MEMENTO - AGREEMENT

MEMENTO - AGREEMENT

MEMENTO – AGREEMENT is a series of artworks based on Amanda Dunsmore’s recollections of making the silent filmed portraits which comprise the artwork AGREEMENT.

AGREEMENT started in 2004 with an aim to film and acknowledge the important roles played by all the signatories of the Belfast 'Good Friday' Agreement. The resulting artwork consists of 14 video portraits through which the audience reflect on each of the sitters, as the sitters reflect silently on their legacy.

This exhibition presents new work, entitled MEMENTO – AGREEMENT, involving a reflective drawing, text and printing process to revisit each of the video portraits that Dunsmore undertook between 2004 and 2022.These reflective portraits are made from a mix of typed text, pen & ink portraits and map etchings.

This body of work offers ‘mementos’ of the meetings with (in order of filming), David Ervine, Progressive Unionist Party, 2004; Lord Alderdice, Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, 2005; Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin, 2005; John Hume, Social Democratic and Labour Party, 2005; David Trimble, Ulster Unionist Party, 2017; Senator George Mitchell, United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland, 2018; Monica McWilliams, Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, 2005/2019; Pearl Sagar, Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, 2019; Seamus Mallon Social Democratic and Labour Party, 2019; Bertie Ahern, Fianna Fáil Taoiseach, 2019. Gary McMichael, Ulster Democratic Party, 2022; Malachi Curran, Labour Party of Northern Ireland, 2022; Gerry Adams, Sinn Féin, 2022.

The 14^th is a posthumous portrait of Mo Mowlam, former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to be presented later in 2023 using cutting edge machine processes to make a digital portrait from archival film.

MEMENTO – AGREEMENT is a series of 14 mixed media prints in a limited edition of 10.

The drawings are accompanied by a video installation of Billy's Museum, another artwork by Amanda Dunsmore that the AGREEMENT sitters viewed as their silent portraits were captured.

Billy’s Museum (2004/re-mastered 2017, 2-channel audio, 4:3 video, 19:40 minutes)

Billy Hull was a senior prison officer in HMP Maze. Billy repeatedly disobeyed an order to destroy prison and prisoner materials he found over a period of fifteen years at the height of the conflict. Instead he saved them. Billy’s Museum shows the display Billy curated of these surviving objects alongside an interview with him. The artefacts represented in this artwork depict a scattered, non-linear biography of place, time, culture, ritual, routine, subterfuge, life and death.

In 2021, with the acquisition of Billy’s Museum by the Ulster Museum, his responsibility for tomorrow has been fulfilled. Many of the artefacts he saved have been found and are being processed into the Ulster Museum’s collection. Billy’s Museum is the only civilian record of these artefacts which, for the first time, the public will be able to view in Northern Ireland.

AGREEMENT (25th Anniversary)

This exhibition forms part of a nationwide project in partnership with the National Lottery Heritage Fund, working with six communities on the heritage of the Belfast 'Good Friday' Agreement during it's 25th anniversary year. Amanda's artwork will, over a period of months, expand to involve these communities in a process of negotiating an agreement to host the artwork in their neighbourhoods and engage in conversations about what the Belfast 'Good Friday'  Agreement means to them today.

More information to be announced soon.

BIOGRAPHY

Amanda Dunsmore works in art processes that explore representations of societal transformation utilising contextual portraiture and social historic projects through the examination of place, people and moments of political significance. Dunsmore's art practice is an exploration of potential future memory, the legacy of visual parity in portraiture and the long-term implications of socio-political art making.

In 1998/1999 she was artist in residence at The Maze/Long Kesh prison, in Northern Ireland. Forthcoming artist residencies include the Jackman Goldwasser Fellowship Residency at the Hyde Park Arts Centre, Chicago, USA.

She has exhibited widely, including The Hugh Lane and the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), Dublin and internationally in Reykjavik, Chicago, Aabenraa, Sydney, Genève, Berlin, Dresden, Derry/Londonderry, London, Weimar, Linz, and Melbourne. Her artworks featured in public collections including the University of Limerick, Limerick; Ireland's National Collection through the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork; The Hugh Lane, Dublin; The Arts Council, Ireland; ACC Galerie, Germany; Galway County Council and The Ulster Museum and Linen Hall Museum, Belfast.

Dunsmore’s work has been supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, The British Council, Belfast City Council, Dublin City Council, Galway County and City Council, and Culture Ireland. Amanda studied at the Newport College of Further Education, South Wales, 1986-87, at the Ulster University, Belfast, 1987-1991 and the University of Limerick, 1999-2000. She lives in County Clare and is a Lecturer in Fine Art at Limerick School of Art and Design, TUS, Ireland.

amandadunsmore.com