“Green On Red Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition that has been years in the making. The mass migration of refugees from the middle east, particularly from 2016 on, some fleeing a rampant ISIS, caused a crisis at the gates of citadel Europe. Countries reacted with differing amounts of generosity and compassion. Ireland, at the safest distance in Europe from the impending mass movements from Africa and the Middle East, had set up the insipidly titled “ direct provision “ in 1999 to house or to contain such refugee families and asylum seekers. While numbers have fallen since 2016, Refuge continues to be a problem for countries the world over, from Australia to the UK. Recent parliamentary proposals for offshore holding centres in Great Britain for asylum seekers reveal just how intractable – or inevitable – this problem continues to be, globally.
Material Condition II ( 2021 ) by Anne Tallentire follows her commission in Derry on the centenary of the first world war called Shelter. Writing on that commissioned work, Marianne O’Kane Boal explains that:
“ .. the work explores the historic and conceptual relationship between the historic Nissen hut, invented for the mass mobilization of troops stationed across the continent 100 years ago and how contemporary modes of ‘ emergency architecture ‘ respond to the precarious and humanitarian crisis of the ‘ mass movement of peoples ‘ in Europe today… The materials are ultimately destined for Calais where they might eventually become a shelter for refugees….The journey of these materials is defined by a restless movement, adaption to space/requirements and an uncertain future.”
