Events & Entertainment

SIRIUS ARTS EXHIBITION – Lisa FreemanApprox 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss

Published

2 years ago

September 15, 2024

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Lisa Freeman’s practice spans film, installation, text and performance. She explores the interdependence of power structures and relations, the body, site specificity and the presentation of the self in the everyday. Specifically, she examines how intimacy emerges, and might be used as a form of resistance, in the context of psychological states shaped by personal interaction, the built environment, the media and imagination. The film Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss considers how the people we spend time with, however briefly, can take up disproportionate space in our psyche and even shape our perception of the world.

Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss was co-commissioned by SIRIUS and aemi. This exhibition is produced by SIRIUS and curated by Miguel Amado, Director.

LAUNCH EVENT

SIRIUS
Saturday, 14 September
3-5pm
Free; no booking required

Lisa Freeman and SIRIUS Programme Producer Sarah Long discuss Freeman’s artistic and intellectual references, her interest in the role of intimacy as an act of resistance and her use of performance.

Accessibility Note
Our building has accessibility limitations. There are three steps to the front door and a temporary wheelchair ramp is available upon request. Our toilets are accessed via stairs and are not open to visitors. Public toilets are beside the Titanic Experience, by The Promenade.

Lisa Freeman, Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss (still),2023. Courtesy of the artist

Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss follows an Irish woman as she makes her way through an unfamiliar city in the south of Europe on a sunny day. Moving among tourists and locals, our unacquainted protagonist happens to meet several strangers, both in holiday rental-style accommodations and outside. A series of dreamlike sequences mix reality with out-of-body sensations and feelings.

The architecture of the city looms large. For example, a balcony momentarily acts as a panopticon device as the protagonist looks out from an upper-floor apartment. In other moments, the lightness and ordinariness of a minor encounter become strange, as when the protagonist is approached to take a photograph of Portuguese dancers and twin sisters Carminda and Maria Soares. Their graceful movements, somewhere between improvisation and performativity, and the uncanniness of their relationship with the protagonist create a heightened awareness of how the self attaches to others and one’s surroundings.

The film brings together moments that rupture the public and private spheres, for instance affectionate conversations that take place in public, on a mobile phone or on the street. These exchanges, as insignificant as they may be, create an atmosphere of unease and alienation as much as they offer glimpses of human connection.

Lisa Freeman is an artist based in Dublin. Recent solo shows and performances include Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; and Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, County Wicklow. She participated in exhibitions and screenings at institutions and events such as Cork International Film Festival and The LAB, Dublin. Her work is in the collection of the Arts Council. She holds an MA in Art & Research Collaboration from Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin.