Performance at multiple locations
Ireland has failed to fulfill its obligations under the UNCRC. Ireland has submitted two reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, in 1996 and 2005. There were many reports about child abuse but nothing seems to have been done. It was my sense of helplessness and the general apathy of the public that made it important for me to make Sound the Alarm.
Sound the Alarm 1 to 4, is a series of performances that highlights child sexual and physical abuse in Ireland. In Sound the Alarm 1, there is a woman on stage, dressed in black she is holding a circular screen. Then onto this circular structure a projection appears, of a naked child playing, unconcerned about the world. At the same time a sound recording plays a story about children being murdered. Then the woman begins to cook on a portable stove. She is frying something. A video projection shows that she is frying little cut -out figures of boys and girls, made from sliced pan bread. This performance was in the Mermaid Art Centre in 2007 with video projection, original soundtrack and spoken word. The woman is a Kali figure, the maker and destroyer. At the end of the performance the alarm was sounded by a female trumpeter. Further works in the series are; (i) Sound the Alarm, Catalyst Arts, Belfast (2009) with the Performance Collective (ii) Sound the Alarm at the Mon Ton Gallery, Toronto (2010) and ;(iii) Sound the Alarm in OpenSpace gallery Victoria Island, Canada (2010). These were some of the first visual art interventions made to highlight the continuing abuse of children by powerful institutions in our State. As the performance took place in the Mermaid Arts Centre theatre, it was a seated, ticketed event- on the ticket I asked the question, What is your earliest memory? as I wanted the audience to remember being very young. At the beginning of the performance I asked the audience for their memories. Many stories were relayed. In this way, a link was made between the performer and the viewers and the subject matter, the child.
