05/11/2019
EXHIBITION OF SOUND
Please come and visit this week!
Michele Hetherington
Opening Thursday 7th November 2019
6:00-8:30pm
Swords Castle, Main Street Swords, Co. Dublin
Runs until Monday 11th November 2019 from
10:00am-4:00pm daily
Talk softly is a new site-specific work in response to the architectural space of Swords Castle. An
immersive soundscape envelops the Chapel room, accompanied by a text piece and thirty durational
paintings. The pieces have been constructed with a sensibility and subtlety, to allow the architectural space
become a visual component of the work in its totality. This new body of work was created on a year long
residency with thanks to the Fingal Arts Council graduate award in partnership with BlockT.
The starting point for these new works began upon the discovery of an archival black and white photograph
of Physicists John Ratcliffe and Ernest Rutherford in conversation in Cavendish Physics laboratory of
Cambridge University, taken in 1932. A neon sign which reads,‘Talk Softly Please’ can be seen in the
background of this photograph. The sign was installed within the laboratory to remind the scientists of their
environment and to be mindful of the micro-phonically sensitive particles they worked with, as the slightest
vibrations could greatly impact the outcome of their research.
Emerging from a questioning of the statement ‘Talk Softly Please’, research commenced into the philosophy
of sound, architectural spaces and our heightened sense of perception in silence. The architectural structure
invites listening, not only a physiological fact, but as an act of engaging. Equally, hearing may no longer be
treated as just a receptive mode, but as a method of exploration, a way of navigating and noticing subtle
details otherwise overlooked within ours environments. We become aware of our bodies in silence, as it is
not an absence of sound, nor an awkwardness, but an opportunity which holds potential for exploration of the
Self and prompts further curiosity.
Michele Hetherington (b.1993) is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Dublin. Her practice
emerges from a conceptual and poetical curiosity surrounding ideas of Time, Place and the Self, whereby
their dependence of each other are questioned. Time has become an obsession through our desire to measure
it, control it, sell it, film it, perform it, immortalise it and make it meaningful. She believes, in order to
understand time we need to reflect on ourselves - to understand ourselves we need to reflect on time. Michele
holds a Masters Degree in Fine Art (2018) and an undergraduate degree in Printmaking (2016) from the
National College of Art and Design. Exhibiting nationally and internationally, Michele’s work has been apart
of shows such as, 189th RHA Annual Exhibition 2019; imPRESSions 2019, Galway International Arts
Festival 2019; A5, Galway Arts Centre, 2018; NCAD MFA Degree Show, 2018 ; Time is not a line, Pallas
Projects, 2017; Half Baked, Elbana House, 2017; Zureta, Tokyo University of Arts, Japan, 2017; Detached,
Solstice Arts Centre, 2017; Tunnelling, UCD O’Brien Centre for Science, Curated by Emer O’Boyle, 2015.EXEE
