Whilst Zoom chatting to Aideen Barry about her work which is on display as part of IPUT’s Living Canvas initiative at Wilton Park, she informed us she’s in Kaunas at the moment, where she was about to premiere Klostės (translated as Pleats or Folds) as part of the opening celebrations for the Lithuanian city being made a European Capital of Culture. (Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg and Novi Sad, Serbia, are the other designated capitals).
Her stop motion film was created in association with over 1000 local citizens and takes its inspiration from Kaunas interwar modernism and the hidden histories associated with the city.
“Folding stories within stories, buildings within buildings like a cleverly constructed origami or pop up book. Protagonists appear out of objects, there is magic everywhere…
This film is a socially engaged work, in that it has been laboured and created by hundreds of individuals to construct a complex series of stories and narratives, visual art, props, performances and audio visual experiences.
This army is invisible, but it has been a body of creative people who have folding this visual art and filmic poem together to create this moving image pleat.”
On how Barry’s association with the city came about, she says, “I left my teaching profession before coronavirus and it has allowed me this amazing energy I haven’t had before. I ended up delivering a paper on my work in Pécs in Hungary and the curators for Kaunas invited me there to do a workshop about socially engaged work.”
Corkonian Barry is also part of a bid submission by the city for the Architecture Biennale. “It’s like the Cork to Dublin or rather the Dublin to Cork,” she says, with a Leeside laugh, when considering its relationship to the capital Vilnius. Klostės is due to premiere here later this year.
Aideen will be in conversation, and showing work, at Totally Dublin Live, in the Spiegeltent Beag, Clarke Square, Collins Barracks, on Sunday March 20 at 3pm, as part of St Patrick’s Festival. Tickets are free via stpatrickfestival.com
