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4/5/2011

Sarah Browne

Project Arts Centre, Dublin

curated by Tessa Giblin

Project Arts Centre is pleased to announce Sarah Browne's newly commissioned work Second Burial at Le Blanc.

The project focuses on the small French town of Le Blanc, where local artisans and shopkeepers have created one of the last refuges for indigenous currencies. In Le Blanc, the franc is still accepted as payment for goods and services in certain shops although it is technically no longer legal tender. They will continue to accept it until 17 February 2012—a deadline imposed by the Banque de France at the time of the euro changeover.

In the gallery, a 'countdown clock' is marking the final days of the franc, producing a stock market inspired, ticker tape output of the days, hours, minutes and seconds alongside a live data stream of euro exchange rates—to the dollar (in flux) and the franc (fixed). This paradoxical object, which accumulates masses of paper as it measures time running out, is also the catalyst for a 16mm film made by the artist in Le Blanc. With the participation of local shopkeepers and residents, a staged procession carries the clock from the modern part of the city to the old.

With the idea of a 'ticker-tape parade' now commonly recognised throughout the world, Sarah Browne combines concepts of financial trade with many mixed messages of technological development, and sets these traditions against the present-day insecurity surrounding the future of the euro. In a newspaper called On Hoarding, Accumulation, and Gifting made by the artist and distributed to local residents prior to the procession, is a statement from German Chancellor Angela Merkel: 'The current crisis facing the euro is the biggest test Europe has faced in decades. It is an existential test and it must be overcome… if the euro fails, then Europe fails.'

The processional event, the film, the ticker-tape countdown clock and the contextualising newspaper are made by the artist as a monument-in-process to the entangled ideological and historical moment that Le Blanc has come to represent to some. Although the passing of the franc is a foregone conclusion, the situation in the town presents a moment where through the use of this obsolete currency, a parallel sense of time exists, The staged ritual around this clock-monument asks—knowing what we know now, should next year's funeral be in the spirit of mourning, or celebration?

Sarah Browne is a Dublin based artist. Her new commission has been produced by Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Ikon, Birmingham and Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, and will be followed by a co-published catalogue in 2012. Second Burial at Le Blanc has been generously supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council, and is curated by Tessa Giblin.

Project Arts Centre is a multidisciplinary arts centre in the heart of Dublin, Ireland. In recent years the visual arts programme has commissioned and produced artworks and solo exhibitions by Katya Sander (Denmark), Clodagh Emoe (Ireland), Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan (Netherlands), Seamus Nolan (Ireland), Jeremiah Day (USA), Jesse Jones (Ireland), Sung Hwan Kim (Korea), Aurélien Froment (France) and Rosa Barba (Germany) & David Maljkovic (Croatia). Forthcoming solo exhibitions include a collaborative project by Geoffrey Farmer (Canada) and Jeremy Millar (UK), and a solo exhibition by Adrià Julià (Spain/USA).

Project Arts Centre is supported by the Arts Council and Dublin City Council.

Image: Sarah Browne, Stills from shoot of 'Second Burial at Le Blanc'

Please see http://tiny.cc/49p48 for a full curator's text about the exhibition, or contact Róisín McGann (Press Officer – Project Arts Centre) on +353 1 8819608 or aisling@projectartscentre.ie

Opening: Thursday, 5 May at 6pm

Project Arts Centre
39 East Essex St (Temple Bar) - Dublin
Hours: 11AM - 8PM
Admission free

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