Our world is in upheaval, we face an existential threat both in terms of radical and rapid environmental change, in terms of ever-increasing violent political extremism on the far right, and a government that seems to work against our interests at every turn. As we live in the world today, asking ourselves and our community what we want to be free of, QUEER UTOPIA engages with queer pleasure, love, joy, and friendship, encouragingly asking; what will we keep?
QUEER UTOPIA is a collaborative sculptural and digital vision of a queer future: a pink, joyful, playful space created in response to a series of discussions between the artist and other queer people. For some, queer utopia was a physical place, a home, a building, or a forest filled with the people they love, and for others, it was a political statement. Our queer utopia is a place of freedom, of righteous anger, a place full to the very brim with loving and radical care for our comrades. The world we live in right now is often scared of us, and in turn, we are often scared of it; this exhibition serves as a fleeting glimpse into that peaceful, beautiful, queer future we are hoping for.
Mariette Feeney is this year's Artist in Residence at A4Sounds Studio. They are an artist and designer currently living and working in Dublin. They moved from the UK to Ireland in 2013 to live and study, and graduated from TUD with a degree in Furniture Design, which informs much of their work. Mariette is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores and challenges the concept of Utopia. Their previous major project was titled “Always Coming Home; Building Blocks for a Utopia,” which consisted of physical objects intended to provoke a conversation about the world that we want to live in: what do we take pleasure in, what are we proud of, and what is important to us? In their work they aim to centre the personal, small, and often overlooked pleasures of everyday life in answer to these large questions, and through their sculpture they try to give physical form to the idea that in order to do good work in the world, we must all have a place of retreat and peace.