‘Flail’ presents a new body of work encompassing a peripatetic culture clash of history, tradition, custom and ethno cultural notions as seen through the lens of the harvest. Harvest time in Ireland is an annual event that has both divided and bound communities across all aspects of life, for many centuries. Famine, war, religion tensions, social divisions, providentialist belief, love and folklore are all bound up in the complex rituals and labours related to the gathering in of grain.
The exhibition augments work created in 2023, which re-evaluated the silences in the historiography of the collecting of Protestant stories of custom and belief in Southern Irish museums and archives, mainly relating to the custom of the harvest thanksgiving, which itself has rich and complex origins. Through an eclectic fusion of film, installation, printmaking and digital photography Godsell re-evaluates our current understanding of identity construction, nationality, and belonging within a multicultural contemporary Ireland. ‘Flail’ creates a vital space for dialogue in relation to a minority community and its inherent historical tensions and entanglements.
Flail is funded by an Arts Council of Ireland bursary award and was exhibited at the Source Arts Centre 2024.
Debbie Godsell, Legacy, 2024; screen print on handprinted wall paper, photograph by Roland Paschoff, courtesy The Artist and Source Arts Centre.
Gallery View: [L-R] Debbie Godsell, Inheritance, 2024, screen print, Debbie Godsell, Legacy 2024, screen Print, Kneelers 2024, Debbie Godsell, screen printed wallpaper: photograph by Roland Paschoff, Courtesy the artist and Source Arts Centre.
Flail, Installation view, Source Arts Centre, September 2024, photograph by Roland Paschoff, courtesy The Artist and Source Arts Centre.
Debbie Godsell, History Lesson, 2024; screen print, church kneelers, repurposed fabrics, handwoven straw roof, hydrangea, photograph by Roland Paschoff, courtesy The Artist and Source Arts Centre.
Flail, Installation view, Source Arts Centre, September 2024, photograph by Roland Paschoff, courtesy The Artist and Source Arts Centre.
Flail, Installation view, Source Arts Centre, September 2024, photograph by Roland Paschoff, courtesy The Artist and Source Arts Centre.
Debbie Godsell, Harvest/Thanks/Giving, 2024; screen print, applique on repurposed tablecloth, photograph by John Beasley, courtesy The Artist and Source Arts Centre.