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Irish artist Mary Duffy


I recently started working the Irish artist and actress Mary Duffy. Together we hope to query the priority given to the hand as the highest tool of human gestures in worship. If you watched the  2006 movie 'Fur' with Nicole Kidman  playing the American photographer Diane Arbus and Robert Downey,Jr. playing her mentor, you will encounter Althea portrayed wonderfully by Mary Duffy.


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The turban trap

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Digital archives and activism

Its the crack of dawn on a wet Irish Sunday. A grey pall hangs over a Dublin driven to mourning.  All is quiet. Alina and I silently look over our plans for the day over mugs of hot tea. The studio lights are on and the set is ready for the day's shoot. For the umpteenth time, I observe Alina working with the movement of thought through her body. In her silent contemplation, with the slightest shiver in her shoulders, she is redefining her anatomy, freeing her limbs, negotiating gravity and committing to memory. I marvel at the way she gets movement, with barely a glance at the research material I have prepared for her. We are working on a what I call the 'hosanna' gestures today. I have identified some 90 of them. We will get through them quickly. I have spent the last 3 years on a long term research project to archive gestures, movements and rhythms of worship to understand their impact on our everyday lives.  I wanted to know how our movements are limited by centuries
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