The Tides of Monumental Gesture

The Tides of Monumental Gesture is the culmination of an eighteen-month collaboration encompassing active research, public talks, workshops, experimental presentations, and performances that took place at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and Galway Arts Centre entitled MOE: Communal – The Art of Coexistence. 

As an Island nation, we are collectively shaped by the ebbing tides of geopolitics, tangible and invisible borders, colonial legacies, immigration, biopolitical tensions, and the erosion of emigration. These issues are compounded by the contentious acceleration of European right-wing politics animated through the narrative of invasion and territorial privilege.

This exhibition traverses a sea of queer and multicultural perspectives and strandings on the island of Ireland. Orbiting themes of identity, assimilation, cultural hybridity, erasure, systems of power, and collective perseverance, the Tides of Monumental Gesture survives amid the contemporary political tempest as a confluence of instigators, infiltrators, chameleons, and tricksters.

The Museum of Everyone (MOE) is an inclusive portable platform for artists and creatives that aims to amplify diverse voices and perspectives through artist and community-led initiatives.  The Tides of Monumental Gesture features the work of ten artists: Irish-Iraqi multidisciplinary artist Basil Al-Rawi, Swedish visual artist Ella Bertilsson, Irish visual artist and educator Sarah Edmondson, Éireann and I’s curator and researcher Beulah Ezeugo and cultural producer Joselle Ntumba with Adesewa Awobadejo, Romanian visual artist and researcher Istvan Laszlo, Indian visual artist and filmmaker Pradeep Mahadeshwar, Brazilian interdisciplinary artist Thaís Muniz, Irish multidisciplinary visual artist Alan Phelan.

Curated by Brendan Fox and Aoife Banks.

This exhibition was supported by The Arts Council.