Performance: Léann Herlihy, 'With Everything We’ve Got! [warm-up]'

Approaching this as a 60-minute training session, Herlihy will attempt to fall through the frameworks experienced by those who regularly, and sometimes deliberately, fall out of recognition. Descending through the gaps in the System which has historically denied their presence, Herlihy approaches this active state of falling as a contrary embodiment; a refusal to situate themself in relation to a destination, a final form, a specific shape, or an established configuration of desire and/or identity.

Acting as a precursor to this performance, an asterisk [*] marks the site of this warm-up. A diacritical character, the * poses a question to its prefix, signalling towards a politics based on instability which is orientated towards social transformation, rather than political accommodation.

Access: this performance is one hour long. Audience members can enter, stay and leave at any point throughout the performance. The viewpoints of the performance will be at different levels throughout the building and will be accessible through an elevator. There will be one floor level designated to mask-wearing. Seating options will be provided throughout all floors. Further information regarding access to the building can be found here.

Léann Herlihy’s With Everything We’ve Got! takes stylistic reference from alt text/image description, and utilises frameworks of coalition building. This body of work moves against common understandings of sporting bodies and situates itself as a warm-up for an expansive project that realises an active state of losing/falling as an embodied response to systemic injustice.

This event is part of the expanded programme accompanying Reflex Blue, an exhibition with Lyndon Barrois Jr., Elisa Giardina Papa and Léann Herlihy. The expanded programme includes artist talks, film screenings, publication and performance. Invited artists are Michael Hanna, Joseph Noonan-Ganley, Alice Rekab x Stephen Rekab.

Image description: Niamh and Léann are in the warm-up area of an athletics arena. Niamh is slightly bent over as they take a photograph of Léann who is horizontally floating mid-air over a long blue crash mat. Léann is wearing a matching set of blue running shorts and a training bib with neon green trim which they have paired with silver runners and neon green socks. Niamh is also wearing a training bib with neon green trim with khaki combat shorts and white runners. The background is an assemblage of blue textured grid-like surfaces of fibreglass, brick and foam which contract against a sandy-coloured asphalt floor.