A stunning installation of 1,845 hand-blown glass potatoes remembering the Irish Famine has gone on display at the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life, Turlough Park, Castlebar, Co. Mayo.
Musician and artist Liam Ó Maonlaí performed the official opening of 1845: Memento Mori Saturday evening (Saturday, 13 November).
He described the installation, which has taken Seattle-based artist Paula Stokes 15 years to complete, as a ‘labour of love’.
The title of the project references the year the potato blight came to Ireland, marking the beginning of a period of mass starvation, disease, and emigration.
The artwork is on display in a room known as the ‘Landlord’s Library’ at Turlough Park House, where tenants of the Fitzgerald family would pay rent in the 1800s, the National Museum said.
Often described as The Great Hunger, more than 1.5 million Irish people starved to death between 1845 and 1852, even as the export of food continued. The ‘laissez-faire’ attitude of the British government also led to cuts in spending on public relief efforts as the famine worsened in 1847. Up to half a million people were evicted from their homes, and some landlords saw the time as an opportunity to clear the land of small farms and unprofitable tenancies. Another 1.5 million people emigrated, often in appalling conditions.
As a modern-day member of the Irish Diaspora, Stokes reflects on her own history as an emigrant to examine historical events that have shaped the present. She has also opened a dialogue on how one can learn from the past, and in doing so, hopes to elicit compassionate reflection that transcends the polarising politics of our current time.
Speaking at the official opening, Mr Ó Maonlaí said:
“We live in a world where abstract images become law. Where to turn? What product to buy? What person to love? Truth and common sense get pushed aside. The artist takes the abstract and re-aligns it with a sense of truth and common sense. Paula Stokes is the artist. Here is a labour of love. The viewer’s mind is as much a colour in the palette as the glass and the room and building the glass occupies. We are all in her art.”
Audrey Whitty, Deputy Director/Head of Collections and Learning at the National Museum of Ireland, said:
“We very much welcome this installation to the National Museum of Ireland, where visitors will have the opportunity to appreciate and engage with not only the beauty and power of the work, but also the deep emotional and complex themes with which this installation deals. Paula adapts this artwork for each specific location and this new setting of the Landlord’s Library here at Turlough Park House, where tenant farmers once paid their rent for what was probably a subsistence farm on a tiny parcel of land, adds another thought-provoking layer to Paula’s work.”
Welcoming the official opening of the installation at Turlough Park, Paula Stokes said:
“The form of the installation differs in response to specific locations, changing shape and volume depending on light, accessibility, and exposure of each site. Finding context that is anchored in place, and its history, is part of how the work is uniquely created for each location. In previous installations it has taken the form of a cairn (a traditional stone pile). This presentation is in the Library of Turlough House, a space typically associated with knowledge and information. In this setting the art itself serves as a visual portal to a significant event in Irish history that transcends the written word and language. It spills out across the wooden floor of the Library like a shroud of fragile glass on which no-one would tread.”
1845: Memento Mori first opened at Strokestown Park House in County Roscommon in May 2021 and has been shown since then at Johnstown Castle Estate in County Wexford and the Ulster American Folk Park in County Tyrone.
It is on display at Turlough Park House, the former ancestral home of the Fitzgerald family, at the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life just outside Castlebar, Co. Mayo, from 13 November 2021 until 28 May 2022.
The project has been generously supported by the Thomas Dammann Junior Memorial Trust.
www.1845mementomori.com
See www.museum.ie for further information.
1845: Memento Mori, a glass installation dedicated to the Great Irish Famine, by Seattle-based Irish artist Paula Stokes, opens at the National Museum of Ireland- Country Life, at Turlough House in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, November 14th– May 28th, 2022