DEGREE SHOW IMAGES June 11 2010

Overview:As you can see it's a big room - about 10m x 8m or slightly less. This is normally the photographic/video studio, so walls and windows are blacked out by heavy black curtains, perfect for the effect of entering the dark corners of both my attic and my mind.
To the left of this image what you see is the back wall of the lobby area where the CCTV was located

The CCTV Projection (in the lobby)
Here you can see the projection on the corner of the room through the transparent plastic. This plastic 'curtain' was but in strips and represented the 'mists of time' through which we are looking at all the material on display.
Click on the image to see more clearly the four views being transmitted live from my home in Tallaght.

Scrapbooks
The red one contains souvenirs of our courtship and wedding; the fawn one records the infancy of each of our four children; The green on has clipping of things I wrote in the local newspaper "The Tallaght Echo"; the blue one is a book I wrote for the children when I ran a Montessorian pre-school.
Hangings

This way of displaying items was inspired by the display methods used by Ilya Kabakov in some of his works. Th image to the left shows the bones of one of our pets, excavated from the garden; also items from a course I took, also household accounts notebooks, also name-tags from various functions I attended which working on a Community Employment Scheme.  The image on the right is a close-up of the note-books.
Albums
These were also inspired by an idea of Kabakov in which he suggested that having boards in a box gave the viewer a choice of which order they might want to look at items. If the boards where mounted on the wall, the sequence would have been my choice.

My Father's things
Tools in pot - he made this flowerpot for my mother and she painted it yellow. The G-clamps are still being used occasionally. The metal suitcase was also made by him. The red upholstered chair-seat came from my grandparents home.

Wrought iron table with books
As the note attached to the table says, he got this in part-payment of a debt.
The books (seen in some of the other images also) are only a small selection of the kind of books he read. He was interested in a wide variety of topics. 

Vitrine overview including Books
In the glass case (vitrine) you can see various personal items including razor, a leather bag he made, passport, discharge records, membership cards,
Pen used to make drawings of machines for his exams

My Mother's things
Items on line 
 Various small items, mostly belonging to or used by my mother. Included is a hair-band which she crocheted for me, and a photograph showing me wearing it.

In this close-up of part of the vitrine, you can see the

• GREEN GLASS JELLY BOWL in which she made jelly every Saturday night during our childhood; 
• some of the crochet work she did so much of, 
• photos of her life, 
• a favourite picture of hers showing Head of Christ

This overview of the vitrines shows her in the foreground, and my father's in the background, with the lines hung with small object strung between the two vitrines. You can also get an idea of the effects of using domestic lighting which gave areas of intense light, and dim shaded areas.
On the floor, you can see a number of boxes, some yet to be unpacked.

Example of one of the boxes

Blanket, jacket, incl copper-kettles
The background of this image shows a patchwork quilt made by my mother. She had taken up making 'tweedy pictures' and would get books of sample fabrics from the Dublin Woolen Mills. However, only a limited selection of the samples were suitable for the pictures.
The remaining samples she would stitch together in rows until she had a 'blanket' big enough for one of our beds (this was the days before duvets were invented, and only rich people had eiderdown quilts). The back of the quilt would be quite rough with all the seams, so she would use old curtains to make a lining. The resulting quilt was wonderfully warm, especially taking into account that central heating was virtually unknown, and the winter nights could be very cold.

Patchwork blanket (detail), showing the variety of fabrics she used.








Example of domestic lighting

This light is now safely back in place on my piano.

 
These are the boxes that formed the basis of the performance Another Box.
The viewer selected a box by number which I then opened, and talked about the contents and answered questions.

Our Family things

There were all kinds of things used by the family - here you can see sewing patterns, old magazines, and notice the little sign on the left - there were several of these around the exhibition to hopefully prevent people falling over things.

The little shelves on the left have a variety of knick-knacks that have been on display throughout our home over the years.

Note the old black telephone. Visitors loved this, especially young people who seemed to love just turning the dial.

And you can also see the green embroidery hoop, not that I did a lot of embroidery, but I am well equipped in case I ever take it up again.

This is the overflow on the floor - again notice the baking tins, very rusty, not just because they have been stored in the attic, but mostly because they haven't been used very much as cooking/baking is not my strong point. Mystery is that I persisted so long with torturing people before I realized that I could admit my limitation.

The copper kettle and teapot were gifts from my friend in Muenster in Germany.

The chrome biscuit barrel was a Christmas gift from my husband which he gave me in the hostel in Arundel on our first Christmas shortly after we were married in 1962.
The Ghiaradelli pouch contained a bar of special chocolate brought from US by my son.

These ribbons have a series of quotations from various authors, all of which helped inspire and maintain my interest in archives and memories, and old things and connections with art.
See texts here

The long shelves again, and below, a closeup of the hungarian blouse that I used to wear when summers were hot.

Also visible above the blouse is the blue handbag made of beads that I used at my daughter's wedding.

 
Another view of the ribbons and to the extreme right, the entrance/exit to the CCTV lobby.

Finally the family button box, begun by my mother, and continued into our family.

Many of the buttons have individual memories attached according to what garment they might have been cut from - this is from the days when clothes that were too threadbare to be worn were recycled to make new garments for smaller people.


The Dismantling 
The exhibition lasted about ten days - June 11 to 21 2010. Then everything had to be cleared out of the college.
 

Here you can see some of the stuff piled up outside the entrance of NCAD Media (also the Gallery entrance)

 This image shows some of the electronic equipment which we didn't want to risk putting outside.

This final image shows some of the stuff now back home. This is the beginning of the chaos which formed the material for the project MAKE-OVER, begun May 2011. But there was a lot of water to go under the bridge before that happened.

MISSING IMAGES: (If I ever locate them, be assured I will post them here) Meanwhile here are some descriptions.
* The Banner Stand (on the landing)
This was about eight feet tall, and had four 'arms' like a signpost from which hung four silky banners, moving gently as people passed by. My hope was that they would be easier and more attractive to read than the usual 'blurb' on the wall outside many gallery exhibitions. The texts of the four banners are here, so you can read them for your self if you wish. 
* Museum of My Head
This stood on a chair in the corner to the left of the vitrine containing my Father's stuff. It was one of the first pieces of work I did at Ballyfermot Senior College. We had been assigned to produce a piece as a response to a class visit to Kilmainham Jail and Museum. I collected a variety of items over the period of a week - newspaper headlines, daily photos of my garden, discarded packaging from things I had eaten or used, and notes I made during that week. I included it in the DEGREE SHOW as I felt it showed that I had been thinking along these lines for a considerable amount of time.
* Notebooks
This was a display along the back of the other 'wall' of the CCTV lobby. There were about eight note-books or visual diaries showing how my mind had worked over the previous year to put together this exhibition piece. Chairs were available for viewers to sit and peruse the notebooks if they wished.
* Videos
A menu of videos made over the previous year was available as an interactive Flash display on a graphic tablet. Using the stylus, viewers could select an icon, and the video would display on the nearby screen.
* The Work Area
Because I was on site most of the time, performing, or talking to people about the exhibit, I had a space to work in if I got the opportunity - which didn't happen very often. This small space was dominated by a stack of open box-lids, labelled with brightly coloured labels into which I sorted some of the contents of the boxes that had been opened in the course of the performances.