Jaki Irvine: Ssh Ow

About

De La Warr Pavilion is pleased to present Ssh Ow, the first major solo exhibition in a UK public gallery in a decade by Dublin-based artist Jaki Irvine (b. 1966, Dublin).

Irvine uses video, installation, photography, music composition and writing to explore the complex ways we imagine ourselves and the world around us, a process which, for Irvine, has both philosophical and political implications. Overheard conversations and everyday incidents, casually observed, often form the starting point for Irvine's work. She weaves these real events into fictions, making films and videos that reflect on the fragmented, mysterious and often absurd nature of the human condition.

Presented in the Ground floor gallery is Ack Ro', an immersive thirteen-channel video installation that surrounds viewers with an evocative interplay of sound, imagery, and light. Intricate layers of sound and visuals create an atmosphere that is both disorienting and melodic.

The work's soundscape is shaped by Louise Phelan's haunting vocals, entwined with Joe O'Farrell's flute, Izumi Kimura's piano, and Sarah Grimes's percussion. The visuals echo these layers, capturing close-ups of Phelan singing, a trembling cymbal, and blurred piano keys, all underscored by curving pink neon forms.

Fragments of film shot in Dublin and Mexico City, each with its own unpredictable soundtrack, add to the sense of instability. These filmic fragments are interspersed with 28 looping pink neons throughout the gallery, spelling out anagrams derived from Neil Diamond's song Cracklin' Rosie (1970). Words and reflections such as 'ro' ro' rose,' 'near so near,' 'clean clear cackles,' and 'rack ack ack' float through the
gallery space, presenting language as endlessly reconfigurable.

Ack Ro's destabilising, nonlinear arrangement of images and sounds draws on the disorienting experience of Dementia and Alzheimer's, conditions that affect a person's sense of time and have become more prevalent in an ageing population.

Within this fragmented structure, Ack Ro' uses rhythmic repetition to offer a momentary sense of orientation, a fleeting return that allows for reflection, mourning, and eventual release, inviting viewers to imagine and even feel the coexistence of different temporalities.

Irvine's project at DLWP includes a newly commissioned immersive live work, SHWO EM TEH WAY OT GO HMOE, to be presented in the auditorium on 24 May 2025. This performance features a live graphic score paired with musical improvisation based on the song Show Me the Way to Go Home (1925), famously remembered as a sea shanty from the film Jaws (1975).

The exhibition and live work are supported by Arts Council of Ireland.

Image credit: Jaki Irvine, Ack Ro', 2020, video still. Courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London and Kerlin Gallery, Dublin.