Group exhibition curated by Olivier Cornet – What do we want?
We are at a moment of historic danger. War, climate change and the capabilities of disruptive technologies pose an existential threat to humanity on a global scale. As citizens, how can we engage with these challenges? As artists, how can we spark public engagement and encourage broad conversations about the crucial issues of peace, security and war?
08 Aug 2024
–
05 Sep 2024
6:00pm
2nd Floor, The Arches Centre, 11-13 Bloomfield Ave, Belfast, BT5 5AA
In 2023, President Michael D. Higgins said,
“We have to reject the suggestion that war is the natural human condition or indeed that xenophobia is a natural human condition, or that people of different religions or cultures cannot reconcile (and) live harmoniously…We have to pursue a new symmetry. Our very species’ survival depends on that, as does our relationship with other species.”
![](https://www.queenstreetstudios.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Untitled-24-771x1024.jpg)
This group exhibition, previously shown at the Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin (April – May 2024), is a response to the increasingly dangerous geo-political situation in the world today. It features the work of four artists: Jill Gibbon, Eoin Mac Lochlainn, Tom Molloy and Gail Ritchie. Conceptually, the exhibition blends history, memory, reality and imagination. Temporally, the work on show forms an arc that connects early 20th Century conflicts to the present day wherein war, through the faux respectability of the international arms trade, is exposed as a commodity.
What do we want? is a mixed-media exhibition that includes drawing, photography, sculpture and assemblage. Each artist presents work that reflects a personal and creative response to current geo-political threats. Overall, the exhibition is one that promotes a dialogical rather than didactic approach to answering the question what do we want?
Jill Gibbon, for example, exposes the reality of war as a commodity. Disguised as a respectable businesswoman who works in the arms trade, she visits arms fairs in Europe and the Middle East, drawing the attendees in concertina sketchbooks and collecting ephemera and ‘gifts’ from the stalls. Bombs are displayed on pedestals, hostesses serve champagne, Mozart plays from the back of a military truck. As Jill says “Nothing conveys the chilling priorities of the arms trade as clearly as its marketing”. Her pretence (i.e. artist performing the role of arms trader) is a metaphor for the façade of respectability in the industry.
Eoin Mac Lochlainn’s series of charcoal and wash drawings explore the trauma of the Irish Civil War. These are not traditional portraits of recognisable victims, rather they are haunted reminders that violence persists into the present and that the identity of many victims from current conflicts will not be known. For Eoin ” Each piece is an attempt to represent a soul, someone with dreams and ambitions, someone whose life had been cut short by conflict” and for him, this work is relevant today because war, no matter its cause or location, marks a failure of empathy and a failure of our most fundamental humanity.
Tom Molloy addresses contemporary geopolitics in drawings, photographs and paper sculptures. His practice is concerned with the examination of power in a political and historical context and how it can be, and has been perverted, which raises philosophical questions about morality. Tom challenges the observer’s perception by creating ambiguous works that investigate the overlap between representation and association. For example, in ‘Contact’ (2010) he creates a contact sheet of 36 iconic war images which are out of chronological order so that, in reality, it is an impossible roll of film to have taken. His work creates a new narrative of the history of war which tests our understanding of linear temporality and representation.
Gail Ritchie’s work is a response to the most recent prediction by the Doomsday Clock that humanity is now ninety seconds from midnight, where midnight is the nuclear apocalypse. This work is an installation of made and reconfigured clocks and drawings of time-keeping devices that address the impact of conflict through a personal, political and environmental lens. As part of an ongoing series ‘Chrono-centric’, Gail considers the colonisation and commodification of time from an other-than-human perspective. What will we do when there is no more time? Will there ever be a time without war?
Oliver Cornet is the founder of the Olivier Cornet Gallery which is located at 3 Great Denmark Street in the Parnell Square Cultural Quarter, Northside Dublin. The gallery is one of Ireland’s most exciting contemporary fine art galleries, representing accomplished visual artists working in a variety of media such as painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography and fine prints. The gallery hosts solo exhibitions as well as curated group shows. Olivier collaborates with other cultural workers and practitioners of diverse art forms to engage with the public in new and very promising ways. He conceived the concept for ‘What do we want?’ and the exhibition was first shown in the Olivier Cornet Gallery in April/ May 2024.
Artist Statements
Jill Gibbon
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Jill Gibbon is an artist and activist based in the North of England. Her work focuses on the corporate etiquette, greed and corruption of the international arms trade. She has a B.A from Leeds Polytechnic, M.A from the University of Keele and a PhD from Wimbledon School of Art. She has exhibited internationally and has drawings in the permanent collections of the Imperial War Museum and Peace Museum. She has written The Etiquette of the Arms Trade (2018) published by Beam and her latest book Gifts from the Arms Trade will be published by IAM in 2024, co-authored with photographer Ricky Adam.
Eoin Mac Lochlainn
![](https://www.queenstreetstudios.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Eoin-Image.png)
Eoin Mac Lochlainn is an award-winning artist born in Dublin. He studied at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and his work explores themes of homelessness, the Irish Diaspora and the effects of war. He won the Golden Fleece Award in 2008 and the ESB Keating McLaughlin Medal in 2010. His work has been exhibited widely in Ireland, throughout Europe and in the USA and is held in many public collections including the Irish State (OPW), AIB Bank, The Pearse Museum, The Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame (Indiana). Eoin writes a weekly art blog entitled Scéalta Ealaíne. He is represented by The Olivier Cornet Gallery in Dublin.
Tom Molloy
![](https://www.queenstreetstudios.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Screenshot-2024-07-12-at-10.37.06-1.png)
Tom Molloy was born in Waterford, studied at NCAD and lives and works in Rouen, France. He is a conceptual artist whose work engages with themes of imperialization, globalisation and the hegemony of the USA as a cultural and military force. He has exhibited widely in Europe and the USA, most recently in Texas, New York, France and Greece. His work is in many public and private collections including the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Arts Council Ireland, Princeton University Art Museum, USA and Fondo Regionale Arte Contemporanea, Piemonte, Italy. Tom is represented by the Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, Texas, USA.
Gail Ritchie
![Gail Ritchie](https://www.queenstreetstudios.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Gail-Website.jpg)
Gail Ritchie (born in Newtownards, County Down). Gail has a BA from Ulster University and an MA from Queen’s University. In 2022 she was awarded a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast for practice-based research into how the Northern Ireland Troubles might be commemorated in material form. Her practice is centred on a sustained engagement with conflict – personal, political and/or environmental. She has received awards from Arts Council Ireland, Arts Council Northern Ireland, Cultural Relations Committee, the British Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Her work is in private and public collections including national Museums Northern Ireland, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork and NI Government.