why foxes don't get drunk
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| Artist Name(s) | Catherine Barragry |
| Artwork title | why foxes don't get drunk |
| Context/Background | I began describing to different people a desire I had to play music at dusk in a certain site in the Phoenix Park. For me the site and the time of day chosen was about creating an environment for the work that had an edge of threat, with dusk as a liminal time betweeen daylight and nightfall. At night this immense city park is swallowed by darkness and becomes, until daylight, a dark unimaginable hole in the city. This site then met with a desire for agency and for beginning something new. This nascent desire had a kind of charm to it that was contested by the liminal site of the work. The event and associated work was called why foxes don't get drunk. In our everyday we act within invisible boundaries. Many of these boundaries are in relation to 'the other' in psychological as well as socio-political terms. I sometimes think of the space outside of that boundary as a kind of negative space of agency, a kind of realm of unexplored possibilities. |
| Description | A soundstation structure was made in response to the desire to occupy and activate an odd little valley enclave in the park. The sound station was a wooden construction with rainbow lights, corrugated plastic roofing, L.E.D. strip lighting, sound equipment (speaker, ampifier, record player, laptop) powered by a generator. |
| Mediation | The artist was interviewed by Phantom fm about the project leading up to the event. |
| Biographies | Catherine Barragry is a Dublin-based artist. She generates intense, intimate gestures through performance, video, image and sculpture. More recently there has been a shift in her practice toward embedded events, where the gesture becomes about creating contingent cultural possibilities. The works are fragile; on the edge of existing. They can seem both ancient and nascent. They fall between insular inner worlds of human and animal, and expansive territories of politics, evolution, becoming and consensus public. |
| Commission Type | The Arts Council |
| Commissioning process | Self initiated |
| Public Presentation dates | April 1, 2009 - April 1, 2009 |
| Artform | Visual Arts |
| Art Practice | Arts Participation |
| Funded By | Other |
| Budget Range | 0 - 10000 euro |
| Location | Phoenix Park (valley beside magazine fort) |
| County | Dublin |
| Street Address | Thomas Hill, Islandbridge gate, Phoenix Park, Dublin 8 |
| Content contributor(s) | Catherine Barragry |
| Relationship to project | Artist |
| Public engagement | A bus was provided at a secondary site in the city centre, while an unmediated audience came across the work while out in the park jogging and walking. Those who came across the invitation were asked to bring vinyl/MP3/CD music to play at dusk in the park. |
| Associated professionals / Specialists involved | Augustine O Donoghue: photography & logistics |