Talented Irish artist Niamh Barry is re-launching her No Queer Apologies exhibition at the new Hen’s Teeth studio on Mill Street today, May 26. The exhibition will remain open to the public until May 28 and it has also been made into a beautiful photobook.
The original exhibition of No Queer Apologies happened in February this year at Block T Studios and now it’s back in Dublin for a couple of days and here to stay in the form of the very first photobook by Niamh Barry. The project is an ensemble of film photographs that question the ways in which queerness exists, permeates, and even reshapes the space around us.
The series seeks to challenge the heteronormative rules that have been imposed on space, the same rules that draw the boundaries of what is permitted and what is not. The photos are evidence of the “open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning” that queerness allows in defiance of the heteronormative rules.
No Queer Apologies explores how queer bodies occupy private and public (sometimes unsafe) spaces and, perhaps more importantly, it delves into how private and public queer experiences can overlap and intersect to create new spaces of self-expression.
“Like dark corners, these spaces are cloaked from public view and make private moments and acts of queer intimacy possible.” Indeed, the core idea of this project is that there is an infinite set of such possibilities and the artist’s wish is to be able to illustrate some of them.
Niamh Barry’s work as a photographer often focuses on capturing these moments that often go unseen. A 23-year-old self-taught film photographer based in Dublin, Barry portrays Irish identities and the intimate moments of queer life. With her work, she wishes to shed a light on how queer citizens defy traditional notions of Irish femininity, masculinity, or sexuality.
The artist has already demonstrated her talent with her previous exhibition Queer Hearts of Dublin, a photo series of the lives of LGBTQ+ youth. Both of these works are unique portrayals of queer lives and they are simultaneously a call for solidarity and for action.
Don’t miss the launch of the new exhibition and photobook today at 6 pm at the new Hen’s Teeth Studio at Mill Street. And if you cannot show up to the party, you can still find the photobook in Hen’s Teeth, The Library Project, and on the artist’s own website.
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