We are delighted to present Isabel Nolan’s two video works as the fourth instalment of IMMA Screen. While Sloganeering 1-4 (2001) has been part of the IMMA Collection since 2002, The Condition of Emptiness (2007), was acquired more recently as part of a major donation of the Kerlin Gallery Collection to the museum in 2018.

In addition to the two videos, a recently recorded interview between Isabel Nolan and Christina Kennedy, Head of Collections, IMMA, is also available further down this page.

Alongside this, a series of recordings relating to Nolan’s work from the IMMA Audio Archive are available in the ‘Additional Resources’ section. These include the audio work titled The Three Body Problem (2014), a conversation between Nolan and writer Sally O’Reilly and an introduction by curator Karen Sweeney to Isabel’s 2014 solo exhibition at IMMA, titled The weakened eye of day.

About the works:

Sloganeering 1-4  formed part of Isabel Nolan’s installation Once Upon a Time and How Things Turn Out at IMMA in 2002. Like her other work, it explores notions of reality and identity often in a humorous manner. In Sloganeering 1-4, the power of the written word to impose a reality as tangible as so-called ‘real life’ is explored.

The artist states that she wanted to “create a character who is trying, somewhat desperately to communicate a sense of their identity (someone who is obviously frustrated, confused and inconsistent, but is nevertheless attempting to be sincere). In one sense, it is about the idea that identity is complex and irreducible to clichés; it also reflects the fact that we live in a culture where communication is often reduced to sound bites that are often both pretentious and vacuous”.[1]

This concept is expressed through the use of a white T-shirt on which the artist repeatedly scribbles slogans, which are in turn underlined, added to and ultimately cast away as she takes off the shirt to start writing on a fresh one worn underneath.

The Condition of Emptiness is a slow-moving, silent animation that tells the story of someone who has retreated into themselves, shunning language in any form, but needing to re-establish contact. The narrative unfolds through a series of text messages sent to an unidentified other.

The work explores the line between the desire for self-seclusion and its associated anxieties. Identity and communication are central themes in both videos. While Sloganeering 1-4 engages with the publicity of identity, in The Condition of Emptiness the question seems to be about what happens to your sense of identity once you retreat into isolation.

[1] Statement from the artist, 2003, IMMA