MFAST Alumnus Bart O’Reilly was invited to do a series of three projections in a public storefront in the Highlandtown Arts District (HA!) of Baltimore, MD. The digital video projections and poetry will be divided into three parts as follows, with an opening for An Imagined Shed Trilogy at 8pm on Saturday April, 26th, 2014 at 3301 Eastern Avenue in Baltimore, MD.
Part 1: An Imagined History of an Old Shed, 8:00 pm to 1:30 am April 25th – 27th, 2014
Part 2: The History and Objects of an Imaginary Shed, 8:00 pm to 1:30 am May 2nd – 4th, 2014
Part 3: Inside with the Objects of an Imaginary Shed, 8:00 pm to 1:30 am May 9th – 11th, 2014
An Imagined History of an Old Shed was made in the winter of 2013. The idea began with an interest in the site of an old shed near my house in White Marsh, Maryland. At the time I was reading Samuel Beckett’s trilogy of Novels, Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable. The second novel Malone Dies leaves the location unknown by the protagonist, he describes his surroundings frequently throughout but is unsure of his exact whereabouts. I was very taken by the descriptions and began to imagine that the novel was taking place inside this shed near my house. This openness in Beckett’s work allowed me to make a poetic intervention. My thoughts of Malone began to interchange with situations and events in my own life and led to the idea that I wanted to make this a trilogy. An Imagined History of an Old Shed is the first part of this Trilogy. For this exhibition the text of the poem is included in the form of subtitles in Spanish and English.
– Bart O’Reilly
MFA in Studio Art 