Performance + Talk: Sam Keogh and Vaari Claffey, 'Pages From The Hunters Enter The Woods Cartoon'

This one-night event presents an installation of one of Sam Keogh’s large-scale paper collage works drawing heavily from The Unicorn Tapestries—a series of seven sixteenth-century Flemish tapestries depicting the pursuit of a unicorn through an idealised French landscape. The evening will include a performance, followed by a conversation between Keogh and curator Vaari Claffey.

Keogh has remade The Unicorn Tapestries as ‘cartoons’, or working drawings, using devices such as framing and storyboarding which are intrinsic to the performance. During the performance, a scene unfolds in which two characters from the tapestries or 'pages' are drawn deeper into the woods by the spectral silhouette of a rabbit. They follow with curious trepidation, but the rabbit evades capture through digression, association and circumscription—manoeuvres which allow it to ‘break free of its frame’ and play in the gaps between the pages’ world and ours.

Keogh first saw these tapestries in the MET Cloisters during a residency at International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) Brooklyn, New York. Sam Keogh was awarded this residency by Temple Bar Gallery + Studio in 2021.

Sam Keogh works across drawing, sculpture, collage, writing and video—strands that combine as sprawling installations which host performances. The characters in these performances interact with the work’s physical elements whilst speaking; trying and often failing to present a theory, an anecdote or an historical event. In this fractured struggle with language, drawing and sculpture are variously used as mnemonic device, prop or avatar. Here, the work’s physical, gestural and linguistic materials combine to create associative cognitive maps of the present.

Vaari Claffey is an independent curator based in Dublin. She has initiated a number of curatorial platforms including Gracelands, Magnetism at Hazelwood, IsolationTV and Dirty Solutions. Her practice involves working closely with artists to commission and stage experiential projects across a variety of media, aiming to produce a particularly dynamic relationship with the audience. These projects range from low-key, self-performed moments to large-scale exhibitions and public art commissions.

Event Information: This event will take place in Studio 6 on the first floor accessible via lift and stairs. Seating will be theatre style. This room can sometimes get quite warm for busier events. For further access information please contact Learning + Public Engagement Curator Órla Goodwin.