Stephen Brandes
Parc du Souvenir
09 April - 21 May
Opens Saturday 08 April 3pm
Screening of the Third Man and Talk with James Mooney Wed 10 May 6.30pm

Stephen Brandes presents his most recent body of work for Sirius Arts Centre - digital slideshows, collages and a monumental drawing; presented together as an expanded fiction and narrated by a character recounting his memories of travelling Europe through the mid 21^st century.

The exhibition brings together a wildly eclectic nebula of ideas and images, fed by historical research, personal pilgrimage and even debates provoked in provincial pubs. It was initially inspired by the lives of two very different people; Gűnter Grass, author of The Tin Drum and Patrick Geddes, a Scottish polymath whose revolutionary plans for redesigning Dublin to help heal its social inequalities, were banjaxed merely a year later, by the 1916 Rising.

This is also a wider meditation on the legacy of history, of periods of enlightenment and their moments of suspension, revealed in the objects, buildings and monuments that remain often out of context and out of shape.

Geddes once reflected that, “it is interesting sometimes to stop and think and wonder what that place you are currently at used to be like in times past, who walked there. Who worked there and what the walls have seen”. Turned to face the future, this statement effectively becomes Brandes’ mantra, delivered however with customary poignancy, absurdity and a gallows humour.

FILMOSOPHY with James Mooney: The Third Man (Carol Reed 1949)

Set against the corruption of post-war Vienna, Carol Reed's influential noir masterpiece, The Third Man (starring Orson Welles), addresses ethical issues which remain as vital and relevant today as on its initial release. Following the screening, James Mooney (The University of Edinburgh) will host a discussion on the moral insight afforded by the film as well as the philosophical value of cinema more generally.

James Mooney lectures in philosophy at The University of Edinburgh. His current work focusses on the relationship between film and philosophy, particularly the ability of film to convey philosophical ideas and concepts. James also curates the Filmosophy season of philosophical films in association with the Centre for the Moving Image. He considers himself very fortunate to be able to indulge his love of cinema and call it ‘research’.

http://www.siriusartscentre.ie/exhibitions/stephen-brandes-parc-du-souvenir