The Grey House

The Grey House was a site specific installation in a derelict house near Belturbet, Co Cavan in 1993-94. It was part of a 10 year series called "Marking the Land" which looked at cultural identity and the effects of migration and displacement.

The derelict house was rented from a farmer with the assistance of Cavan County Council. Through a public meeting and visits to schools, local people were invited to contribute objects and envelopes from anyone in their family who had emigrated. A collection point was also set up in the Post office.

The installation was intended as an ephemeral piece but lasted a year because of interest, both locally and nationally.

The project was greatly helped by the Cavan Arts Office and received some financial assistance from the Gulbenkian Foundation and Cavan County Council.

From The Grey House catalogue introduction

The Grey House Project grew out of a series of work based in County Cavan by artist Patricia McKenna. This work has been concerned with the changes that have taken place in rural Ireland - emigration, migration, displacement and the resulting sense of loss and suffering that has become part of our collective memory.

In ‘Echoes of Swanlinbar’ and ‘Drumbar’ Patricia McKenna takes as her starting point her family and her own experience of displacement. In ‘The Grey House Project’ she explores these issues as they affect us all.

The artist has taken a small abandoned house one and a half miles from the town of Belturbet. Patricia McKenna believes that such houses are reminders of the painful wound caused by the displacement of their people. The house was chosen as typical of the empty houses all over Ireland which are witnesses - visually reflective remains - of the reality of migration and displacement. A derelict house is devoid of function and becomes a vessel with only the innate memory of the materials left. It exists as it stands in its pure form, memory locked in its materials. It is the reality of the existence of these houses in their present state of emptiness not their previous social history which concerns the artist.

Patricia McKenna explores the emptiness, the sense of absence that such places evoke. By involving the local people, who have given her envelopes, old shoes, memorabilia from those who have left, she hope to unlock the memories imprisoned in our unconsciousness. By doing this those who partake and those who visit may have unveiled for them their hidden loss, and in some way a process of healing can begin.

The Grey House project is not merely an exploration of the past and those who have left but also is concerned with the present, those who still leave, and those who are left behind.

Cliodhna Shaffry
Arts Officer