1988 saw Ireland in a huge economical recession, with mass emigration continuing, and tensions Increasing with Britain regarding Northern Ireland. In the soccer European Championships of that year, Ireland caused a huge upset by beating England 1 - 0. The victory was seen as hugely symbolic as only 4 of the 11 Irish players were born in Ireland, the rest in the UK. A narrative reflecting Irelands troubled past with emigration, and a score line that caused a huge colonial backlash from the English media.
Unlike the other books from my thesis book series, this is a highly experimental piece, which explores the abstract narratives of this historical game. Despite its rigid design structure it is closer to a fine art practice than self directed design. The dense origins of my conceptual intentions are near impossible to read for the viewer.
This piece deconstructs two of my thesis books into one abstract wall piece. Both books “Irish exam” and “English exam” face off against each other.
The page count is defined by the amount of players and referees on the pitch, who create the “live” narrative. The text used to describe the game is the monologue exclaimed by the slave character Lucky in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”. In the text the slave ponders his existence in relation to the universe and his master Pozzo. The dense and convoluted reflection based text pours down the pages/players, mirroring the intense “live” historical recession, with mass emigration continuing, and tensions Increasing with Britain regarding Northern Ireland. In the soccer European Championships of that year, Ireland caused a huge upset by beating England 1 - 0. The victory was seen as hugely symbolic as only 4 of the 11 Irish players were born in Ireland, the rest in the UK. A narrative reflecting Irelands troubled past with emigration, and a score line that caused a huge colonial backlash from the English media.
Unlike the other books from my thesis book series, this is a highly experimental piece, which explores the abstract narratives of this historical game. Despite its rigid design structure it is closer to a fine art practice than self directed design. The dense origins of my conceptual intentions are near impossible to read for the viewer.
This piece deconstructs two of my thesis books into one abstract wall piece. Both books “Irish exam” and “English exam” face off against each other.
The page count is defined by the amount of players and referees on the pitch, who create the “live” bodily narrative. The text used to describe the game is the monologue exclaimed by the slave character Lucky in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”. In the text the slave ponders his existence in relation to the universe and his master Pozzo. The dense and convoluted reflection based text pours down the pages/players, mirroring the intense “live” historical narrative of the game between “Slave” and “Master”.
The Lucky monologue was written by Beckett as one giant sentence with no punctuation. In these books/game it stops and starts in chunks, into spaces where narratives are created, much like the stop start flow of a soccer game. These chunks are matched with archival Irish photos from my personal collection. Text and image are matched to reference certain historical tensions between the countries or reference Irish immigration to England.
Many images use 1930s Boy Scouts and scout leaders to represent Lucky. These scouts wear ropes around their necks. The same rope that Pozzo ties around his slave Lucky to control him. Throughout the pages/players, Lucky changes from man to boy to teenager, referencing a pagan changeling. As the text intensifies from left to right he rides a horse. Horses are used as the symbol of colonized Irish manual labour and colonized horse labour, empowered non emigrant movement and the pagan non colonial symbiotic relationship of man and horse. They are the ancient that Lucky knew before his colonization.
Text referencing burning is matched with British country homes, later burnt down in the War of Independence. A WW2 era Irish Soldier holds his son. A subtle or even lost pointer to the complex relationship between the countries during the War. The soldier is my grandfather, who later emigrated to England with his family, where he died years before I was born.