Dragon’s Tail – Exhibition and Film – Marie Brett

Dragon’s Tail by Marie Brett

An enchanting exhibition and film event, mixing how electromagnetic energy and folklore, relate to human health and our relationship to the land. This fascinating artwork offers creative space to reflect on a significant global wellness issue. The exhibition consists of a film installation event, a series of intaglio prints, photographs, and large sculptural (wearable) animal effigies.

Artist Marie Brett made this work series starting with a folk-cult performance (that she wrote and directed) which was filmed outdoors overnight in a Dingle field, with a big team of musicians, dancers and circus performers with willow effigies, straw attire, stick amulets and a large earth and fire labyrinth.

This is an opportunity to experience a series of highly captivating artworks that explores one of our most pressing but hidden global wellness issues for humanity. Fusing fact and fiction; dazzling carnival meets beguiling fairytale. There is caution issed about hand-held technology from aliens.  Traditional calendar customs are melded with scientific research. The artwork mixes epic accounts of Irish mythology, set against supermarkets and transit vans.

Materially, this is a multimedia artwork series. Willow animal totem effigies stand taller than human on steel legs, re-imagining traditional craft skills and heritage making. Bones, stones and voice are combined in the film’s exceptionally evocative soundscape. Limited edition intaglio prints depict characters from the filmed folk-cult performance, and the Shape-shifting Hare, the Guardian Wolf, the Passing Between Worlds Deer, and the Soothsayer Raven, each dance with traditional musicians in a field of darkness. Photography documents the performance event, and drone footage captures the earth fire labyrinth from above with processional vitality. The hand-held mobile phone, centre stage, is set alight amid an earth on fire.

During the making of Dragon’s Tail, the artist Marie Brett consulted and collaborated with many people who contributed into this artwork series, this included local photographer Fiona Morgan and a diverse team of farmers, historians, folklorists, dancers, musicians, craftspeople, healers, druids, strawers, circus performers and varied scholars, as well as a Council of Elder specialist in elemental and extra-sensory perception, an art curator, wellness specialist, astrologer, necromancer, shaman and an electrician. All as valued participants, collaborators and contributors.

Creative collaborators credits are:
Cinematography & drone: Colm Mullen and Chris Garrett. 

Circus /other performers: Ellie Sherwood, Hannah Ryan, Ardan Preteau, Stevie Wilson, Moss Russell, Sadbh Grenham, Harry White, Clodagh Piper and Siobhán Kavanagh. 

Dancers: Siobhán Ní Dhuinnín, Jessie Keenan and Sarah Ryan.
Musicians (live event): Lisa O’Sullivan (fiddle), Nicola Stathers (uillean pipes & low whistle) and Teresa Galvin (bodhrán).
Musicians (film soundscape): Siobhán Kavanagh, John Linnane (composers/performers), Ultan O’Brien (fiddle/viola) and Robbie Walsh (bodhrán)
Photography: Fiona Morgan and Jed Niezgoda.
Wearable sculpture, totem staffs & head-dresses: Juliette Hamilton, Celtic Stickmakers Cork and Liadain Butler. 

+ Further Contributors / Supporters: Joanna Kate Grant, Helen D’Bharóid, Sarah Kelleher, Elisabeth Vandermeer, Kevin Scully, Eugene Walsh, Fanny Leenhardt, Lorraine Comer, Clodagh Doyle, Michael Fortune, Dr Jenny Butler, William Maloney, Karen Barry, Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc, Timmy O’Connor, Lisa O’Sullivan, Dr Billy Mag Fhloin, Juliette Hamilton, Liadain Butler, Lucia Pola, Eugene Trindles, Matt O’Connor, Jim O’Donovan, Joseph Sheehan, Pat O’Sullivan, Jessie Keenan, Siobhán Ní Dhuinnín, Sarah Ryan, Harry White, Moss Russell, Sadbh Grenham, Hannah Ryan, Ellie Sherwood, Stevie Wilson, Ardan Preteau, Teresa Galvin, Lisa O’Sullivan, Nicola Stathers, Clodagh Piper, Tomás Malone, Julí Ní Mhaoileóin, Róisín-Mya Connolly, Lee Behegan, Erin Clarke, Stephen Doughton, Oscar McCullagh, Stu Murphy, Kate O’Shea, Evelyn Broderick, Vicky White, Nic Piper, Siobhán Kavanagh, John Linnane, Ultan O’Brien, Robbie Walsh, Chris Barry, Seán MacErlaine, Colm Mullen, Chris Garrett, Jay Peter Javeri, Ellie Stone, Philip Delamere, Leslie Ryan, Edwina Guckian, Fionnuala Maxwell, Maeve Mulrennan, Sarah Malone, Dr Críostóir Mac Cárthaigh, Aideen Quirke, Peter McMorris and Emma O’Hara, plus other individual specialist advisors and contributors who remain anonymous.

Funding was gratefully received from The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon, with project series support given by The National Museum of Ireland, Cork Printmakers, Cork County Arts Office, Nano Nagle Place and The National Sculpture Factory.

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