Video and photographic installation
Entrenched was made for the One Person Show, Power Points in Tinahealy Courthouse Centre in 1999.
Entrenched is about people who cannot change, people who hang on to the same routine, unable to agree, unable to walk away. It is also about political situations, where a little flexibility could make such a difference, where fear and memories of the past prevent change.
The video; shows two people who live together, two people who no longer like each other. They argue about the most ordinary things, anything at all to alleviate their boredom and to express their anger.
While working in France in 1997 with artists Krijnie Beyen and Breeda Mooney, I became interested in power struggles and wanted to capture this with video and sound. This video has three movements; firstly the protagonists argue over the control of a broken window frame. One woman wins in the first movement in the second the other gains possession. The action is deliberately slowed so that we can clearly see their reflections to suggest that sometimes in arguments we are battling with ourselves. In the third movement, the argument is about the placement of a chair by a table, these petty disagreements, mine yet mask the deeper resentments between them.
I place the video work The Child beside Entrenched, as a companion piece. The child represents us all, its gender is undefined. The fluidity and grace of the child is in direct contrast to the rigid attitudes of the two adults in Entrenched. This video is also slowed so that we can admire and wonder at every movement the child makes, their flexibility that we all once enjoyed.
Within the installation for the Courthouse there was also a large table covered with a Damask tablecloth that had the pattern of the four provinces of Ireland woven into it. This refers to the peace talks then taking place in Northern Ireland.
Entrenched is about the hollowness of victory, it is about us all.
