project image
James Brady
IF YOU WERE MINE

first performed on June 24, 2016
MART gallery during Moving Bodies festival of Butoh and performance art, Dublin, Ireland
performed once in 2016

SINEAD KEOGH

Ireland
info@sineadkeogh.net
sineadkeogh.net

IF YOU WERE MINE
SINEAD KEOGH

The intention for the artwork is to create a socially reflective installation that constructs a counterbalance between the age old idea of finding true love and the modern reality of love in the digital age. Time has not changed our perceptions, moulded into our psyche through music, internet dating and popular culture. It deals with the difficulties of searching for love—the illusions and the reality we all face. The title for this work is named after a jazz/blues song composed by Teddy Wilson featuring Billie Holiday, which was released as a single in 1947. The song is charming and light hearted, but there is a bleak and painful sensibility to the lyrics themselves.

“If you were mine, I would live for your world alone, to kneel at your shrine, I would give up all that I own.”

For the purposes of this work I obtained the single on a vinyl record, which was played in the installation space off a record player.

The two perceptions of reality and created reality faced each other in the space. A conversational narrative between the two worlds occured through music, the old and the new competing with each other. Plagued by demons in the depths of desire and the constant watching and searching, the performer waited for the two worlds to become one. The performer waited.