CHALLENGE OF POWER — Celebrating 25 years of Adapt

eds. Pauline Wrixon Goggin and Jo Slade; essay by Siún Hanrahan

ISBN 978 0946846 399    36 pages (paperback)   22.5x22.5cm   19 illus   artist biogs

This book is dedicated to “all the women who, by their courage and endurance, challenged the abusive power in their own lives”. It features the work of fifteen Irish women artists – including Cecily Brennan, Dorothy Cross, Pauline Cummins, Alice Maher and Janet Mullarney – who responded to the themes of patriarchy and power.

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EXTRACT

"Throughout the ages, art has been used for a variety of purposes: as part of religious ritual, to satisfy the aesthetic needs of the rich and powerful, and, most importantly, to satisfy the human hunger for self-expression. Many of the women who used the Adapt refuge during the past twenty-five years longed for the tools with which to feed their hunger. But they felt that art, in whatever form it took, did not belong to them. This not owning and not belonging gave them a sense of powerlessness. They felt trapped and handcuffed by circumstances to a life that no longer had meaning, and they were denied the very basic right to express their loss. It was out task and our privilege to encourage them to rediscover what they had lost."

— from the foreword by Maeve Kelly