For the last two decades, Bristol-based artist and researcher Teresa Dillon has been exploring ideas of survival, through the lens of site-based works that connect our lived experiences of material and digital cultures with histories of place, civic society, and technological development. In 2016, she co-founded Repair Acts – an artist-led programme that explores repair, care, maintenance, and healing cultures at the School of Art and DCRC, UWE, Bristol.

As part of the ongoing Repair Acts programme and the launch of the Bristol Repair Coalition, we are screening three recent works by Dillon that are grounded in the peat landscapes, rivers, and lakes where she grew up.

Go Deo, 6 mins (2023)

Considered as a eulogy or mourning architecture, Go Deo (the Irish word meaning forever) is a video triptych and audio work that has been created in memory of the Luachair an Phollaigh (Rush of Pollagh), which is now extinct.

They Gathered Rushes, 6 mins (2023)

Drawing on accounts of making candles from bog rushes that were collated from the Irish Dúchas archives, They Gathered Rushes examines connections between local materials, craft, infrastructure reliance, network ecologies and energy sources.

Turning the Collar, 40 mins (2022)

Reflecting on our material relations with objects, through processes of fixing and mending.Turning the Collar takes the form of a road trip around the rural county of Westmeath, Ireland. On the journey craft, restoration, and repair professionals speak about their work. Touching on the values that underpin what we choose to care for and mend, the 'Turning the Collar’ highlights the poetic and situated nature of such work and the joys and struggles that skilled trade professions now face.

In order of appearance: Meab O’Neill (Meab Enamels, Multyfarnham), David Corrigan, Neil O’Dwyer (O’Dwyers Masonry, Multyfarnham), Olga Corrigan, Declan Browne (Liturgical Book Restorers, Athlone), John Conlon (Thatcher, Glasson), Leo Farrell (The Bike Shop, Mullingar), Paul Dunne (Dunnes Joinery, Kilbeggan), Molly Collins (Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, Dublin), John Joe Quigley (Inner Lakes Marina, Glasson), Giedre Mostova, Mary Garvey (Partners Garment Care, Mullingar), Claire Delabre (Handmade Design Studio, Mullingar), Mary Connell (ICA, Ballina), Kiernan Veale, John Mangan, Peter Burrows, Danny Cole, Pat Begley (Men’s Shed Mullingar) and Steve Sherwood (Sherwood Technologies, Mullingar).

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