Lavish and Judicious
Lavish and Judicious is a group exhibition including video, painting, sound installation and textile works. It takes as its starting point Sion Mills, a ‘model village’ and linen mill, located 20 miles south of Derry. Established by the Herdman family in 1835, Sion Mills was one of a number of communities built in Britain and Ireland by philanthropic industrialists in the early 19th century that both housed factory workers and their families, and provided amenities for their comfort and moral advancement. The title refers to Samuel and Anna Hall’s travelogue from 1845 – Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, etc. – in which the Halls praise the efforts of the Herdmans for the interest they take in the educational progress of their workpeople, and the way they “distribut(e) motives to improvement, lavishly and judiciously.”
Lavish and Judicious considers this mix of planning, social engineering, capitalism and utopianism through a new commission by Aideen Doran and works from Jaana Kokko, Jennifer Trouton and Caroline Achaintre. Works in the exhibition elaborate on ideas of landscape, urban planning and colonialism; gendered histories of work and turning points in material production.
Lavish and Judicious takes place alongside the Linen Biennale, 2018.
CCA Editions
The opening of Lavish and Judicious also sees the launch of our new series of CCA Editions, with Colin Darke’s work on linen, Beauty is in the Streets, screen-printed by hand in an edition of 100.
In responding to the notion of the model village at Sion Mills, Colin Darke has based this work on another nineteenth-century example of socio-political urban planning – the Hausmannisation of Paris during the Second French Empire (1852-1870). This demolition and rebuilding programme was designed to drive workers from the centre of the city and the new wide avenues were intended to limit the ability of revolutionaries to construct barricades. Its second reference is to the May days of Paris in 1968, incorporating elements of a poster made at the Atelier Populaire, in which a woman hurls a cobblestone from a city street.
This exhibition and associated events are made possible through the generous support of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and with the further support of Derry City and Strabane District Council.
Aideen Doran (born Northern Ireland, 1984) works across moving image, sound, installation and writing. Her work probes the spaces where desire, affect and embodiment rudely encroach on our experiences of technology.
She has been shortlisted for the Margaret Tait award in 2018 and 2016, and her work has been supported by Glasgow Life, Creative Scotland, The British Council, Northern Film and Media and The Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
Recent projects and screenings include: Bodies in Motion, Glasgow Film Theatre (2018), Bone Meal, group show at The Hidden Gardens, Glasgow (2018), Lux Salon selected by Seamus Harahan (2018), Flatpack Film Festival, Birmingham (2017); AMINI Festival of Artists Moving Image, Belfast (2016); Coppice, Verge Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2016); SetBackground, Embassy, Edinburgh, UK (2016); The Ghost in the Machine, Galway Arts Centre, Galway, Ireland (2014); After Hours, Glasgow Project Room, Glasgow, UK (2014) and Looking for Work, Regina Rex, New York, USA (2014).
Caroline Achaintre (born France, 1969) is an artist working with mixed media and is based in London. Her work draws influence from German Expressionism, post-war British sculpture and Primitivism and the consideration of place, time, ancient, modern and the contemporary context.
Caroline spent her formative years in Germany studying Fine Art at Kunsthochschule in Halle/Saale (1996-98), with her postgraduate Studies in Fine Art and Combined Media at Chelsea College of Art & Design, London, UK (1998- 2000) and a MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, London, UK (2001-03).
Recent solo exhibitions include: De La Warr Pavillion, Bexhill, UK (2018); Museo de Arte Precolombiano, Casa del Abado, Quito, EC (2017-18); FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, FR (2017); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2016); TATE Britain, London, UK (2015); Castello di Rivoli, Turin, IT (2015-16). She lives and works in London.
Jaana Kokko (born Finland, 1972) is a Helsinki-based visual artist with a background in arts and economics. She works primarily with video, but also in the field of photography, text and drawing. Her works revolve around the subjects of language, representation and alienation with an eye of a feminist. In her practice Kokko is often interested in polylog; showing through dialog how our world consists of different individuals and their interpretations of reality in their historical context. Since 2011, Kokko has been working on a practice-based PhD in political and social arts: ”Contemporary Art as a Form of Worldalization – understanding political and social dynamics” and is being inspired by Hannah Arendt. Kokko has exhibited at Tokyo National Art Gallery (2018), Joensuu Art Museum (2017), University galleries in Rovaniemi, Finland and Tartu, Estonia (2015), Finnish Institute, Stockholm (2015), Aboa Vetus Ars Nova in Turku (2014), Organ Kritische Kunst in Berlin (2014), Pori Art Museum (2013) and Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2012).
Jennifer Trouton (born Northern Ireland, 1971) is a figurative painter who deliberately uses the tools and materials of the past to subtly express ideas around gender, class and identity within Irish history. Jennifer graduated from the University of Ulster in the mid-nineties and has since exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work has featured in group exhibitions in Washington DC; New York; Beijing; The Guayasamin Museum, Cuba; The Model, Sligo; FE McWilliams Gallery, Banbridge and Waterhouse & Dodd’s, London. Solo exhibitions include the 18th Street Gallery Los Angeles (1999), Spectrum Gallery, London (2006), the Ashford Gallery, Dublin (2003), the Fenderesky Gallery Belfast (2002), the Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown (2008) and Molesworth Gallery, Dublin (2011). Awards include Golden Fleece (2016), Clare Morris Open Exhibition Adjudicators Award (2005), the Keating McLaughlin Award (2011) and the Ballinglen Fellowship Award (2014) and has undertaken residencies in New York, Los Angeles and Banf.
