Friday, Aug. 22, 2014 1:36 p.m.

Bridget O'Gorman (b. 1981, Co. Tipperary, Ireland)

O'Gorman makes installations using a range of media from photographic or moving image, food, found object to utilitarian materials such as silver or bone china. Often, these works link disparate poetic, philosophical and historical account with contemporary site. Underpinning this practice has been a study of material culture, informing a dialogue around a contemporary culture of uncertainty and survival.

1:41 All Places Are Distant From Heaven Alike 2012

Single-channel HD video with stereo sound. Dimensions Variable

Camera by Neil O'Driscoll.

Work commissioned as part of Dig Where You Stand
Susan Hiller (UK)/Bridget O'Gorman (IE)/Uriel Orlow (CH)/Philippa Sutherland (IE)
Curated by Rosie Lynch, Eilis Lavelle at South Tipperary County Museum.

The title of the work is a quote from Robert Burton's 1621 exploration of the causes, symptoms and possible cures of depression in 'The Anatomy Of Melancholy'. A first edition volume of this work is housed as part of a little known collection within the Bolton Library on the Cathedral grounds in Cashel, Co. Tipperary alongside works by Machiavelli, Dante and Swift. Exploring the library and its surrounds, this video reveals medieval manuscripts and countless volumes of 17th, 18th and 19th C literature entombed in the silent space. Despite Bishop Bolton's wish that the rare collection of works should never be moved from the grounds of Cashel Cathedral - in an effort to ensure its safely and preservation, the library will be moved to the University of Limerick in the near future.

Yellow Limbo, HD video with stereo sound, 14′, 2011

The starting point of Yellow Limbo is an extra-ordinary episode which has all but disappeared from official histories; namely, the failed passage of fourteen international cargo ships through the Suez Canal on 5 June 1967. Caught in the outbreak of the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Syria, the ships were only able to leave the canal in 1975 when it re-opened. While stranded for eight years, the cold-war political allegiances of the multi-national crews were dissolved and gave way to a form of communal survival and the establishment of a social system. This involved the organisation of their own olympic games in 1968, amongst other activities.

Yellow Limbo interleaves vintage photographs and Super8 film shot by crewmembers with the artist�s own recent footage on location and is shown with a slide projection of particular relevance, general importance or personal interest from the eight years of the ships� confinement. This three- way comparison of events, disembodied from the timeline of experience, creates a complication of concurrence, consequence and dissociation, giving rise to a sense that time is pleated, causality radiating and that this rippling expanse of saltwater somehow communicates diagonally through time.