Susan MacWilliam, The Only Way To Travel, 2008.
Artist-in-Residence Talks Series: Susan MacWilliam - The Only Way To Travel Screening and Talk
14th Jun 2017
Susan MacWilliam, The Only Way To Travel, 2008.
Artist-in-Residence Talks Series: Susan MacWilliam
The Only Way To Travel (2008, 38 mins) screening and talk.
Sirius Arts Centre
Wednesday 14 June
6.30pm
The Only Way To Travel reveals a world of 1930s high living, the cocktail hour, the rise of the New York skyscraper, and an era of glamorous travel, optimism and new horizons.
The Irish trance medium Eileen Garrett (1893–1970, born Beauparc, Co. Meath) first travelled to New York in 1931 on invitation of the American Society of Psychical Research. During the 1930s and ‘40s Garrett and her daughter, Eileen Coly, frequently crossed the Atlantic from Europe to New York. They sailed on many of the White Star Line and Cunard Line ships including the Olympic, the Manhattan, the Queen Mary, the Britannic, and the Samaria, several of which were built in Belfast by Harland and Wolff. In The Only Way To Travel, Eileen Coly and her daughter Lisette relate their family history while reading shipping records and looking through family photograph albums.
While making The Only Way To Travel, Susan MacWilliam discovered that her own cousins sailed from Southampton to New York in September 1934 on the SS Majestic, on the same voyage as Eileen Garrett and her then 18 year old daughter.
Featuring: Eileen Coly (1916–2013), daughter of Eileen Garrett, and Lisette Coly (b.1950), granddaughter of Eileen Garrett.
The Irish trance medium Eileen Garrett founded the publishing house Creative Age Press in 1941 and the The Parapsychology Foundation in 1951 (both in New York).
Susan MacWilliam first met the family of Eileen Garrett in October 2006, when she travelled to New York to visit the Parapsychology Foundation's Eileen J Garrett Library. Susan became friends with the charasmatic family of Eileen Garrett, who welcomed her in to their lives and opened doors to other contacts within the fields of parapsychology and psychical research. Susan returned to New York in the summer of 2007 to develop video works about Eileen Garrett; during this time she lived with Eileen Coly. Eileen Coly and her daughter Lisette Coly afforded Susan intimate access to their world, and as such followed in the footsteps of their mother and grandmother Eileen Garrett, who supported and encouraged many within the fields of parapsychology, literature and the arts.
Susan MacWilliam has developed a significant body of work about Eileen Garrett and her family; 13 Roland Gardens, 2007, Eileen, 2008, Library, 2008, Psychic Edit, 2008, The Only Way To Travel, 2008, and the stereoscopes Medium's Daughter, 2008 and Artist as Medium, 2008.
The Parapsychology Foundation was founded by Eileen Garrett in 1951, who served as its President until her death in 1970. Following her death, her daughter Eileen Coly (1916-2013) became President. Lisette Coly, granddaughter of Eileen Garrett served as Executive Director from 1978 and is now President of the Parapsychology Foundation.
http://susanmacwilliam.com/the-only-way-to-travel
