Strange Glitter Sue Rainsford
A text in response to Helen Hughes: and Yes, daydreamer surRe nde r
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Strange Glitter Sue Rainsford
A text in response to Helen Hughes: and Yes, daydreamer sur Render Roscommon Arts Centre November 13th 2021 - January 15th 2022
The images of Helen Hughes’ works in this booklet were created by VRAI and Seán Forsyth
Sue Rainsford
Strange Glitter
* ‘smooth space is occupied by intensities, wind and noise, forces, and sonorous and tactile qualities, as in the desert, steppe, or ice.’1
(I) T E X T U R E
*
A. Glazed-ripple. B. Rivulet-colour. C. A tunnel of silk cast in shades of bubblegum and plastic. D. A capacious, billowing throat—unlikely to tear, built to swallow. E. What bright fire set tough these once elastic folds? Made them host
B. A.
C.
to crevices where neon granules are accruing.
D. E.
F.
Vibrant powder and strange glitter.
G. Quiet, nowhere.
H.
G.
F.
H. The body of a bird has deceived its wings; hence these creases, this flapping.
1 Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Bloomsbury Publishing, 1988. 6
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Sue Rainsford
Strange Glitter
* ‘Smooth space is filled by events or haecceities2, far more than by formed and perceived things. It is a space of affects, more than one of properties. It is haptic rather than optical
(II) D E F L A T I O N
perception.’3 *
A. A tsunami of snow. B. An avalanche of foam. C. A thousand curtains drawing closed. D. A loud rush toward a voided core. E. Digital mound and plastic contour: air is all they were ever ripe with.
D.
F.
C. B.
E.
A. J.
F.
I. H.
G.
Can we know the rhythm of an absent absence?
G. How does the lack of a lack relay its throbbing meter? H. This body thought it would have something new to say about grace by the time this dome descended on its head. I.
A tongue hanging out, waiting to see what will flood the vacuumcentre.
J.
2
A new meat for which to turn cannibal.
Haecceity is a term from medieval scholastic philosophy. It means the property or quality of a thing by virtue of which it is unique or describable as ‘this (one)’
3 Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Bloomsbury Publishing, 1988. 8
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Sue Rainsford
Strange Glitter
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Sue Rainsford
Strange Glitter
* ‘All of it melting and meltable, all of such heat and where it could accumulate, what it takes to melt...what melt involves…making your way out the
(III) C O L L A P S E
opposite end of some small amplified hole of glass.’4 * ‘...at the very moment when the largest number of people are positioned in the closest physical proximity to each other...The original group, the catalyst and nucleus...compresses until all group members are enmeshed tightly in a single mass of bodies…’5 *
A. A body crushed inside an interior that glows as it collapses. B. A body standing behind a shroud that is wrinkling wetly toward the ground. C. The soft roof only grazes the crown of their head. D. A body: wearing a crown. E. A crown made of helium and threaded through with static. F.
C.
D.
B. A. F.
H.
Leftover breath, calcifying.
G. A body turning, turning around. E.
H. A jaw clenching, a neck teetering under the weight of the crown, the body below: still turning.
G.
4
Nakayasu, Sawako. “from Texture Notes.” CutBank 1.63 (2005): 24.
5
Ibid. 12
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About Roscommon Arts Centre's Visual Art Writer In Residence
Strange Glitter
Visual Art Writer’s Sue Rainsford and Joanne Laws are the Roscommon Arts Centre’s Visual Art Writer’s in Residence for 2021. During this time, Joanne & Sue are invited to write critical texts on selected exhibitions and projects happening across the county. The intention of this residency is to allow writers to experiment with their writing style and explore new ways of disseminating their work. Their writings will be available at Roscommon Arts Centre and online as they are published. Sue Rainsford is a fiction and arts writer. Her practice is concerned with hybrid, lyric and embodied texts, explicit fusions of critical and corporeal inquiry, as well as with questions of transcription and otherness. She is a recipient of the VAI/DCC Art Writing Award, the Arts Council Literature Bursary Award and a MacDowell Fellowship. Her debut novel Follow Me To Ground received the Kate O’Brien Award and and was long-listed for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Award. Her second novel, Redder Days, was released in March 2021. Helen Hughes is a Mayo-born artist living and working in Dublin. She graduated from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art and completed a Masters in Visual Arts Practices through IADT Dublin. She has exhibited widely and her work has received commendations both in Ireland and internationally. Recent shows include Periodical Review #9, Pallas Projects, Dublin (2019), Dearly Beloved… VISUAL, Carlow (2019) and Syntonic State TULCA, Galway (2018). She was awarded a Visual Arts Bursary from the Arts Council in 2020 and an Agility Grant in 202, also from the Arts Council. Helen has upcoming solo exhibitions in the Custom House Gallery in Westport in 2022 and Ballina Arts Centre in 2025.
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