Article 2: How To Fold A Sheet

This work was informed by research completed with a local women’s group the Ladies K Club from Killeshandra , for which Sally received a Create Artist in the Community R&D Award.

Situated in a small terraced townhouse, four female performers, performed four hours daily, over four days, in four spaces of the house.

The main activities were folding & unfolding sheets, watering mustard seeds, pouring sand & sweeping & gathering up the sand. The performance has two mechanisms, one set the folding & unfolding, the second set messing & cleaning up.

Sally O Dowd is a freelance visual artist and curator with a socially engaged practice. As a politically aware artist, her research is concerned with identity and in particular intimate female ritual and investigating the role – self selected and enforced – of women in contemporary Irish society. Her artwork also focuses on authenticity in documentation by way of performance, film and drawing. She creates often absurd, socially awkward performance, in which costumes and props amount to an abject beauty. She frequently works collaboratively in both my artistic and curatorial practices.