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Project Profile
Amanda Coogan, still images from the series ‘They Come Then, The Birds’, 2021; Photograph by Ciara McMullan, courtesy the artist.
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2021
Amanda Coogan, still images from the series ‘They Come Then, The Birds’, 2021; Photograph by Ciara McMullan, courtesy the artist.
RUA RED’S ‘MAGDALENE Series’ are commissioned works by Amanda
They Come Then, The Birds KATE ANTOSIK-PARSONS DISCUSSES AMANDA COOGAN’S NEW COMMISSION FOR THE MAGDALENE SERIES.
Coogan, Alice Maher, Rachel Fallon, Jesse Jones and Grace Dyas, curated by Rua Red director, Maolíosa Boyle, that will be exhibited between June 2021 and March 2022. These commissions revolve around the enigmatic figure of Mary Magdalene, the patron saint of women and sinners. Although initially planned as a group exhibition, over time this evolved into a series of solo exhibitions. It is supported by a public engagement programme featuring lectures and discussions with academics and feminist theologians including Meggan Watterson, Siobhán Garrigan and Marina Warner that unpack the complexities and ambiguities that surround Mary Magdalene. The research and development of this large-scale project began in late 2018, but with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the programme originally scheduled to run in 2020 was postponed. Adapting to new working conditions, the group of artists capitalised on the increased use of remote technologies. While previously meeting face to face several times throughout the year to discuss ideas, when they moved remotely, they were able to schedule weekly Zoom calls, in addition to regular communication through a WhatsApp group. Subsequently, this expanding aspect to their discussions enabled the artists to deepen the collaborative peer engagement amongst the group, allowing for a sustained and generative critique that facilitated the individual and collective development of the work into new and rich directions. Amanda Coogan’s ‘They come then, the birds’, the first in this series of solo exhibitions, explores the iconic Mary Magdalene through the lens of ‘the Wrens of the Curragh’ – a group of women in the mid-nineteenth century, who lived on the fringes of society adjacent to the military encampment garrisoned in the Curragh, County Kildare. These were prostitutes and outcasts who ‘nested’ in the furze bushes on the Curragh. Living in impoverished conditions and exposed to the harsh elements,
