Triptychs, in Skin / Deep: Perspectives on the Body, at Photo Museum Ireland, Dublin: 23th November 2024 - 9th February 2025

photography: Vera Ryklova (phone camera)

Triptychs is a series of performances for the camera that I recorded in the form of a series of photographs while operating three cameras simultaneously.

The actions I performed only suggest the role I assumed - using and visually ‘dismembering’ my own body I enacted conventions that define both allure with which women are often represented and aggressiveness they experience. By deliberately exaggerating the position of the viewing ‘subject’, I simultaneously undermined the very narratives that I did enact.

The photographs were installed in direct response to the gallery space, allowing me to position the body not just as a passive presence, but as a occupant that asserted its dominance over the space, enveloping the viewer and reversing the gaze. In this arrangement, the body became both subject and observer, encircling the viewer with a closeness that disrupted the usual power balance between who watches and who is watched. The installation challenged the typical gallery dynamics by subverting the visual control traditionally held by the audience within a gallery setting.

The triptychs were not arranged in the order of their execution (i.e., 1, 2, 3), but were instead deliberately mixed. In this way the individual pieces within each triptych could engage in open-ended dialogue with one another. Rather than adhering to a fixed sequence, I wanted the works to interact differently, allowing new connotations to emerge within the series. This approach emphasised the layered context of the work where meaning is not linear but constructed through immediacy and repetition.

This installation implied that there is no definitive way to see the body and the identities that can be built around it. There is no central position that makes sense of everything. The meaning viewers take from this body depended heavily on who is looking and when - as the work calls for deconstruction of the existing cultural narratives that shape our experiences of the body, and women’s bodies in particular.

'As an exhibition, Skin / Deep argued for a reconsideration of those bodily experiences that have long been regarded as marginal, and for the means to address them.' Curated by Darren Campion, 'the exhibition also functioned as a survey of contemporary photographic practices, with the featured artists embracing approaches that push the boundaries of their medium.' — Photo Museum Ireland

Featured artists: Shia Conlon, Jane Cummins, Phelim Hoey, Pradeep Mahadeshwar, Pauline Rowan, Vera Ryklova, Pádraig Spillane, Brian Teeling, and Nazli Yildirim.

installation video recording: Vera Ryklova (phone camera)

Skin / Deep: Perspectives on the Body EXHIBITION GUIDE