Dublin Fringe Festival: Rachel Enright Murphy, 'No Obligation'

No Obligation is a live artwork that blends legal language with intimate action. Developed with an intimacy coordinator and a legal-creative consultant; an acting contract is read aloud while two actors perform within their contractual obligations.

A series of intimate performance exercises where the boundaries of improvised movement become legal or ethical requirements. In No Obligation, legal loopholes, standardisation and semantic argument become prompts for an uncanny, tender and visually striking performance.

Rachel Enright Murphy is an artist from Dublin, Ireland. She makes text-based artworks using video, sound, performance and printed material. Her work creates semantic or phonetic experiments that act as intimate misreadings of legal agreements, documented events and scientific papers. She often collaborates with others through theatrical scripting and production practices to explore autonomy, spectatorship and sexual subjectivity. Rachel is a Residential Awardee of Firestation artist Studios (2026/27) and the recipient of the Recent Graduate Residency Award at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios (2025/26). Previous exhibitions, residencies and performances include: Clerical Error, Ormond Studios (2025), SIM Reykjavik (2024), and Fly Floor, The Complex Gallery (2023). She holds a BA in Fine Art Media from the National College of Art and Design and her practice is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.

Credits
Performers | Cian Malin and Molly Murphy Hazzard
Sound Design | Dan Montague O’Brien
Costume | Lucy Folan Kennedy
Intimacy Director | Sinead Cassidy Holt
Creative-legal Consultant | Julie Morrissy
Artist Mentorship | Bea McMahon
Producer | Sinéad Gallagher

The development of No Obligation was made possible with the support of The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and Temple Bar Gallery + Studios.