The Time of Our Lives

(After Hugo Williams)

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Gallery & guest artists

14 April -  17 July 2020 

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"The future can go and be bloody terrifying on its own for all I care"

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The last few weeks have brought us, humankind, to a rare inflection point in our collective history. Rather like our ancestors, who tried to measure the future of their lives at the outbreak of World War, we too find ourselves speculating about a future that seems unknowable. So it is to the past that we turn, either in nostalgic recollection or for a familiarity that is simple in its certainty, to cast the anchor and keep our wits. 

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It’s unsurprising that more of us than ever now turn to art, music and literature to interpret our new strange daily lives. Hugo Williams, whose poem The Time of Our Lives, has given us the title of our new exhibition says that poets are different because they are inconsolable. They understand that suffering is at the core of the human condition and are compelled to find meaning in the face of this truth. Williams' seemingly pithy poem is powered by alternating future and present tenses which is an intriguing device to talk about the past; a place where we are having the time of our lives.

 

We have asked our artists to provide a work of art and if they so choose, to include a few lines of commentary on the poem. We hope you remain safe and healthy during this current crisis.

 

Artists Katherine Boucher Beug, Sophia Campbell, Michael Canning, Barrie Cooke, Claire Curneen, Jason Ellis, Paul Gaffney, Liam Flynn, 

Sarah Iremonger, Stephen Lawlor, David Eager Maher,

Ed Miliano, Nick Miller, Hughie O'Donoghue, Laurence Riddell, Jeff Schneider, Amelia Stein, Sasha Sykes, Donald  Teskey, Corban Walker, Sarah Walker,  Samuel Walsh, Keith Wilson.