The Calamus Emotion
The Calamus Emotion
'In 'THE CALAMUS EMOTION' I create a virtual space and place to explore themes such as (be)longing, HIV: transmission and transformation, the clubbing scene. In this piece I imagine travelling back in time to have an imagined conversation with poet Walt Whitman where I update him on the march for equality over the past 100 years. Intertwined within this piece are personal narratives.'
Voice over by Roy Allen. Soundtrack taken from the album 'Translucence - A Song Cycle' (1992) by Derek Jarman (words) and Donna McKevitt (music). Excerpts from 'Translucence.....' appear in this piece by kind permission of Donna McKevitt and Manners McDade music.
Originally commissioned in 2019 for the exhibition 'Encounters With Whitman' to coincide with the Walt Whitman Bicentennial at the Da Vinci Art Alliance (Philadelphia, UK), 'THE CALAMUS EMOTION' has also since been screened at exhibitions 'Hablame Sucio' at El Local en Santurce (Puerto Rico, USA, 2019), Homografia / Homography at Jeudi 27 (Mexico, 2019), 'Sissies in Zandvoort - A Conversation with Oneself' for Zandvoort Pride (The Netherlands, 2020), and at 'Queer Art(ists) Now' part of the 'And What?' queer arts festival and Millco Projects (London, 2020). The film was also an Official Selection for 'LGBT+ GAZE International Film Festival' at the Irish Film Institute (Dublin, 2020) and will now go on tour to Irish centres globally as part of the Irish Film Institute LGBT+ film shorts programme.
About the Artist
Stiofan O’Ceallaigh is a multimedia artist and curator born in Ireland and currently exhibiting between the USA and Europe. O’Ceallaigh’s focus is an exploration of the understanding of a queer aesthetic, if indeed, there is one. A personal journey and an acknowledgement of flux, O’Ceallaigh’s works seek to emancipate those who know it, simply by promoting discourse around areas such as HIV, queer art censorship, body politic and internalised shame/stigma/pride and fundamentally and effort to reduce hate... in all its forms. In 2016 he established the Queer art project called Balaclava.Q: an artist-led not-for-profit which connects, promotes and creates platforms for LGBTQ+ artists globally by devising and producing curatorial projects across the globe.
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