Reports to an Academy
This work takes its title from the Franz Kafka short story, ‘A Report to an Academy’.
In the story an ape recounts his deliberate acquisition of a human identity as a means of survival in the aftermath of captivity. The film takes this idea of identity as performance and explores it through multiple locations: an archetypal west of Ireland landscape, a natural history museum and an artist’s studio. Through extensive use of computer-generated imagery, the assumptions around authenticity and representation suggested by these locations are called into question, with each setting revealed as a highly mediated space. Landscape, museum and studio are reimagined here as stage sets, in which identities might be constructed and false realities forged.
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain works with film and installation to conjure scenarios of dreamlike hybridity. Her work has shown widely, with exhibitions at RHA, Dublin; Broad Museum, Michigan; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Paris Photo; and Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid among others. Upcoming presentations of her work will take place at IMMA, Dublin; CCI, Paris; Irish Arts Centre, New York; CCA, Glasgow; and The Kitchen, New York (with Ann Cleare). Originally from Co. Clare, Ní Bhriain is currently based in Cork. Her work is represented by domobaal gallery, London.
