Beyond Survival [props] (2024). Multimedia installation. Dimensions variable. Photograph by Ellen Rose Wallace
Beyond Survival [props] (2024). Multimedia installation. Dimensions variable. Photograph by Ellen Rose Wallace
Beyond Survival [props] (2024)
Multimedia installation
Beyond Survival [props] (2024) is an expanded installation of the psuedo-nature documentary Beyond Survival (2022), featuring props and pedagogical installation techniques throughout the group exhibition, Apocalypse Anxieties curated by Kerry Guinan.
Apocalypse Anxieties — an exhibition at the end of the world — responds thematically, aesthetically, and affectively to an underground “nuclear bunker” installed by the Irish Government under Custume Barracks, Athlone during the Cold War. Guest-curated by artist Kerry Guinan, the exhibition employs the bunker as a symbol to raise critical questions about how catastrophes are prepared for, communicated, and survived — and by whom. Linking the existential threat of nuclear war to that of the climate crisis today, Apocalypse Anxieties holds space for the open expression of base survival fears at the levels of the individual, the species, and the Earth, while defending kinship and intimacy between these entities at the end of the world.
Beyond Survival is an indigestible mash-up of mainstream survival television, fucking-frenzy naturist collectives and anti-sodomy laws legislated under the title ‘Crimes Against Nature’. Tempered by the exaggerated nature of survivalist figures and their excessive performances of non-essential survival, the protagonist of this docu-film transforms into numerous characters, ranging from a cameo as a cis-heterosexual survivalist to a stern warning from a queer environmental activist. Adopting the cinematic stylization of survival documentaries, Beyond Survival uses numerous cameras to emphasise feigned solitude and satirically leans into confessional soliloquies employed by handheld cameras.
By situating itself in a natural landscape, Beyond Survival emphasises how an alternative vision of natural phenomena can de-centre the rigid social order and thus, provide us with new ways of living beyond immediate survival.
Beyond Survival is part of Herlihy’s larger transdisciplinary project the middle of nowhere (2022) at Project Arts Centre, Dublin. the middle of nowhere was commissioned by Project Arts Centre and kindly supported by the Arts Council of Ireland’s Visual Arts Bursary and Carlow Arts Festival’s Wedge Fund.
Beyond Survival was acquired by the Irish Arts Council and added to their Collection in 2022.
Multimedia installation
Beyond Survival [props] (2024) is an expanded installation of the psuedo-nature documentary Beyond Survival (2022), featuring props and pedagogical installation techniques throughout the group exhibition, Apocalypse Anxieties curated by Kerry Guinan.
Apocalypse Anxieties — an exhibition at the end of the world — responds thematically, aesthetically, and affectively to an underground “nuclear bunker” installed by the Irish Government under Custume Barracks, Athlone during the Cold War. Guest-curated by artist Kerry Guinan, the exhibition employs the bunker as a symbol to raise critical questions about how catastrophes are prepared for, communicated, and survived — and by whom. Linking the existential threat of nuclear war to that of the climate crisis today, Apocalypse Anxieties holds space for the open expression of base survival fears at the levels of the individual, the species, and the Earth, while defending kinship and intimacy between these entities at the end of the world.
Beyond Survival is an indigestible mash-up of mainstream survival television, fucking-frenzy naturist collectives and anti-sodomy laws legislated under the title ‘Crimes Against Nature’. Tempered by the exaggerated nature of survivalist figures and their excessive performances of non-essential survival, the protagonist of this docu-film transforms into numerous characters, ranging from a cameo as a cis-heterosexual survivalist to a stern warning from a queer environmental activist. Adopting the cinematic stylization of survival documentaries, Beyond Survival uses numerous cameras to emphasise feigned solitude and satirically leans into confessional soliloquies employed by handheld cameras.
By situating itself in a natural landscape, Beyond Survival emphasises how an alternative vision of natural phenomena can de-centre the rigid social order and thus, provide us with new ways of living beyond immediate survival.
Beyond Survival is part of Herlihy’s larger transdisciplinary project the middle of nowhere (2022) at Project Arts Centre, Dublin. the middle of nowhere was commissioned by Project Arts Centre and kindly supported by the Arts Council of Ireland’s Visual Arts Bursary and Carlow Arts Festival’s Wedge Fund.
Beyond Survival was acquired by the Irish Arts Council and added to their Collection in 2022.