Void is delighted to present Behind the eye is the promise of rain by Helen Cammock – the final in the series of Void’s Billboard Projects. Integral to Cammock’s practice is the use of text as a means of communicating and responding to the current crisis and what has been unfolding socially and politically across the world this year; the global pandemic, the climate emergency, the Black lives Matters protests in response to the death of George Floyd and Brexit which has been a divisive shift across communities and has caused questions around the Northern Ireland Peace agreement (1998).
Behind the eye is the promise of rain, is about acknowledging where we are and the sadness and grief that hovers in the background. Within the words there is also a possibility of new growth, of movement. Out of oppression comes protest and an emergence of a desire to create something different within a community. Within the collective, there is a shared experience, shared knowledge of understanding that can bring forth new beginnings, hope and nurture. With rain comes new growth, a replenishment as such in ways that with tears comes strength. With this billboard Cammock alludes to a promise of a new future and new beginnings. Despite our current crisis we are resilient and remain hopeful that the promise of rain will transform our future.
The billboard will be placed on the corner of Abercorn Road and Bishop Street in Derry.
About the Artist
Helen Cammock (b.1970) works in a variety of media including printmaking, film, photography, poetry, spoken word and song. Her work explores the roles we take in moments of crisis, both as individuals and collectively. She uses lived experience to speak to wider structural concerns and explores how the cyclical nature of history and structures of power underpin the way we live. By using multiple voices, registers and dialogues her work creates fragmented, non-linear narratives that provide a condition for a different type of thinking. Cammock was shortlisted for the 2019 Turner Prize. She lives and works in Brighton.
Acknowledgements
Void Gallery is supported using public funding from Arts Council Northern Ireland, Department of Communities, The National Lottery Community Fund, Derry City and Strabane District Council, Enkalon Foundation, Ragdoll Foundation, COVID 19 Charities Fund, Art Fund, The Arts Society, Community Foundation NI, and Garfield Weston Foundation.
Void Gallery is also a member of the PlusTate network.
