Ailbhe Ní Bhriain at Kunsthal Gent

Artist: Ailbhe Ní Bhriain

Exhibition title: An Expe­ri­ment with Time

Venue: Kunsthal Gent, Ghent, Belgium

Date: May 31 – December 31, 2024

Photography: ©Michiel Decleene / courtesy the artist and Kunsthal Gent

With ​‘An Expe­ri­ment with Time’ Irish artist Ailbhe Ní Bhriain (pro­noun­ced as ​‘Alve Knee Vreen’) explo­res our cur­rent rela­ti­ons­hip with past and futu­re, which has been dee­ply dis­rup­ted by the urgent cli­ma­te thre­at, mass extinc­ti­on and pan­de­mic. Using live-filmed sequen­ces and ima­gery gene­ra­ted by com­pu­ter and arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gen­ce Ní Bhriain reveals an enig­ma­tic world, redo­lent of the uncer­tain­ty, con­tra­dic­ti­ons and fra­gi­li­ty of our pla­net today.

Ailbhe Ní Bhriain draws us into a world of the­a­tri­ca­li­ty and diso­rien­ta­ti­on in which the fami­liar is re-ima­gi­ned in light of a desta­bi­li­sed futu­re. A decom­mis­si­o­ned medi­cal site is sub­mer­ged in water; a cha­me­le­on is the sole inha­bi­tant of a muse­um of com­pu­ting his­to­ry; a brain-coral beco­mes the cen­tre pie­ce of an ico­nic cathe­dral. Throug­hout the exhi­bi­ti­on, diver­se loca­ti­ons, his­to­ries and sys­tems of know­led­ge are mys­te­rious­ly com­pres­sed and con­fla­ted. A port­rayal of envi­ron­men­tal after­math emer­ges, wea­ving a dream­li­ke nar­ra­ti­ve around the con­structs through which humans have sought to under­stand and con­trol the world.

‘An Expe­ri­ment with Time’ takes its tit­le from a 1927 publi­ca­ti­on by the Irish-born popu­lar sci­en­tist J.W. Dun­ne. This book out­lined a belief sys­tem based on pre­cog­ni­ti­ve dreams – a the­o­ry of paral­lel time­li­nes whe­re­by dream nar­ra­ti­ves pre­dict futu­re events. Using CGI, col­la­ge, and assem­bla­ge, Ní Bhriain refe­ren­ces Dun­ne’s text to explo­re our cur­rent rela­ti­ons­hip to both past and futu­re, so pro­found­ly unsett­led and cal­l­ed into ques­ti­on by the thre­at of cli­ma­te disas­ter. What results is an enig­ma­tic visu­al voca­bu­la­ry that con­nects to the uncer­tain­ty, con­tra­dic­ti­on and loss expe­rien­ced in this time of cri­sis.

Ailbhe Ní Bhri­an’s work will be shown in and around our new pavi­li­on, KHG04, a fourth spa­ti­al inter­ven­ti­on in our church hall by artist and archi­tect Oli­vier Goet­hals.

Ailbhe Ní Bhriain

Born in Coun­ty Cla­re in Ire­land, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain stu­died at the Craw­ford Col­le­ge of Art & Design, Cork, the Roy­al Col­le­ge of Art, Lon­don and Kings­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, Lon­don, whe­re she was awar­ded a PhD by prac­ti­ce in 2008. Her work has shown wide­ly inter­na­ti­o­nal­ly, with exhi­bi­ti­ons at Tem­ple Bar Gal­lery, Dublin; Broad Muse­um, Michi­gan; Whi­techa­pel Gal­lery, Lon­don; Ham­mer Muse­um, LA; Istan­bul Modern, Tur­key; and Rei­na Sofia Muse­um, Madrid among others.

Cur­rent exhi­bi­ti­ons of her work inclu­de: The Nar­row Gate of the Here and Now: Soci­al Fabric, Irish Muse­um of Modern Art, Dublin; A Nati­on Under the Influ­en­ce: Ire­land at 100, Cen­tre Cul­tu­rel Irlandais, Paris; The Spa­ce We Occu­py, Irish Arts Cen­tre, New York; Expand­ed, Grap­hic Stu­dio Gal­lery, Dublin; and Moun­tain Lan­gu­a­ge, Gal­way Arts Cen­tre, Gal­way. In Decem­ber 2021 her films were scree­ned at The Kit­chen, New York as part of Clai­re Chase’s Den­si­ty 2036 pro­ject, and in Wil­ton Park, Dublin as part of an ongo­ing out­door instal­la­ti­on cura­ted by RHA Gal­lery and Dublin City Coun­cil. In 2022 Ailbhe Ní Bhriain will exhi­bit as part of the 16th Lyon Bien­na­le: The Mani­fes­to of Fra­gi­li­ty, cura­ted by Sam Barda­ouil and Till Fell­rath.

Public col­lec­ti­ons of her work inclu­de Craw­ford Art Gal­lery, Cork; Tri­ni­ty Col­le­ge Dublin; The Arts Coun­cil of Ire­land; and Offi­ce of Public Works, Ire­land. Ailbhe Ní Bhriain is repre­sen­ted by dom­obaal gal­lery, Lon­don. She is based in Cork, Ireland.