Confinement
Filmmaker and Visual Artist: Trish Mc Adam;
Curator and GDA Public Art Coordinator: Jenny Haughton
With collaboration from: Marc Sherwin (motion graphics), Dr Paul Caviston (Psychotherapist), Orla Barry (former CEO Mental Health Ireland)
Website/Social Media: http://www.trishmcadam.com/
Dates: 2017 – 2019
Commission Type: Open Call
Commissioner Name: Grangegorman Public Art Working Group, Grangegorman Development Agency
Per Cent for Art: Yes
Gallery
Background
Confinement is a 34-minute digital film comprising hand drawn charcoal drawings, photographs and live footage, Super 8 and Go Pro, screened in a video format with narration and music. It is screened and projected in both indoor and outdoor environments.
Confinement was premiered in the Honorable Society of the King’s Inns, Henrietta Street, on 21 February 2019. Special thanks to Mary Griffin, CEO and Under Treasurer for her support. Confinement was later shown as part of the Dublin International Film Festival in the Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield. In May 2019 Confinement was screened in the Irish Film Institute. From December 2019–January 2020 it was part of ‘Utopia Dystopia’ exhibition, at the Lexicon Gallery, Dun Laoghaire.
Confinement has received additional funding from Dublin City Council.
Artist Inspiration
This film idea emerged from a line my eyes traced on a map, which went from Henrietta Street to Grangegorman. I had lived in number 5 Henrietta Street 1977 – 1986, on and off, and had never noticed my proximity, as the crow flies, to the infamous Grangegorman Asylum, which, in my living memory, was used as a common social control and threat.
Not a documentary, more a fragmented bricolage of moments in time, impacts of social, political and technological changes in the uses of the land in a space that was green fields until the early 18th century and that time has filled in with buildings ßthat have housed extreme ideas of their time.
I use the imagined voice of Tony Rudenko, a bricolage artist who lived in Henrietta St until his death in 2014. Tony was a good friend, when I lived there, with a unique, irreverent voice which suits my subject well.
My research journey has included conversations with people associated with the key buildings on the line, Henrietta St. the King’s Inns, Broadstone Terminus and Grangegorman. These have led me to further research which revealed an intensity of change on this line over the 300 years and more, the carving out of new land in the city among the merchants, bankers, lawmakers and lawbreakers, in the constantly evolving environment of changing mindsets, technology, philosophy and aesthetic, generation after generation of ever changing cultural and political influence.
It is hard to follow the line and not think of what the present is doing and what the future might bring it.
Read the press release on Confinement here
- About the Artist
Trish McAdam
Trish is a filmmaker and visual artist. She began filmmaking after a period in the 1980s in New York’s East Village where she was hugely influenced by the maverick artists she met there. She was a founding member of Temple Bar Artists’ Studios (1983) and a founder chair of The Screen Directors Guild of Ireland (2001). Her films have a sociopolitical perspective, fictionalized reality, narrative documentary on big screen big or small screens – Snakes and Ladders (1997), Hoodwinked (1998), No Enemies Liu Xiaobo (2012) and Strangers of Kindness (2015). The Butler Gallery presented a solo exhibition of new work in 2016. She is currently in development on a feature The End of Romance, as writer/ director with producers Kees Kasander and Edwina Forkin, which is funded by Irish Screen and Creative Europe. She has an MA in Visual Arts Practice 2011, is a Member of Aosdána (2017).
Aidan Gillen
Aidan is an actor who provided the voice of the narrator in Confinement. He is an Irish actor known for his portrayal of Petyr ‘Littlefinger’ Baelish in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011–2017), Dr. J. Allen Hynek in The History Channel’s Project Blue Book (2019–present), Tommy Carcetti in the HBO series The Wire (2004–2008), Stuart Alan Jones in the Channel 4 series Queer as Folk (1999–2000), John Boy in the RTÉ series Love/ Hate (2010–2011), Aberama Gold in the BBC One series Peaky Blinders (2017–2019), Queen’s manager John Reid in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), and CIA operative Bill Wilson in The Dark Knight Rises (2012); he also hosted seasons 10–13 of Other Voices (2011–2016). Gillen has won three Irish Film & Television Awards and has been nominated for a British Academy Television Award, a British Independent Film Award, and a Tony Award.
Roger Doyle
Roger composed the sound for Confinement. He is an Irish composer best known for his electroacoustic work, for which he was made a Saoi of Aosdána. Also known for his piano music for theatre. Doyle founded the music theatre company Operating Theatre with Irish actress Olwen Fouéré and wrote and performed on piano onstage for the Steven Berkoff version of the Oscar Wilde play Salome which played in Dublin’s Gate Theatre, in London’s West End and on three world tours. Doyle has also composed scores for several films including Budawanny, and the documentary Atlantean by Bob Quinn and Pigs Black. Doyle attended Irish Academy of three years, studying and at the Institute by Cathal the Royal Music for composing of Sonology at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and the Finnish Radio Experimental Music Studio.
Marc Sherwin
Marc provided motion design for Confinement. He has over 20 years experience in the film business as both a graphic designer and editor ranging from television programming, commercials, music videos to feature and short films and has collaborated with Trish McAdam on a documentary and five short films.
Dr. Paul Caviston
Paul is a psychiatrist who provided advice throughout the making of Confinement. He has a BAO, Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland 1979, a MB LRCPSI, Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland 1979, a BCH MB BCh, from the National University of Ireland 1979 and a FRCPSYCH, 2002. Caviston is visiting consultant, Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, at the Priory Hospital Chelmsford, and an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist in Adolescent Services for the National Health Service in Brookside.
Orla Barry
Orla provided advice throughout the making of Confinement. She is an Independent Consultant in Mental Health and Social Voluntary Sectors. She is Chairperson of Gateway. She was CEO of Mental Health Ireland (2013–2017), Director, Mental Health Reform (2010- 2013) and Director of Services Focus Ireland (1994–2010).
