Heather Gray A Bastion of Bone and Black

I have been surrounded by the natural environment all my life and it's processes and structures have always fascinated me. decaying matter, bones, leaves, living creatures have kept me captivated. i have been collecting bones and skulls and working with them over the past years. i am using natural materials and engaging with the environment in the aim of raising questions concerning the basis of humanity and our relationship with other living things.

In 'A Bastion of Bone and Black', mammal skulls and bone are amalgamated with black modeling wax. The wax is formed by hand into a human-esque face and shaped onto the animal skull. This creates a hybrid creature, a fusion of form from the realm of possibility; it asks what if evolution were on a different path?

Stella Thonett

The work is to do with the random meanings we can assume if given the right prompting. Everything we see has to do with the context we see it in, so to manipulate ones understanding of an object, we need only play with its surroundings. Surroundings to an object are like language to ourselves. It is how they communicate.

The limits of your language are the limits of your world

-Wittgenstein

The reason for using screwdrivers was to narrow in on one particular object. The more intimate I became with the concept, the more I realised that, if I wanted to keep the meaning readable and succinct, I cold not continue using any random objects. So I chose the screwdriver.

The screwdriver is primarily a useful object. If one takes away its function, one takes everything. The object becomes totally malleable to whatever meaning I want to bestow on it, and, without a function, it is glad to take it.

Deborah Smith 'Flicker Flicker'

Still images of Flicker

Projection on wall (8x12)



The idea of this piece came from the unawareness of the flickering of light that occurs in the corner of your eye, like when you pass a fence on a sunny day or the light in your eye after a flash of a camera.

With this basic thought and the basic materials, I am challenging the notions of display and enhaning that which is usually taken for granted, this piece delicately reintroduces the elements of the everyday and allows a moment of reflection.

Ciara Murphy Untitled, sound installation piece

Object: Piano parts

Sound Piece: 2 minutes 9 seconds. (Recorded, edited and mixed by Robert Mullen, Piano strings played by Ciara Murphy. Music written by Ciara Murphy)

The project is about memory and how people tend to remember things in fragments.  Many things from everyday life can trigger memories from the past.  The piano is filled with memories of my grandparents, particularly my Nana as she was the one who played the piano most.  I have also recorded a sound piece using the strings of the piano and a fully working keyboard.  This plays beside the piece reinforcing the fact that the piano keys no longer function as they did when the piano was whole.  They do move and can be played but no sound emanates from them anymore.