PAM PATTERSON

VISUAL   PERFORMANCE   AUDIO/VIDEO   STATEMENT   BIO   RESUME   EMAIL

VISUAL ART <--back to visual art main Irish Need not Apply (2019) Irish Need Not Apply captures a rhetoric of Irish trauma – occupation, famine, genocide and expulsion. It presents a conundrum which is not only deeply personal but also deeply troubling. The work addresses memory, intergenerational trauma, and language within the Irish/Canadian immigrant body.  Many who left Ireland during traumatic times often return years later with the trauma unresolved. It sits as an immutable block in their psyche. Their perception has become, as Nuala O’Failin said in a 1988 interview, “flattened out” making it almost impossible for them to perceive Ireland’s resilience and contemporary diversity nor to acknowledge their own problematic immigrant/settler position, identity manipulation, and potential to thrive in Canada. Each work is a digitally designed photo/drawing collage. <<--back to top of page <--back to visual art main