Performance
UNESCO PARIS: Freedom of Artistic Expression
As Ireland celebrates, the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I received an invitation to perform a poetry piece in commemoration as well as contribute my expert knowledge to a panel discussion on international, regional, and national human rights instruments, such as the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, which safeguard the rights of artists and writers while tackling the obstacles they face.
Event Date: July 11th, 2023
Location: Centre Culturel Irlandais, 5 Rue Des Irlandais, 75005, Paris.
Property of State: Mother & Babies
An artistic research into the how women and children were treated in Irish mother and baby homes. The then Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny said babies born to unmarried parents were treated as “an inferior sub-species” for decades in the Republic of Ireland. This performance intersects on issues of class, gender x race in exposing state violence and immoral religious acts. #religion #newborn #baby #babies #tuam #Ireland #interim #report #poetry #prison #home #motherandbaby
Our Father
The Project description For the New Voices of Ireland project, Mirjana and Chinedum through their partnership explored their respective notions and relations of being fathered as well as the love, loss, empathy and tragedy amongst other feelings associated with fatherhood. Within this piece themes of patriarchy, religion, sacrifice, archetypes and memories are manifested as artists move beyond art to humanise their experiences weaving between childhood and adulthood to trace the effects of ‘fathering’ then and now. A mixture of poetry and prose from both artists reflect their explorations.
I Wonder
This poetry piece was written in response and from a deep contemplative place at the height of the racial unrest globally in 2019. I found myself tasked to put language around what ‘we’ feel, think, see and do. Written in collaboration with the Black@ fb group for Black History Month Oct 2019.
Are We Doing Diversity in the Arts Justice?
Challenging Homogeneity in Irish literary Spaces: An evening of readings, discussions and songs.
An event sponsored by the UCD Centre for Gender, Feminism and Sexualities (CGFS). Part of the CRITICAL GROUND – 2019 Conference of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures (IASIL) 22nd – 26th July 2019, Trinity College Dublin.