Meant to fade
co-curated by Katerina Gribkoff and Phoebe Tohl
Laneway gallery, cork
June 1- july 1, 2023
Meant to Fade was a curated group exhibition featuring artworks that celebrated ephemerality, transformation, and the temporalities of non-toxic, natural, and living materials. The works pushed against long standing norms of artistic display and function, challenging the notion of creations outliving their creators.
Many works in the show featured a combination of the natural and the unnatural, the store-bought or the homegrown. This reflected the entangled reality of our present world, with pollutants and waste touching or embedded within all ecologies.
The show was a collection of works that shifted, morphed, dulled, crumbled, and faded over the course of the month. Materials present in the gallery included mycellium, salt crystals, dried berries, naturally dyed yarns and cottons, grass pulp, birch bark, seaweed bioplastic, and shea butter. Methods used by the artists included anthotype photography, book-binding, weaving, pigment and ink making, foraging and collecting, and paper-making with vegetables.
below are images of works from the show. The artists shown in Meant to Fade were Annie Hogg, Aster Reem David, Ashleigh Ellis, Catherine McDonald, Christine Mackey, Christine Prescott, Dearbhla Ryan, Eliza Clifford, Emily Mc Gardle, Francine Marquis, Ida Mitrani, Ione Maria Rojas, John Steck Jr., Lorna Hayden & Oana Sânziana Marian, Kate Shorey, Louise Frances Smith, Mairéad McGuinness, Marielle MacLeman, Molly Sawyer, Sophie Anna Gibbings, and Sylvia Maher. Artists who performed on opening night were Áine Rose Connell, Day Magee, Kate Shorey & Sophie Anna Gibbings, and Joseph Hendel.
