfect accompaniment to the project. An ethereal voice rises and falls, buoyed by composer Stephen Shannon’s haunting score: “I am the women given letters, not names. I am Sappho. Marsha. Maura. Ena. Green Tara. Black Madonna. I am the first girl child they put into the septic tank…” The Map: A collaboration by Alice Maher and Rachel Fallon is at Rua Red until January 29. ruared.ie 51