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Merkabah is a series of installations and performances. It's a healing and grieving process to find the balance of power for women after colonisation. It's specific in terms of Irish history and how women were oppressed spiritually, emotionally, physically and mentally. This installation embodies gothic poetry reflecting on the turmoil of the bedroom: the history of sexual violence and trauma caused by the mental indoctrination of the Catholic church. This also can be universally understood by women across the world under a Patriarchal system and how advertising and social media enslaves women to the position of "Object".
Opening up about sexual harassment and the landscape thats unfolded from these obstacles and developing a voice
M E R K A B A H at The National Sculpture Factory, 2023
Installation, Performance and Music by Norah Dineen, National Sculpture Factory, 2023
Filmed by Dominic McFee
I don't recognise my friends anymore. I find myself standing in front of them and I notice none of them have any lines on their forehead. It's like I have lost them. There is no vulnerable connection as there is this plastic mask between us. We can't talk about the fact that they had to inject plastic into their face to feel good enough. I miss natural beauty. I miss their imperfection seeping through and insecurity which I relate to.
Now all I see when I look in the mirror is my own lines and imperfections and my face seems ugly. Screens are destroying any sort of humanity; we exist to be seen and no longer lose ourselves in the joy of friendship. Is this the end of love and relationships and we are so readily willing to q up and pay for people to inject fat into our face to remove any marks that differentiates our personality and story? We are injecting away our experiences and authenticity. Everyone looks the same and nobody is special anymore. How boring...
A film by Norah Dineen
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © GROUNDLESS Films. 2023.
2020- Present
This project evolved from my previous project SKIN, BONES + Flesh, influenced by my experience of COVID and screen time, which fostered separation rather than unity. Inspired by Tibetan prayer flags, I aim to create a sense of oneness in exhibition spaces. Paintings become tools to reconnect people with their bodies and foster connection. The flags create a global dialogue by allowing communities, who I stencil, to track their portraits via Instagram.
In November 2021, after returning from a 6-month residency in Greece, I performed with my band GROUNDless at my final exhibition to offer a new way of experiencing the work.
IG: groundlessmusic
IG: prayer.flags
This vision has evolved into the project Human Thread, featuring 2x2m silicon pieces simulating human skin, hung across skyscrapers in cities like New York and London as living memorials to peace, love, and connection.
Participate in a world-wide collective bodyscape in the form of prayer flags! Participants (and up to 5 members of their family and friends) will make partial tracings of their bodies (ie. hands, heads, outlines of hips, etc.) onto a canvas from the comfort of their home which I will then form into paintings. Your prayer flag will then be combined with others from my travels around the world and I will hang the flags between buildings similar to Tibetan flags. “They reflect a Human thread of prayer and unity to celebrate the human body across borders. It is a message of love, peace and local community.”
To participate:
The prayer flag needs to be at least 6ft x 6ft or 2m x 2m . To see an example of one please click here: Prayer flag link
Make sure you and any other member of your friends and family who are traced onto the prayer flag sign the back of the canvas.
If you have an Instagram account, please also clearly print the IG username on the back of the canvas or a separate piece of paper so that I can tag you with your prayer flag. You can also track the process at the following Instagram page: prayer.flags
Please email me for the POSTAL ADDRESS at:
norah@norahdineen.com
Please email me also if you have any questions. To understand the process more and to see a video giving instructions, please go to this IG link: prayer.flags
Paris/Athens. 2020
Evolving on from the project SKIN, BONES + flesh, Athens 2019…
( http://www.norahdineen.com/performance )
From integrating people into the canvas, Norah shall create Attire, (SKINtire) to celebrate The human body, to restore radiance, gratitude, joy, play and connection. It’s a process of letting go of shame based ideology and points of view. Clothes are removed as contraptions to squeeze the body into or hide from public view. A new second skin replaces the body: Nature. Again the (female) economic system is one of care and nurture for others including caring for babies into adult. This process of SKINtiring is To open up the female body and motherhood into the public sphere. Women’s values Segregated to the private sphere becomes visible. It’s a process of integration of the mind, body, soul and history in performance by remaining present and honest. It’s a connection to ancestors and how nature provides in abundance and through laws of generosity and FLOW. This project will be presented in a way that creates socially conscious advertising, visibility and statement. Rather than advertir (turn towards), we turn within (INvertir). My skin is felt through our connection and your skin is a tool also. This is about continuum theory and flow akin to the laws of nature and female presence as opposed to the separation of a woman into function, which includes making her body a “product” or object of desire. SHE CANNOT BE CAPTURED ✌🏻
SLEEPless Video:
https://vimeo.com/462267823
The art world is not a consciously exclusive space. It’s a place where a lot of people are working through their family dynamics, acting out the roles they had in their families, their family constellations. It’s not conscious. In that space you deal with a lot of children vying for attention. I often ask myself: how can you find serenity in such a place?
I want to connect to my true nature
I thought I had to be this artist wunderkind. I want to move beyond the role I had in my family. I cannot be honest with what I make if I am just replaying a role from my past. If I am stuck. Every time I feel insecure I act out to gain ground. Like a child acts out. I do it to gain notoriety, validation. But the result is that I disconnect from myself and other people. And in that state of disconnection I cannot make something honest. I cannot make art.
I admit my limitations as an artist
I wanted the approval, the validation. But I realised nothing was against me, nothing was personal. If someone tries to take space from me, so am I equally trying to take from them. The value system mothers pursue is to give space. Yet women always feel shame in doing this. They fear the label “passive”. I think the solution is to start valuing our surrender to love. It’s more and more about trusting in the process.
here’s my breath, here’s the moment
I’m always talking about journeys, but what if it’s more about song, about dancing, about moving? What if there is no telos, only the life lived?
Text by Norah Dineen and edited by Beatrice Wilford.
Less aggression. Less performance. Less exhibition.
Everything that’s subversive or pushed down will start to come up through the water. When I put on the lights in the gallery, what’s under will start to emerge.
This is a performance about leaving on the lights, listening to the ocean and letting what’s there wash over us. It is about the cleansing power of ritual. I will be making music at the performance and throughout the residency. My music comes from a place of connection and intuition with my audience. It comes from fine tuning my state of being with others in this space.
But I have to feel wanted.
At this performance I will start draping Tibetan prayer flags over the residency. The flags will be made out of my paintings of ocean maps. I will keep making flags, but I will also be leaving. I will travel to Crete and from the island I will send back these paintings/flags as postcards until I return in person.
The lights stay on; nobody is home.
I will return when I am given a sign that I am appreciated, respected and valued in this space. When I feel it is a female-friendly space. A space without pretension and the need to perform. A place where I can sit with my hibition: my discomfort, awkwardness and fear. Once I feel these parts of me are allowed, even welcomed, I will return.
The woman comes out of the ocean and the man comes out of the women.
Everyone is leaving traditional institutions, institutions that trace their histories back to slavery: to societies that derived their power and wealth through this ultimate exploitation of others. The pandemic and our collective reappraisal of the wounds of patriarchy have led people to go out on their own paths. But there is always a risk of returning to or, worse, recreating these institutional settings elsewhere. I will not do this. In order not to do this I will leave until I am called back to a place where I feel I can be free.
Why suffer? Follow your heart.
So many women are searching for a home. A place to bring their children up.
In this space we worship womanhood for the miracle that it is. We worship the power of women’s silent resistance over hundreds of years. We will stand in the values of embodiment and stillness.
My story is an island colonized.
My past is a history of Celtic women colonized and controlled by a Catholic church determined to make them into vessels for childbirth: a function to create future workers. Sex was the obsession of the church and the weapon it used against women. Women’s power to give birth defined and imprisoned them. They were reduced to fragmented body parts and their voices, feelings and observations were denied.
We don’t need to change the world. The world needs to change.
In this exhibition, I will hang female prayer flags as an expression of inclusion, love and fertility. I will create a space friendly to the sensitive. Above all, I will create a space friendly to passionate listening. I will give space to others and never fear the label passive. I will trust, breathe, surrender and never fear having no goal. There will be no physical manifestation, nothing we can see, just a shifting of relationships in a space open to people witnessing themselves and others.
I appreciate that I came from you...that when I objectify you I do it to me.
Women are not hysterical. Needs are real. The lights only turn off when women are shut down, objectified, manipulated. Then we all become wanderers. I am asking: what if we had a place to call home? A place we could be and be seen. A place we could heal each other by seeing each other. Don’t expect a performance. Don’t expect me to lean into what you demand. Don’t expect me to create or become a product.
We exist and we shall stand together in peace. Text by Norah Dineen and edited by Beatrice Wilford
A book collaboration between photographers Angelos + Didier and GROUNDless, Paris 2020 (To be released)
A book collaboration between photographers Angelos + Didier and GROUNDless, Paris 2020 (To be released)
Best to watch this film in pitch black, with no external light on.
Athens, 2019
SKIN 1; Mixed Mountain, SKIN 2; TAO, SKIN 3; Middle-ground; 💗 is the way of my ancestors, SKIN 4: But you don’t hear me. 2mx2m, Acrylic on Canvas.
SKIN 1; Mixed Mountain, SKIN 2; TAO, SKIN 3; Middle-Ground; 💗 Is The Way Of My Ancestors, SKIN 4: But You Don’t Hear Me. 2mx2m, Acrylic On Canvas.
SKIN 1; Mixed Mountain, SKIN 2; TAO, SKIN 3; Middle-Ground; 💗 Is The Way Of My Ancestors, SKIN 4: But You Don’t Hear Me. 2mx2m, Acrylic On Canvas.
SKIN 1; Mixed Mountain, SKIN 2; TAO, SKIN 3; Middle-Ground; 💗 Is The Way Of My Ancestors, SKIN 4: But You Don’t Hear Me. 2mx2m, Acrylic On Canvas.
SKIN 1; Mixed Mountain, SKIN 2; TAO, SKIN 3; Middle-Ground; 💗 Is The Way Of My Ancestors, SKIN 4: But You Don’t Hear Me. 2mx2m, Acrylic On Canvas.
SKIN 1; Mixed Mountain, SKIN 2; TAO, SKIN 3; Middle-Ground; 💗 Is The Way Of My Ancestors, SKIN 4: But You Don’t Hear Me. 2mx2m, Acrylic On Canvas.
Musicians; Norah Dineen, Amin Artmu, Nikos Kordelis, Thanos Tsakanikas And Kiron Guidi.
PROJECTION SCREENING;
FLOW by Norah Dineen. Starring Willis Stark and Liam McEnerney.
Musicians; Norah Dineen, Amin Artmu, Nikos Kordelis, Thanos Tsakanikas And Kiron Guidi.
PROJECTION SCREENING;
FLOW by Norah Dineen. Starring Willis Stark and Liam McEnerney.
Musicians; Norah Dineen, Amin Artmu, Nikos Kordelis, Thanos Tsakanikas And Kiron Guidi.
PROJECTION SCREENING;
FLOW by Norah Dineen. Starring Willis Stark and Liam McEnerney.
Musicians; Norah Dineen, Amin Artmu, Nikos Kordelis, Thanos Tsakanikas And Kiron Guidi.
PROJECTION SCREENING;
WILD by Norah Dineen. Starring David Dineen and Daniel Dineen.
Musicians; Norah Dineen, Amin Artmu, Nikos Kordelis, Thanos Tsakanikas And Kiron Guidi.
PROJECTION SCREENING;
FLOW by Norah Dineen. Starring Willis Stark and Liam McEnerney.
Music By; Norah Dineen, Amin Artmu, Thanos Tsakanikas and Kiron Guidi.
SKIN 3 + SKIN 4
SKIN 4 in process
SKIN 4 in process
SKIN 4 in process
SKIN reflection
SKIN reflection
Music By; Norah Dineen, Amin Artmu and Nikos Kordelis.
Music by; Norah Dineen, Amin Artmu and Nikos Kordelis
Music by; Norah Dineen, Amin Artmu and Nikos Kordelis.
Music by; Norah Dineen, Amin Artmu and Nikos Kordelis
SKIN 3: MIDDLEGROUND in process
PERFORMANCE: “Coming into the present moment. Feel your body take over/power in the natural order”
SKIN 3: MIDDLEGROUND in process
PERFORMANCE: “Coming Into The Present Moment. Feel Your Body Take Over/Power In The Natural Order”
SKIN 3: MIDDLEGROUND in process
PERFORMANCE: “Coming Into The Present Moment. Feel Your Body Take Over/Power In The Natural Order”
SKIN 3: MIDDLEGROUND in process
Music by; Groundless(Norah Dineen), Joshua Dyson, Kiron Gidi and Amin Artmu
SKIN 2; TAO
SKIN 3; MIDDLEGROUND in process
Music by; Groundless, Joshua Dyson, Kiron Gidi and Amin Artmu
SKIN 2; TAO
SKIN 3; MIDDLEGROUND in process
Music by; Groundless, Joshua Dyson, Kiron Gidi and Amin Artmu
SKIN 2; TAO
SKIN 3; MIDDLEGROUND in process
Music by; Groundless, Joshua Dyson, Kiron Gidi and Amin Artmu
SKIN 2; TAO
SKIN 3; MIDDLEGROUND in process
Music by; Groundless, Joshua Dyson, Kiron Gidi and Amin Artmu
by Norah Dineen
SKIN 2: TAO in process
Music by; Norah Dineen + Kicau Bilau
SKIN 2: TAO in process
SKIN 1: MIXED MOUNTAIN + SKIN 2: TAO in process
by Norah Dineen
Skin collaboration with Spiros and Kicau- Bilau at ADASH Space, MIXED MOUNTAIN: 5 bodies, acrylic on canvas. 2m x 2m. OCT 2019
Skin collaboration with Spiros and Kicau- Bilau at ADASH Space, MIXED MOUNTAIN: 5 bodies, acrylic on canvas. 2m x 2m. OCT 2019
Skin collaboration with Spiros and Kicau- Bilau at ADASH Space, MIXED MOUNTAIN: 5 bodies, acrylic on canvas. 2m x 2m. OCT 2019
Skin collaboration with Spiros and Kicau- Bilau at ADASH Space, MIXED MOUNTAIN: 5 bodies, acrylic on canvas. 2m x 2m. OCT 2019
Skin collaboration with Spiros and Kicau- Bilau at ADASH Space, MIXED MOUNTAIN: 5 bodies, acrylic on canvas. 2m x 2m. OCT 2019
Skin collaboration with Spiros and Kicau- Bilau at ADASH Space, MIXED MOUNTAIN: 5 bodies, acrylic on canvas. 2m x 2m. OCT 2019
Skin collaboration with Spiros and Kicau- Bilau at ADASH Space, MIXED MOUNTAIN: 5 bodies, acrylic on canvas. 2m x 2m. OCT 2019
Skin collaboration with Spiros and Kicau- Bilau at ADASH Space, MIXED MOUNTAIN: 5 bodies, acrylic on canvas. 2m x 2m. OCT 2019
Skin collaboration with Spiros and Kicau- Bilau at ADASH Space, MIXED MOUNTAIN: 5 bodies, acrylic on canvas. 2m x 2m. OCT 2019
Skin collaboration with Spiros and Kicau- Bilau at ADASH Space, MIXED MOUNTAIN: 5 bodies, acrylic on canvas. 2m x 2m. OCT 2019
Skin collaboration with Spiros and Kicau- Bilau at ADASH Space, MIXED MOUNTAIN: 5 bodies, acrylic on canvas. 2m x 2m. OCT 2019
Criss Cross x2 ; Solo plus 2 Performance. Collaboration and Installation with Naira Stergiou and Eriphyli. ADASH Space, Athens, Greece. 2019
