The Collie, The Cheviot & The Crouched Skeleton by Orla Barry | Launch
About this Event
In 2024, Rua Red Director/Curator Maolíosa Boyle invited Orla Barry to create a new work in response to the rural communities of South Dublin, a first for the organisation. Through this commission, Rua Red sought to open up new connections with the farming communities of the area, creating space for conversation, exchange and interaction within the gallery, its education programme and wider public context.
Through this commission, Rua Red sought to open up new connections with the farming communities of the area, creating space for conversation, exchange and interaction within the gallery, its education programme and wider public context.
The research began through a series of introductions, connecting Barry with farmers living and working in the nearby Glenasmole and Bohernabreena areas. As both an artist and a shepherd, she brought a particular sensitivity and lived understanding to these encounters. Conversation, shared experience and the tradition of walking the land became central to the development of the work, allowing the commission to emerge through acts of listening, observation and exchange.
In The Collie, The Cheviot and The Crouched Skeleton, Barry uses the farm walk as both a method of research and a form of encounter. For many years, she was part of a sheep discussion group in Wexford that organised farm walks. Within farming communities, the farm walk is a collaborative practice in which a farmer opens their land to others for peer learning, shared experience and practical exchange. It is a context in which agricultural methods can be seen, touched, questioned and analysed in real time, and where successes and mistakes are discussed openly. These walks create a space for learning that is honest, situated and rooted in lived knowledge.
Through humour, respect and close attention to rural knowledge, The Collie, The Cheviot and The Crouched Skeleton considers the farm walk as a means of entering into relation with land, labour, memory and community. The commission reflects on the complexities of rural life at the edge of the city, exploring how landscape is shaped by inheritance, lineage, survival, friendship, economic pressure and the stories that pass between people.
The Collie, The Cheviot and The Crouched Skeleton launches at Rua Red on Friday 10 July at 6pm and continues until Saturday 26 September.
All welcome. Admission free.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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