we make our own histories
- A multi-media exhibition, the culmination of Anthony Haughey’s three-year Artist Residency, curated by Maolíosa Boyle and Jonathan Cummins
- Highlights include ‘A Dress for Akunma’, a stunning garment which fuses Irish Ogham script and Nsibidi, ‘A Manifesto for A Future Ireland’ the result of five Young People’s Assemblies held last year, and Remember to Forget the Past, a short film featuring three African Irish women discussing artefacts from the Museum’s Ethnographic collections, and how the shadow of nineteenth and twentieth-century colonialism has shaped their lives.
The exhibition, which runs until 30th June 2024, is the culmination and celebration of Haughey’s artist residency at the National Museum, from 2021 – 2024. During his residency Haughey collaborated with more than 500 people across Ireland in a series of dynamic conversations, workshops and durational art processes, to create a series of artworks inspired by the Museum’s collections, which explore how we understand and embrace emerging cultural identities.
Haughey’s is one of five residencies funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport, and Media to mark the latter years of the Decade of Centenaries, in the context of a changing Ireland, 100 years after the formation of the state.
we make our own histories is hugely significant in that it is the first time there has been an exhibition at the National Museum of Ireland, by a contemporary artist responding to its collections in this way.
Director of the National Museum of Ireland, Lynn Scarff, said “we make our own histories considers how our national cultural institutions and collections can be spaces for dialogue and conversations that both challenge and nurture us. It demonstrates how, through greater accessibility to our collections, we can be places that support the creation of new work that explores critical contemporary experiences situated within an understanding of historical actions and their impacts. It is invigorating to imagine future possible collaborations, in the manner of Anthony’s residency, that open up the collection to wider interpretation and engagement ensuring its increased relevance and resonance with a diversity of audiences in the future.”
For artist Anthony Haughey, the residency has had many resonances, including, he says, “The discovery of my grandfather’s contribution to the 1922 War of Independence, documented in the Bureau of Military History, led me to this residency. The outcome, a historical continuum that continues to shape and inform collective identities. In years to come Akunma will visit the National Museum of Ireland with her teenage daughter, Kosi Anaya and son Kamsi Reign. Imagine their surprise when they discover the dress made for their mother in 2022 – part of the Museum’s permanent collection, an artwork that utterly embraces transcultural identities and a transforming Ireland.”
Curated by Maolíosa Boyle and Jonathan Cummins, the exhibition, in their words, “highlights the importance of inviting contemporary artists into our cultural institutions to reveal, reframe and engage in ways that allow us to reconsider who we are.”
Through artworks that are in turn provocative, playful, complex and visually beautiful, the exhibition aims to challenge, question and engage visitors. Highlights of the exhibition include:
- A Dress for Akunma (2021) and A Dress for Ramlah (2023)
A Dress for Ramlah was a collaboration between Leina Ibnouf, Rita Petlane, artist Bláthnaid McClean and Anthony Haughey. The hand-drawn fabric design is the outcome of a series of workshops and transnational research, fusing Irish, South African and Sudanese cultures.
- A Flag for Ireland
More than 300 participants were invited by Haughey in a series of artist-led workshops to reimagine a flag for Ireland, one hundred years on from the foundation of the state, which might represent people from all cultures and traditions. In the exhibition, visitors can see all 306 flag designs in a series of specially made books, as well as engage with 40 life-size flags displayed on flagpoles. Visitors to the exhibition will be encouraged to create their own flag designs on response cards in the exhibition reflection space.
- Young People’s Assembly
Haughey worked with young people from five post primary schools from Sligo, Limerick, Belfast, Clare and Dublin to draft their own Manifestos for a Future Ireland. Each school held their own Assembly, in the Ceramics Room of the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology in March 2023. Haughey’s installation features the table at which the Assemblies took place and five bespoke, mobile sculptural monitors showing looped footage of the Assemblies, an exercise in deliberative democracy discussing urgent issues facing their generation.
- Remember to Forget the Past
In this short film, three African Irish women, Leina Ibnouf, Lauretta Igbosonu and Rita Petlane discuss artefacts they selected from the Museum’s Ethnographic collections, chosen for the special meaning for them, as Irish women who have come from, respectively, Sudan, Nigeria and South Africa. With Haughey and curator Aoife O’Brien, the women explore how the shadow of nineteenth and twentieth century colonialism has shaped their lives.
Lauretta Igbosonu, one of the project collaborators, reflects in the film Remember to Forget the Past, “I think museums are mournful places. It’s like visiting a cemetery or the ruins of an imperial past where histories and memories collide. But like the phoenix rising from the ashes, it is also a place full of exciting possibilities where we can reimagine and reclaim our own histories.”
A number of the coproduced artworks, including A Dress for Akunma, a neon artwork we make our own histories and the footage from the Young People’s Assemblies, will become part of the National Museum of Ireland’s permanent collection, and feature in Changing Ireland – Stories from the Collections, a new permanent exhibition about 20th Century History of Ireland, currently under development to open at the NMI later this year.
The we make our own histories exhibition is on display until 30th June 2024, and the Museum plans a varied programme of events, including talks, workshops and tours for schools and the public over the coming months. Also planned is a major conference exploring the role of artists in museums, which will take place on 21st May 2024.
Admission is free.
About Anthony Haughey
Anthony Haughey is a socially engaged artist, photographer, filmmaker and lecturer at TU Dublin. His co-authored and solo artworks have been exhibited and collected by museums and galleries nationally and internationally.
Media Contacts: Q4 Public Relations: Sinéad McGovern, sinead@q4pr.ie (087 6411725) Sabrina D’Angelo, sabrina@q4pr.ie (086) 0323397
Images: To access images of the exhibition, click here. Press photography from the launch will be released by Marc O’Sullivan.
About the National Museum of Ireland
The National Museum of Ireland is the nation’s premier cultural institution and home to the greatest collections of Irish heritage, culture and history. Admission is free.
The National Museum of Ireland has 4 public sites, and a Collections Repository:
- National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology (Kildare Street, Dublin)
- National Museum of Ireland – Natural History (Merrion Street, Dublin)
- National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts & History (Collins Barracks, Dublin)
- National Museum of Ireland – Country Life (Turlough Park, Castlebar, Co. Mayo)
- Collections Resource Centre (Swords) (Not open to the public)
Website: www.museum.ie
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Instagram: @nationalmuseumofireland