Fiona Marron

Image: ‘There was truth in what they said’ (2009), production still. Courtesy of the artist.

Fiona Marron was born in Co. Monaghan in 1987. In 2009 she graduated from Fine Art at Dublin Institute of Technology and now lives and works in Dublin. Having been selected for Launch 2009, her first solo exhibition took place in Gallery One at FOUR, Dublin. She was also awarded a solo exhibition at The Joinery, Dublin which took place in March 2010.  Recent group exhibitions include ‘Hidden Memories, Lost Traces’ at Sinopale: Third Sinop Biennial, Turkey and ‘Switch: As Process’ at Catalyst Arts, Belfast. In 2009, she partook in Reverse Pedagogy III, a residency and exhibition hosted by the Model Arts & Niland Gallery, Sligo. Her work also featured in a series of screenings at the LAB, Dublin as part of ISEA 2009 and represented DIT Visual Arts at European League of Institutes of Arts’ NEU/NOW online festival. Other shows include ‘Cannon Fodder*’ as part of Pallas Contemporary Project’s independent programme and ‘If these walls could talk’ at The Joinery as part of DEAF, 2009. Throughout 2011, she is also coordinating a collaborative research project ‘In These Troubled Times’.

With an underlying interest in economics, Fiona Marron’s practice relates to several interconneted social systems.  By means of encountering contexts of labour and trade, together with the protagonists of these environments, she explores the curiosities of behavioural traits that interest her most. Her practice has evolved through engagement with both pre-existing and constructed situations within these contexts – the results of which are manifested through video in particular. Using a combination of staged and documentary type approaches within these videos, Marron concurrently deals with her research interests while testing the parameters of her own agency. The notion of viewer as witness is something considered throughout this process. While much of her work to date engages with specific locations within Ireland, the intention is that visual elements remain indistinct enough to facilitate their functioning as universal contemporary signifiers for a spirit in time. Through her ongoing research in relation to the collaborative research group ‘In these troubled times’, Marron is interested in considering alternative histories in addition to speculating on fictional futures.

For PS Fiona will work with Jesse Jones on their collaborative project “In These Trouble times” based on the Brechtian quote from the 1929 opera, “the rise and fall of the city of Mahoganny”. The project emerged as a method to examine the effect of the collapsed Celtic tiger economy on the urban landscape and trace how ideas of optimism and disappointment collide in our conciseness. The project has manifested itself through discursive workshops and film screenings.

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