Tremble Tremble
May 13–November 26, 2017
“Did I disturb ye good people?
I hopes I disturb ye, I hopes I disturb ye enough to want to see this, your house, in ruins all around ye! Have you had enough yet? Or do you still have time for chaos?
Hah? More?”
Ireland at Venice will present Jesse Jones at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. Jesse Jones has considered the national pavilion as the site of an alternative Law. With a practice that is grounded in film and performance, Jones has create an artwork she describes as a “bewitching” of the judicial system.
Tremble Tremble will be presented in the Arsenale from May–November 2017, with Commissioner and Curator, Tessa Giblin. Its title is inspired by the 1970s Italian wages for housework movement, during which women chanted “Tremate, tremate, le streghe sono tornate! (Tremble, tremble, the witches have returned!).” The artwork emerges from a rising social movement in Ireland which calls for a transformation of the historic relationship between the church and the state. In this time of change, Jones returns to the witch as a feminist archetype and disrupter who has the potential to transform reality. Tremble Tremble imagines a different legal order, one in which the multitude are bought together in a symbolic, gigantic body, to proclaim a new law, that of In Utera Gigantae.
Based in Dublin, Jones has been researching the ways in which the law transmits memory between generations and over time. Her research weaves between an archeological dig of a 3.5 million year old female specimen, to the suppressed voices of the witch trials of 16th century Europe, the symphysiotomy trials, and abortion legislation in Ireland today. The new world order to be found in Tremble Tremble churns testimony, court statements and song into a towering bodily incantation. Jones is collaborating with theatre artist Olwen Fouéré, sound artist Susan Stenger, who are together creating an artwork that extends across the pavilion as an expanded form of cinema.
A book, published in English and Italian, features the writing of Silvia Federici, Tina Kinsella, Lisa Godson, and Tessa Giblin. Designed by Åbäke, with photography by Ros Kavanagh, Tremble Tremble / Tremate Tremate is co-published by Mousse Publishing and Project Arts Centre.
Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council. It is produced and supported by Project Arts Centre, and the Pavilion Production Manager is Aaron Kelly. Principal Sponsor: Dublin Port Company. International Partner: LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. Production Partner: Institute of Art, Design + Technology (IADT). Proudly supported by CIT Crawford College of Art & Design; Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh College of Art and University of Edinburgh; South Dublin County Council and Rua Red; Dublin City Council; Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and the patrons of Ireland at Venice 2017 and Project Arts Centre’s Visual Arts.
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Media contacts
Project Arts Centre - Melanie Wright, Communications Manager
melanie [at] projectartscentre.ie / T +353 1 8819 625
Brunswick Arts – John Diviney, Director
irishpavilion [at] brunswickgroup.com / T +44 7720 337 488
