Sidelong Glances: An Oblique Look at the Sea
Curated by Catherine Bowe
13th October - 21st November 2025
Wexford County Council, Carricklawn, Wexford Y35 WY93
Featuring work by:
Orla Barry, Herman Braun-Vega, Gary Coyle, Ann Hamilton, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Kathy Prendergast and Marisa Rappard.
The exhibition takes its inspiration from a poem written by Marianne Moore in 1921 titled "The Grave." The poem stems from Moore's personal experience of observing the sea with her mother, where her brother’s intrusion on their view inspired reflections on the human tendency to focus on the immediate rather than the larger picture:
“Man, looking into the sea—
taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have it to yourself—
it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing
but you cannot stand in the middle of this.”
Sidelong Glances: An Oblique Look at the Sea extends Moore’s examination of the sea as a powerful, indifferent force, a place of both beauty and death, and interprets it as a critique of human ambition and its impact on the natural world, which can be linked to colonial attitudes towards expansion. The poem's central image of the sea as a "well excavated grave" suggests that human attempts to dominate and control nature are ultimately futile, a perspective that resonates with critiques of colonialism's impact on lands and societies.
All the works in the exhibition cast a sidelong view at these ideas.
