The Exhibition

Featuring Annemiek de Beer, Patricia Brien, Amanda Coppes-Martin, Bridget Kennedy, Geoff Diego Litherland, Angharad McLaren, Tim Parry-Williams, and Ilka White

Curated by Patricia Brien

Communitas [kɔmˈmuːnɪt̪äːs̠] is a Latin noun referring to an unstructured community in which persons are equal, it also signifies the very spirit of community.

Humans live in plantscapes and yet, in Western thinking, plants are backgrounded as inanimate non-subjects. ‘Plant Communitas’ highlights the aliveness and presence of the plant kingdom, attuning specifically to flax and linen. The exhibition considers the plant cycle and connections with cultural traditions, inherited knowledges, local practices and intuitive or spiritual relations within this framework. In this international collaboration, the exhibiting artists from diverse practices embrace a community of diverse entanglements in this human-plant meshwork explored and expressed through a variety of artworks.

Plant life cycles impact the human experience of time in a material and immaterial sense. Geoff Litherland and Angharad McLaren grew and harvested, then wove and finally painted the ‘total’ work over the course of an annual cycle of growth. For Tim Parry-Williams time is embodied in traditional practices that have been established through millennia and his work has been informed by his research about traditional industries from Northern Ireland. Amanda Coppes-Martin considers the material and metaphysical tensions of living in these times of hyper-consumerism and commodification balanced by delicate systems that still hold things together. 

Other works echo the principles of traditional agriculture, and how relying upon a diversity of plants can ensure material sufficiency - not excess. Among them, Ilka White’s practice of weaving attuning to ‘wild’ domestic gardens and the self as sites for materials gathering. 

An ‘alchemical’ approach to linum’s different material states and compositions enables a sense of engaging with a prima materia in the work of Bridget Kennedy’s scrying devices made from linseed resin. But this extends to the invisible qualities of the vegetal entity too. Working intuitively with flax, Annemiek de Beer translates the unseen spiritual dimensions of a plant, obscured by its celebrated material qualities. This consideration of the spiritual presence and impact of the plants can be found in mythos of flax and linen from ancient agricultural civilisations and European folkloric traditions researched and explored by Patricia Brien.

‘Plant Communitas: Linum’ is part of the Linen Biennale. This initiative, led by R-Space Gallery, is a three-month festival of heritage, arts, craft and design. It includes exhibitions, discussions, workshops and events with partners across Northern Ireland, celebrating linen heritage, while giving it contemporary relevance. The 2023 Linen Biennale is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players.