A remarkable meditation on the border

REVIEW: Anything to Declare in Swanlinbar

When will this ever stop!

That's thought ricochetted through my skull as we neared the end of Róis Connolly's sound-installation piece 'Persistent Shadow'. I was one of the more resilient audience members who lasted to the end - about a quarter of the audience could endure no more and escaped into the tranquility of a summer's evening in Swanlinbar. Most artworks would probably deem such a response as a failure, but in this particular instance it was as close as you could get to a standing ovation.

The set up for 'Persistent Shadow' saw four speakers facing into the centre of a blacked out room of the old Methodist Church, with about a dozen chairs in the centre. At each end speakers blasted out short phrases from familiar voices of Irish and British politicians. Phrases like 'On British soil' and 'Millstone around your neck' were manipulated and repeated in rhythms that left them comical and/or grating, but ultimately infuriating. It was reminiscent of an 'enhanced interrogation' techniques employed in Castlereagh.

Two other speakers faced each other across the centre of the room creating a sonic border of ethereal music. To hear words from the other pair of speakers you had to move across the border to that side of the room. Neither of the sets of voices responded to the other, just a sustained volley of garbled political catchphrases. It was intense, infuriating, and ingenius. Leaving the room brought back the relief I felt, even as a child, crossing the border into Donegal for family holidays.

This suffocating sound-piece by the Newtownbutler artist was just one of a series of works presented in the Cavan border town under the banner 'Anything to Declare', led by dancer and choreographer Dylan Quinn. Speaking to the Celt ahead of the performance Quinn had posed the question why are so many border villages worse off now after a quarter of a century of peace than they were during the height of the conflict?

It's a startling observation, and confirmation was provided during the art trail called 'A Line That Birds Cannot See' by Róisín Loughrey. The filmmaker had 21 film clips, each lasting a minute on a loop, displayed on devices at landmarks dotted around Swanlinbar. The street where the first few images were displayed was almost entirely boarded up, and often painted over to prettify the empty premises. Where art installation began and real life ended was hard to determine in this particular part of the otherwise picturesque village.

Loughrey interspersed old Pathé news reels of Griffiths, Dev and Collins with footage of rural scenes, crows flying over trees, a rotting hare on the side of a road, a road on a dark night. The most captivating images for this reviewer were those of a dandelion that had gone to seed and barbed wire which, given the setting of St Mary's Church, echoed the crown of thorns. The images coalesced into a five minute video which artfully illustrated the complex nature of our relationship to the border. It was wonderful.

Some of these themes, particularly the natural history of this place were echoed in the following piece, entitled Lung by Andy Garbi in St Augustine's Church. In this Garbi had hooked up a microphone to an Irish elm (which all originate from Cuilcagh mountain, which is itself divided by the border) at the church gate and played live the sound of sap moving within the trees. This peculiar tapping was joined by recordings of the flowing of three rivers in Marble Arch Caves that combine into the beautiful Claddagh River that intersects the town. Garbi, dressed like a priest, save for the white collar, then proceeded to read poems live before singing '21 Grammes', an exquisite, melancholic song you could imagine Tom Waits penning. Garbi's voice and performance was amongst the captivating highlights of the night.

The 'Anything to Declare' experience came to a pulsating conclusion with Dylan Quinn's brave and emotional performance 'Wounded'. Six vertical lights and their chord cut a squiggly diagonal border across the floor of a blacked out room which the Enniskillen choreographer navigated with deliberate, contortions to the loud soundtrack of his own heartbeat. His intricate balancing act turned disturbing as he simulated an induced seizure with a spasming hand, vibrating torso and rhythmic gasping. Whether this portrayed a personal episode of trauma for Quinn or possibly the embodiment of the convulsions of the early '70s in the North, I don't know. It transitioned into a phase where Quinn created an intricate pattern of gestures, possibly aping the well worn symbols of green and orange. The speed and intensity by which he performed these gestures ratcheted up and yet the accuracy of his execution remained at an inhuman level. This was a deeply affecting performance and a suitable climax to a remarkable collaborative work.

Over the last week 'Anything to Declare' has repeatedly muscled its way back into this reviewer's thoughts.