Oh Everywhere There’s Gladness is the first exhibition in TACTIC’s programme for 2018. In conjunction with Cork Photo Gallery, TACTIC takes the premise of its show from Cork Photo Gallery’s historic location of the Lord Mayor’s Pavilion purpose built in 1903 for one of the four International Exhibitions held in Cork City between the years 1852 and 1903.
The International Exhibitions were once referred to ‘timekeepers of progress’ with their purpose to record and display advancement in
industry, science, technology and arts from many countries across the globe at that period in time. The Great Exhibition held in the Crystal Palace in London in 1851 is the best-known of these. Cork City followed closely in 1852 with the first of the exhibitions intended to stimulate the local economy after the disaster of the Famine. In 1902 &1903 the Cork International Exhibition was held on the grounds of what later became known Fitzgerald’s Park.
Oh Everywhere There’s Gladness aims to pay homage to those International Exhibitions through two artists contemporary interpretations.
Maeve Lynch’s invisible rebuilding of the various pavilions by mapping soundscapes throughout the park for the duration of the exhibition allows the old fairs to be reimagined in the digital age.
Michael Cleary’s repurposing of found industrial materials questions their use or need in today’s society contrasting their absolute necessity throughout the Industrial revolution of the 1800s.