Franklin Furnace Fund Recipients 2019-20

Project Description

    I have no proof        but I tell you
   I lie down under        molten metal
  At night. I solder        the body closed
    I solder a crack        between my legs
    I have no proof        but I tell you
The liquid seam is        lead. Heavy soft
     like solid water        poisonous
            and sound        proof

Biography

Mairead Delaney works in performance. Her practice of embodied speech acts— sort of emergency gestures— attempts a simultaneous holding-at bay of crushing violence and an affective entrance into its structure of feeling. Delaney understands these gestures as applying pressure to pressure, so we might register the systemic, continuous effects of harm, injustice and grief over time.

Delaney has exhibited internationally, presenting work in the Science Gallery Dublin, in partnership with MoMA’s Design and Violence, at The Ulster Museum in Belfast, MANA Contemporary Chicago, The Queens Museum, The Fergus McCaffrey Gallery, the VI International Biennial of Performance DEFORMES, Performance is Alive at Satellite Art Show, Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival, the Brooklyn International Festival of Performance Art, at ]performance space[, EXPO Chicago and Art Basel Miami. Artist residencies include the Vermont Studio Center, the Corporation of Yaddo, Oxbow and a MacDowell Fellowship.

Images (left to right): 1. I Would Not Think To Touch the Sky With Two Arms, PAUSE & AFFECT, ]performance space[, Folkestone, UK. Photo By Ashley-Louise McNaughton. 2. Bone, REMAINS, Fergus McCaffrey Gallery, New York, 2017. Photo by Tif Robinette. 3. Breach II, REMAINS, Fergus McCaffrey Gallery, New York, 2017. Photo by Tif Robinette.