Study for a Pavilion. 2017

This temporary work consisted of a proposal for a Pavilion for Askeaton at a future Worlds Fair. The floor map, information booth and media and was set in the Askeaton Community Hall, Ireland.

Curated by Michele Horrigan and Sean Lynch.

Following a short residency in Askeaton, working with Irish artist Tina O'Connell, we developed a number of small interventions for the festival of contemporary Art 'Welcome to the Neighbourhood'.

Askeaton Contemporary Arts Website

Featured on an Archive of Destruction

Through this exploration of loss and rejuvenation, O’Connell and White’s on-going project seeks to recalibrate the narrative of an artwork, creating new locations, contexts and eras in which it is able to exist.

Jes Fernie. June 2021
Curator of the Archive of Destruction.

 

This project was primarily based on our research of the Irish Pavilion at the 1939 Worlds Fair Expo in New York, that featured the Ardnacrusha Hydro Dam and Power Station that is close to Askeaton. Parts of the dam were depcited in a vast mural by Sean Keating (all works later destroyed), that was in the central hall of the pavilion. We developed a project that returned this artwork to Ireland, and explored how Askeaton community understood its role and identity that could also lead to its own Pavilion at a future Worlds Fair today.

Study for a Pavillion loosely took the original design of the 1939 World Expo building, and mapped out a plan into the community centre. It included spectral images of the Keating mural, that were meticulously recreated using light painting technology. Additional artworks that have been destroyed, stolen or vanished were also relocated to the hall and the nearby park.

Our research into the Scott Building included recent archival searches from the Smithsonian in Washington DC and at Flushing Meadows NYC.