Main Gallery – Installation
Kate Nolan | Lacuna
LACUNA is a photographic and audio/visual installation evoking contemporary
experiences in the border village of Pettigo, County Donegal. Flowing through the
centre of the village the River Termon marks the physical border between County
Donegal in the Republic of Ireland and County Fermanagh, in Northern Ireland.
Three bridges span the river – and at places where it narrows, often, without
realising, you can step across into another country.
LACUNA responds to the idea of the border as a ‘landless’ land or a cavity in
understanding. Drawn to “in-between” places, artist Kate Nolan collaborated with the
young people of Pettigo to explore the notion of the border as a place in flux. The
exhibition weaves together still and moving images, recorded stories and a
commissioned score by Gavin O’Brien to evoke the tangible and intangible, natural
and constructed nature of the border.
The diffusion of the physical border in recent years means that for young people
there has been minimal impact on physical movement. The prospect of the
introduction of an international border between the EU and the UK with Brexit gives
rise to new uncertainties about the future.
Artists Biographies:
Kate Nolan is an Irish visual artist based in Dublin, Ireland. In 2014 Nolan published her artist’s book
Neither , which won the Magnum Photo Agency Award and Alliance Francaise Award,was shortlisted
for the UNSEEN Dummy Award and nominated for Best Photobook at Foto BookKassel and the
Leopold Godowsky, Jr. Award. Her work has been shown internationally at various institutions and
festivals including Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece; Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, France; Royal
Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland; Center for Emerging Visual Artists, Philadelphia, USA; Photo
Katmandu, Nepal; Hamburg Triennale of Photography, Germany; Foto Book Kassel, Germany; Photo
London, UK; PhotoIreland Festival, Dublin, Ireland and Belfast Photo Festival, Northern Ireland. Her
work is held in public and private collections in Japan, USA, France, Portugal, Mexico, UK and
Ireland. Kate Nolan has been working with the community in Pettigo for the past two years. She was
awarded an Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary for LACUNA in 2017.
Visit: www.katenolan.ie
Gavin O’Brien has been composing music for film since 2005. He got his start with Stars, an
experimental short animation starring Domhnall Gleason and Ruth Negga which won Best Animated
Short at the Galway Film Fleadh. Since then he has worked with up-and-coming award-winning Irish
directors Mark Noonan (Getting Air) and Lorcan Finnegan (Foxes, Without Name).