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Paradise Lost and Found

Paradise Lost and Found

August 1, 2023 @ 10:00 am October 31, 2023 @ 4:00 pm IST

+353 (0)1 865 6613

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Visual Art, Film Projection, Photography and Poetry Exhibition

Booking

No booking necessary, available daily. For group tours with a guide, contact Freda on 087 2214245 or email admin@smashingtimes.ie

Entry fee to The Barracks and Exhibition: €6.50 adults, €4.50 children, €5.50 students and older people, €20 family, up to 2 adults, 3 children, €5 for groups of 10+

Artists

Mary Moynihan, writer, director, theatre and filmmaker, Artistic Director of Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality

Hina Khan, visual artist

Amna Walayat, visual artist

Full Event Details

Paradise Lost and Found is a visual art, film, photography and poetry exhibition presented for States of Independence – A Celebration of Change-Makers. The exhibition by three artists, Mary Moynihan, Hina Khan and Amna Walayat, reflects on a search for peace and ways to hold on to the courage to carry on and let ourselves shine. The work explores intersections between peace, visibility, invisibility and fragmentation and the inner world of the mind and soul linked to the physicality of the body and connections to nature.

The work of Mary Moynihan is titled ‘The Feeling Soul: Paradise Lost and Found’ and features photography and poetic texts and a poem film on love and courage and ‘the internal journey of a person experiencing loss and crisis and the possibility of finding a way through’.  Amna Walayat’s work is a celebration and remembrance of womanhood and consists of ten pieces making up one artwork created under the title of ‘Fall’.   Artist Hina Khan has created a body of work titled ‘Visible and Invisible’ reflecting on themes of visibility, invisibility, migration and a search for peace.  Collectively all three artists are creating a profound body of work inspired by a celebration of the human spirit and a search for peace, equality and human rights. 

The Old Barracks is a unique building perched on an elevated site close to the bridge over the River Fertha in Cahersiveen. It is home to a permanent exhibition which recounts the building’s remarkable history and that of the local region, including an exhibition on Daniel O’Connell, who was born in Cahersiveen, and was known as ‘The Liberator’ for his role in ending discrimination against Catholics.

Page photo is Haunting by Mary Moynihan.

Artist Biographies:

Mary Moynihan, (she/her), MA, is an award-winning writer, director, theatre and film-maker, an interdisciplinary artist and one of Ireland’s most innovative arts and human rights artists creating work to promote the arts, human rights, climate justice, gender equality, diversity and peace. 

Mary is Artistic Director of Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality and works  collaboratively with artists and over 50 organisations across Ireland, Northern Ireland, Europe and internationally, using the arts to promote rights and values for all.   Company patrons of Smashing Times are Sabina Coyne Higgins, Senator Joan Freeman, founder of Pieta House, Ger Ryan, actor and Tim Pat Coogan, writer and historian. Founding patrons were writers Maeve Binchy and Brian Friel.

Mary’s work has won a number of awards including the Allianz Business to Arts Awards, a GSK Ireland Impact Award, a Dublin Bus Community Spirit Award, a National Lottery Good Cause Award, the international #ArtsAgainstCovid award, an Arts Council Project Award and an Arts Council Agility Award.

Mary is Artistic Curator for the annual Dublin Arts and Human Rights festival implemented by Smashing Times and Front Line Defenders in partnership with Amnesty International, Fighting Words, ICCL,  NWCI, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Trócaire and Poetry Ireland, funded by The Arts Council. The aim of the festival is to showcase and highlight the extraordinary work of human rights defenders in Ireland and around the world, past and present, and the role of the arts and artists in promoting human rights today.

Mary’s artistic practice encompasses theatre, film, literature, poetry, and curatorship. Mary’s work focuses on primal, visceral and intuitive responses to vulnerability and conflict and an exploration of self and the other. Her work explores an interconnectedness of the body, voice and imagination, revealing the inner life through physical and spiritual energies and intuitive engagements. Mary has a focus on using historical memory in her artistic practice as inspiration for the creation of original artworks across a range of mediums, remembering stories of ordinary yet powerful women and men from history and today who stood up for the rights of others.

As a playwright, Mary’s work includes the highly acclaimed The Woman is Present: Women’s Stories of WWII co-written with Paul Kennedy, Fiona Thompson and Féilim James;  A Beauty that will Pass; Constance and Her Friends – selected by President Michael D. Higgins for performance at Áras an Uachtaráin for Culture Night 2016;  In One Breath from the award-winning Testimonies(co-written with Paul Kennedy); and Shadow of My Soul, May Our Faces Haunt You and Silent Screams. 

Mary’s film work includes the hour-long documentary Stories from the Shadows, the short film Tell Them Our Names, inspired by women’s stories of WWII and selected for the London Eye International Film Festival and Kerry Film Festival, the creative documentary Women in an Equal Europe and the short films Courageous Women and Grace and Joe inspired by powerful women’s stories from the 1916 to 1923 decade of commemorations period in Irish history. 

Hina was born in Born in Pakistan in 1980 and completed an MFA, majoring in Miniature Painting from Pakistan. Hina’s work uses a mixture of traditional and innovative techniques in Miniatures. She portrays social issues, immigration, humanitarian crises like prostitution, gender discrimination, gender restrictions, trauma, child abuse and killing etc in her work.

Hina has chosen Miniature because of its intricacy and delicacy of brush work which has a unique identity. Most of Hina’s work is a mixture of traditional and contemporary miniature. My work is the constant search for the best way to interpret the ideas expresses my own ideologies through symbolism. Shifting my practice to installation, videos, 3D.

According to Hina ‘I am creating a dialogue through my art. My art is a reflection of inner connection, and how immigrants and nomadic artists are a part of this land. Migration is deeply rooted in my blood. I have carried two cultures, one from where I was born and the other is this culture where I am trying to re-root myself. Sometimes a situation is not in our control, but life always takes us on different voyages. This journey has built up a constant transition in my art, personality, experimentation, enabling me to evolve my art practice.’

Hina has participated in number of groups shows in Pakistan from 2002 to 2011. Hina came to Ireland in 2015 and participated in a number of exhibitions in Dublin, Laois, Mayo, and Cork. Hina was awarded several residencies with Fire Station Arts Center, Create Ireland, West Cork Art Center and Cow House Studio and has displayed solo exhibition at Ballina Art Center, Mayo, and Stradbally Art house, Laois.

Hina’s next solo exhibition will be exhibited in the coming months.  Her art pieces are also in the permanent collection of Arts Council Ireland. She is the recipient of several Awards from Arts Council Ireland, Create Ireland, and different counties. Currently she is preparing a solo show which will be displayed in LHQgallery 2022.

Hina says that, ‘as an artist, I am inspired by Sadequain, Michelangelo, Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Shahzia Sikander and Anselm Kiefer.’

Amna Walayat has an M.A. in Modern and Contemporary Art, History, Theory and Criticism from University College Cork (2015) and M.A. in Fine Arts from University of the Punjab, Lahore in Pakistan (2002). She has worked as a Program Organizer with the Pakistan National Council of the Arts; Curator with Alhamra Arts Council and PhD studio-based researcher with PURAF, University of the Punjab. Her interest lies in British India, colonialism, orientalism, migration, and gender with the current focus on feminism.

Her recent shows include Maternal Gaze online, IMMA, 2021. Constellation, a two-person e-show, LHQ Gallery, Cork County Council. Imagine online Christ Church, Dublin, 2020. Transhumance, The Space, Dublin7, 2020.

She recently initiated the Ireland-Pakistan Arts Exchange (IPAE) to bring both art communities together through creating opportunities for networking and exchange. She has curated an e-exhibition, Re-Root with the Pakistani Artists Community in Ireland in collaboration with the Embassy of Pakistan, Dublin (August 2020) and organised Opportunities in Pakistan, a Visual Artists online Café in collaboration with VAI, December 2020.

Amna Walayat resided in the UK and France before settling in Cork, Ireland. She is a recipient of Arts Council Ireland Visual Artist Bursary Award, 2020 and Recipient of Glucksman Art Gallery Cork, Curatorial Mentoring Support under a Professional Development Award 2021 and the Dilkusha Award 2021.  Currently she is Member of Art Nomads, Smashing Times Dublin, Sample Studios Cork, Angelica Network, Visual Artists Ireland, Lavit Gallery Cork, Cork Print Makers under the Dilkusha Award.

States of Independence

This event is part of States of Independence, a project that celebrates the stories of change-makers from the Decade of Centenaries 1912-1922 linked to the stories of change-makers today working to make society a better place. The stories gathered act as inspiration for the creation of new artworks by ten artists, working in visual art, film, dance, theatre, creative writing and digital arts. 

The artists come together to create a range of artworks and performances for public display in sites – both ancient and modern – across Ireland and for display via a creative billboards campaign and online on the Smashing Times Virtual Art Gallery. The stories, artworks and performances are shared with public audiences to reflect on modern day revolutionary visions for the future inspired by the past, launched for the annual Dublin International Arts and Human Rights festival 13 to 22 October 2023. The internationally acclaimed team of ten artists is led by Mary Moynihan, an award-winning writer, poet, director, theatre and filmmaker and Artistic Director, Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality, working with John Scott, Artistic Director and Choreographer, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, and a range of artists working in literature, visual arts, theatre, film and new digital technologies. 

Events are accompanied by panel discussions and public talks on new visions for a peaceful and equal society for all. Events  take place in Dublin, Kerry, Clare and Donegal with online work accessible across Ireland and internationally, celebrating changemakers and heroes from the past and today,  bringing people together to promote active citizenship,  equality, human rights and diversity and celebrating new visions for a peaceful and equal future for all. 

For further information please contact Freda Manweiler, producer, telephone 087 2214245 or email freda@smashingtimes.ie 

Presented by Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality

As part of States of Independence – A Celebration of Change-Makers

Supported by The Arts Council Open Call

As part of ART: 2023 a Decade of Centenaries Collaboration between The Arts Council and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Presented for the annual international Arts and Human Rights Festival and Theatre in Palm.

For information telephone 021 4215104 10am-1pm Monday to Friday or email admin@smashingtimes.ieBookings:  www.smashingtimes.ie
Smashing Times don’t want ticket cost to be a barrier to experiencing any of our shows. Please contact admin@smashingtimes.ie if you would like to attend.

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