What could possibly be wrong with a man who's lived as long as I have, 2013
Video installation, 2 channel
In an episode of the period television drama The Waltons, a family are star gazing. While marvelling at Venus, 'the first star at night', they witness a meteorite. This celestial body brings with it, to this pastoral scene, both promise, and the certainty of death, it's journey completed over an unknowable, perhaps infinite number of lifetimes.
Walt Whitman’s, When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d is quoted in the episode in question, giving the work it's title. The poem was an elegy, part celebration, part recognition of loss. In the text, the planet Venus is likened to a tombstone and also to the embodiment of a fallen friend.
This work was curated by Lily Cahill and Rob Murphy and held at Flatpack Gallery & Studios, Dublin, with financial assistance from South Dublin County Council Arts Office.
