Cahill, CB., 2014.

Illuminating The Wake

Illuminating The Wake was a solo public exhibition of drawings, prints, paintings and bookworks held at Darc Space Gallery, North Great George Street, Dublin from 12th May - June 2014. It was supported by Manchester Metropolitan University, the James Joyce Centre, and Denis Byrne Architects Ltd., Dublin.
Interest in the visualization of Joyce's late works is growing and creative practitioners across the visual arts - in film, performance, painting, comics, illustrated books and other forms continue to explore ways in which this might be done. Beyond producing works enjoyable on their own terms these adaptations encourage more people to read Joyce, and Joyce readers to become involved in diverse cultural projects. The visual aspects of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake can be engaged with just as readily as their widely recognized auditory qualities. With an interest in discussions of Joyce which extend beyond academia that the exhibition sought to introduce a visual approach to the Wake to a wider community and to share a personal adventure in Wake-reading. The work exhibited explores pictorial notation and illustrative drawing as valid ways to interpreting Joyce's 'nightbook', and contributes to a developing popular dialogue about the work.

The exhibition was timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the publication of Finnegans Wake and with the celebrations of 'Bloomsday' week 2014. It featured 25 items comprising a selection of mappings, drawings, prints, paintings and bookwork made by Clinton Cahill in response to the text. A looped slideshow displayed images of other, related works and aspects of the reading-through-drawing process. Some of the works are singular, responding directly and intuitively to specific aspects of the text, others result from more systematic, close reading and drawing responses, working through the text page by page. The use of diverse media reflects an intention to envision some of the different attributes and qualities in Joyce's profoundly experimental language. The exhibition was designed to contextualize and articulate a method of reading-through-drawing while foregrounding the pleasures to be had from imaginative immersion in the Wake. The exhibition exemplifies the important principle of making the book one's own, valuing personal interpretation as much as academic exegesis.

A gallery talk was given by Clinton Cahill, followed by a public discussion of the work and a performance of Scenes from Finnegans Wake by The HCE Players of Boston Massachusetts.