Domestic Bodies at |126 Artist-Run Gallery|https://126gallery.com/exhibitions/domestic-bodies/| Galway
A new exhibition by Áine Phillips and collaborators
August 7 - 25 2024

Live performances:

Embedded
Performance collaboration with Ella Bertilsson
3 - 5pm August 7

Red Couch / Archeology
Performed by Dagda Semler
3 - 5pm August 7

Tender Morsels
Film and performance collaboration with Helena Walsh
5 - 6pm August 23

Curated by Emily Lohan
Cinematography by Kevin Biderman and Vanessa Jordan
Editing by Connie Farrell
Sewing by Lizzy Dargie

Domestic Bodies is an exhibition of performative installations by Áine Phillips and collaborators exploring themes of home, shelter and sustenance in the context of domestic space. These works aim to push the limits and potentials of domestic things to create metaphors for female subjectivity and experience. The exhibition as a whole confronts the pleasures, discontents and struggles of habitation: finding, keeping, and the meaning of home.

The exhibition is in three parts:

Embedded a collaborative performance installation with Ella Bertilsson, addresses autonomy, security and safe resting place. It delves into the mysteries and transformations of sleep, highlighting the universal need for sanctuary.

Red Couch / Archeology performed by Dagda Semler, is a performance installation from the Red Couch series. In the first two episodes the artist was subsumed into the underbelly of domesticity and was born again unscathed (Buttered Up 2016 and Escapology 2021). In this third scene she voluntarily dives back in again to uncover and excavate herstory.

Tender Morsels a collaboration with Helena Walsh, is a performance film exploring female subjectivity, experience and defiance in relation to food and domestic space, serving as a metaphor for the female persona. The premiere live performance of Tender Morsels takes place at the close of the exhibition on August 23 at 5pm and is a ticketed event. Please enquire at reception for more information.


Áine Phillips is an artist based in Galway who has been making installations, art films and performances since the late 80s. She creates live performance, installation and video works for multiple contexts: public space, social events, galleries, theatres, museums, biennales and film festivals. Her work incorporates socially engaged practice and she often works with communities of place and or interest, including many collaborations with Irish and international artists. Curating, writing and teaching are also part of her diverse practice. She holds a doctorate in performance art from the national College of Art and Design Dublin and is head of sculpture at Burren College of Art in County Clare. Her critically acclaimed edited volume Performance Art in Ireland: A History was published by Intellect Books/ LADA London in 2015. Her work is collected by the National Museum of Ireland and Galway Museum.


Ella Bertilsson is a multi-award winning visual artist based between Dublin and Callan. She is a recipient of a Project Studio Award at TBG+S 24/25 and is an Associate Artist with Museum of Everyone 23/24. Recently awarded The  Art Council of Ireland's Next Generation Award 23/24. Solo exhibitions; Forthcoming at The Horse '25,  LIFE POND, Ballina Art Centre '24, A PEANUT WORM'S DREAM, The Dock 23/24, and CUT THE CAKE WITH CLAWS, The Complex '22. Selected group exhibitions; Tides of Monumental Gestures, Luan Gallery with MOE '24, Endlessnessnessness, The Lab Gallery ’24 and Periodical Review 11, Pallas Projects/Studios '22.She has 1st class honours Fine Art Print (BA) and MFA; Art in The Digital World, both awarded from the National College of Art and Design IRE '09, '15 and Comparative Literature Studies and Creative Writing from Södertörn University SWE ’12.www.ellabertilsson.net/

Helena Walsh is an Irish Live Artist. Her practice explores the relations between gender, national identity and cultural histories. Helena works with time, liveness and the materiality of the body. Over the past 20 years Helena has performed widely in galleries, museums, theatres and non-traditional art spaces, including public sites. In 2013 she completed her PhD in the Department of Drama, Queen Mary University of London focussed on Live Art and femininity in post-conflict Ireland. Helena regularly presents and writes on feminist performance practice. She has published in collections focussed on live art, the performing arts and reproductive justice in an Irish context. She is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Arts, London. www.helenawalsh.com