Amriya exhibition by Bryony Dunne (Photo: part of promotional material)
Medrar is hosting Irish artist Bryony Dunne’s multimedia exhibition titled Amriya starting 9 December.
Dunne’s research-based work explores the volatile relationship between man and nature, often with a look into historical links between Egypt and Ireland.
The display will include photography, sculpture, and an installation, bringing in footage and photos from Dublin’s Natural History Museum, Cairo’s Agricultural Museum and the Giza Zoo, among other sites.
The works are the result of her documentary projects created over the past four years between the two countries she calls home.
The exhibition is named after Amriya, the 70-year-old Bedouin woman who inspired the project when the artist met her years ago in South Sinai.
Amriya lives in her self-sustaining orchard, which, along with the surounding mountains, she calls “her doctors.”
The exhibition is a expanded collection of work which developed from Dunne’s 2014 short film about Amriya and the environment in which she lives. Titled The Orchard Keepers, the film screened in over 20 film festivals, and won the first prize at Ethno Film in Rovinj, Croatia.
Sound Artist Asem Tag will deliver a live performance at 9pm on the opening night.
Dunne is an Irish artist based in Cairo who holds an MA from University College Dublin in Cultural Heritage Conservation. Her work merges anthropology and ecology with visual art.
Dunne’s work has been exhibited at places such as the Irish Film Institute, London’s Mosaic Rooms, Goldsmiths University, Cairo’s Townhouse Gallery, Sharjah Art Biennial 13, Tamawuj in Istanbul, and the Athens Photography Festival in the Benaki Museum.
She is currently working on her first feature-length film, entitled Pembe (Swahili for “horn”), about the world’s last male northern white rhinoceros. She displayed part of this ongoing project at Townhouse Gallery in late 2016 in an exhibit titled They Usually Lie in the Grotto.
Her films have received several awards including best documentary short at the Iranian Green Film Festival and the aforementioned first-prize at Ethno Film in Croatia.
Programme:
The exhibition opens on Saturday 9 December at 7pm, and runs till 23 December.
Medrar is open daily from 3pm to 9pm, except Friday.
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