Digital video and audio piece, July 2009
After making the piece Staking Claims and Claiming Stakes I became more curious about the Duke of Wellington and other monuments dedicated to him. He was actually born in Ireland and hence there was significant public support for a ‘testimonial’ in his honour the result of which now stands in the Phoenix Park.
As a piece of public sculpture both the scale and setting draw human interaction, so it came as no surprise that a couple of artist friends had childhood memories of the monument.
These memories were poignant in contrast to the grandiosity and pomp of the structure and in particular Hilary’s personal experience overtakes the intended reading of the structure where a frightening childhood event becomes entwined with this site in her memory. Hilary’s story seems to point at the incongruity of an epoch and a monument which celebrated conquest and the incongruity of the monuments in general, as she contemplates her own mortality.
YouTube link to this video will be available soon.
