Silk Screen

Our new project is a silk screen based brief looking at the theme of protest. After much research i decided to look at the necessity of protest in modern society and how people  in my own country seems to have forgotten the importance of this.

My work is a  response to Ireland's recent economic recession and the apparent reluctance of the nation towards protest or demonstrations. This reluctance is in direct contrast to the nation’s cultural heritage as the pioneers of revolutionary protest methods such as the 1913 lockouts and innovators of peaceful consumer activism such as the act of boycotting.  Pride in ourselves as a nation, working class ideals and our wiliness to make our voices heard were the driving forces behind such innovate and organised demonstrations. We can see a striking polarity with these acts within our society today. We are all willing to speak to each other on the subject of our discontent yet there are very little of us willing to make our voices heard in the form of protest, walkouts or boycotting. In my research I am inquiring if our nation’s cultural identity and therefore our nations pride is diminishing.

The symbol of the stag is a traditional symbol of Irish pride. In this work the use of the stag was used to represent not just the diminishment of this nations pride but also, as the stag was once the image imprinted on the Punt, as a symbol of the decline of our economy. This is also the case with the image of the stags skull married with the Gaelic word for pride ‘Bród’  The news headlines are from various national newspapers which relate to my topic of investigation which we as a nation seem to ignore daily. This work is the first in a series in which I will continue to investigate.