A simple plaque in stone beside the bridge reads:

“Fad leis seo a thagadh cairde agus lucht gaoil an té a bhí ag imeacht chun na coigrithe. B’anseo an scaradh. Seo Droichead na nDeor”.

("Family and friends of the person leaving for foreign lands would come this far. Here was the separation. This is the Bridge of Tears".)

Michaela Cullen presents the first body of work borne from a new line of research into ideas surrounding, ‘Planetary Anxiety’, cultivation and horticulture, wormholes and the Holocene and interdimensional travel, all grounded in longstanding interests in Irish Mythology and storytelling, horror, working class Northern Irish familial and the Feminist Utopia.

A new fictional story written by the artist, follows the psychotomimetic trip of an unidentified character. A visceral sound work and accompanying visuals endeavour to illustrate this turbulent, violent, emotionally exhaustive metaphysical odyssey, weaving through time and interplanetary landscapes, the character is confronted with a series of continually unfolding events until eventually coming face to face with mythological Irish deity, Cailleach.      

Repressed feelings of the Irish diaspora (Irish: Diaspóra na nGael) are a constant source of pain and pride to many, and the raging battle of placelessness. The persistent desire to look backwards at childhood and sentimental memory, raise questions around selective memory, and it is attempted to be challenged in this work, eeking out the, ‘bad stuff’ as much as the good.

 The primary consistent aspect to Michaela Cullen’s practice is that it is built upon a foundation of theoretical research, which provides a crucial understructure to material exploration. Presently, her work explores and dismantles issues surrounding personal upbringing and identity through the study of Irish mythology; Catholicism; The Pilgrimage and Ritualism — within a contemporary and urgent feminist framework, with a specific focus on Xenofeminism. Identity is crucial in confronting these dimorphic lines of research. Often confused, frustrated and misunderstood in one’s nationality and class position, displacement and placelessness are borne, and the artist wishes to pose the question — How do we untangle what ought to be, from what is?