Other Ghosts exhibition on in Limerick
It bring together three artists to address issues felt by women
ORMSTON House in Limerick city will see a new exhibition bring together three artists to address issues felt by women.
Titled Other Ghosts, the exhibition will show works by Ursula Burke, Joy Gerrard, and Jennifer Trouton. The exhibition will run until June 29.
Showing together here for the first time, each employs different methods and media to produce work that is unified by several key preoccupations and concerns. Collective and individual activism, political protest, and artistic labour are subjects that lie at the heart of their output.
Other Ghosts directly and indirectly addresses issues that are felt more acutely by women: gender-based violence, access to healthcare, and representation in public office. The title of this exhibition is a reference to the ghost leaflets circulated by the Republican women’s organisation Cumann na mBan throughout Dublin between 1927 and 1931.
Thousands of one-page leaflets were disseminated and simply signed with the eponymous signature 'Ghosts'. As the initial optimism of the revolutionary period faded, Ireland crystallised into a theocracy in which women were marginalised and subjugated. Caoilfhionn Ní Bheacháin writes that “Cumann na mBan understood themselves as ghostly revenants in the public life of the new Free State”.
Much has evolved – both nationally and internationally – since Cumann na mBan published their ghost pamphlets just under a century ago. Undoubtedly, there have been numerous positive advances achieved through generations of determined effort and activism.
In the context of Ireland, this is particularly notable in movements led by and for women, as evidenced by the referenda on divorce and abortion in recent years. However, as the artists in Other Ghosts highlight, barriers, obstacles, and hierarchies continue to shape our socio-political and cultural landscape.
The three artists in Other Ghosts give representation to and immortalise various forms of opposition and protest and highlight how they can take place on the streets but also in the studio or in home. They invite us to recognise the continued potential of visual art – and the cultural sphere – as a catalyst for discourse and change.