Making Do 
 
Date 2004

Info 

This exhibition took place in Dublin and was conceived by Glenn Loughran in 2004. It remains one of my favourite projects that i have participated in as an Artist/Curator. Over the course of one week curators were each provided with an on street space (a former restaurant). We were given a day of the week and invited to install, open to the public and de-install an exhibition over the course of 24 hours on a given day - like exhibition tag! I think my day was Wednesday and i proposed to Glenn that i would collect artworks from the homes of friends and family - "the kinds of artworks that people decorate their homes with, that people make do with in the absence of a budget for collecting major works of original art" - and install the items i would gather in the temporary exhibition space. When i arrived in peoples homes, I had expected to find printed copies of 'Sunflowers' by Van Gogh, and pictures of US President Kennedy beside a depiction of The Sacred Heart and so on, but the items that people kindly invited me in to see (and subsequently borrow) were mostly original or unique items and artworks that revealed personal stories and a glimpse into the lives and experiences of the owners. A tour guide (artist and photographer, Eileen Healy) was hired for the day to provide insightful tours of the exhibition. It was a fun day that generated lots of interaction, participation and discussion about visual art, taste and collecting.

Archive Notes

This exhibition was the inspiration for a later project and exhibition at Castletown House, County Kildare that i undertook with the support of Kildare Co. Council Arts Services in 2007. The later exhibition was titled 'The Temporary Collection' (there is documentation of that project available on this website also). Contributors to this project (who loaned out artworks or artifacts) include: Catherine Fitzgerald, Jenny Fox, Rosemary and Peter Simpson, Sarah O'Toole and Jonny Regan, Willie White, Joe Wood. Some of the artists whose work was exhibited include: Antoinette Emoe, Sean Hillen, Bea McMahon, Jacob O'Regan (pictured below who is now a grown adult), Joe Stanley. Others were unknown or the works were created by their owners.