Heritage Week at Butler Gallery
Film Launch: Brave Bones by artist Sarah Lincoln and writer Willie-Joe Meally

Butler Gallery is delighted to launch Brave Bones as part of Heritage Week. The driving inspiration for this film has been the fascinating layers of industrial and geological heritage in and around the Deerpark Mine in North Kilkenny. Twining this screening with Mikhail Karikis and Uriel Orlow’s film,‘Sounds from Beneath’ is an opportunity to reflect upon the commonality between mining cultures: the legacies they have left behind and how we can remember and memorialize these histories.

In a wider sense, the event reflects in an active way, the worth in looking to the stories in the Land and our human entanglement with them. How can we deepen our sensitivity to these relationships and continue to enliven the stories we tell about them into the future?

__________________________

Brave Bones is a short film about a flooded coal mine in North Kilkenny.

The work relies upon the mine’s rich history to creatively explore the complex, ancient landscapes which we live amongst.

While reflecting aspects of the mine’s 20^th Century history, the film also delves into stories about the ancient fossils which were discovered there.

A central theme within the piece is map-making; including the creation of a map by ex- coal miners of the now inaccessible Deerpark Mine.

Brave Bones drifts into speculative spaces, which expand around our relationships to the Land and how these relations have informed the shapes we live amongst.

_____________________

About the Artist:

Sarah Lincoln is a visual artist who works through moving image, ceramics and photography. Her practice often finds form through long-term collaborative projects, which hinge around ways to collectively express complexity of place. Sarah has received support from Irish Arts Council, CREATE, Waterford Arts and ArtLinks.

Willie-Joe Meally is a poet and prose writer from Clogh in Co. Kilkenny. He is a founding member of Clogh Writers. His work draws inspiration from the rhythms of the natural world and his local landscape. He is especially interested in responding to the legacies of coalmining traditions around North/ East Kilkenny. Willie-Joe’s work has been published widely (Poetry Ireland Review, Kilkenny Poetry Broadsheets, Cyphers magazine ). He has won a number of literary awards over the years ( Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award, Laois Leaves Literary Award, Scríobh Poetry Competition).