Martina O’Brien: midnight zone

Highly surveilled and persistently unknowable, extraordinarily biodiverse and increasingly precarious, the deep ocean is a space of paradoxes. midnight zone responds to industrial and scientific practices that are transforming our relationships with the ocean, from the extraction of the seabed through deep sea mining, to research into the effects of climate change on deep-water corals.

Drawing on O’Brien’s time on two marine expeditions in the Atlantic Ocean, and archives of Irish scientific work that has sought to map, understand, and vision these ecosystems, the exhibition brings together a range of media, including sound and visual installations, and decommissioned materials, midnight zone examines and attempts to reorient extractive imaginaries of ocean ecosystems, and attunes to networked oceanic knowledges and communities – and their unfathomable elements – amongst the unfolding of climatological emergency.

midnight zone was developed through a UCD Parity Studios Artist Residency with iCRAG and supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Kildare County Council.

Exhibition Launch: Saturday 14^th October from 3pm

The exhibition opening taking the form of an informal talk between artist, Martina O’Brien, and curator and director of Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Cliodhna Shaffrey, on Saturday 14th October at 3.15pm. 

The exhibition continues until Saturday 18 November, 2023 

Exhibition Closing Event: Saturday 18^th November from 3pm

Join us again for the closing Artist’s Talk, on Saturday 18^th November at 3.15pm, with Mekhala Dave, Ocean Law and Policy Researcher, Fundación TBA21, Vienna.

midnight zone opens Saturday 14^th October and continues until Saturday 18^th November 2023. Opening Times: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:30am – 5pm, Free Admission.

Credit: Martina O’Brien, accounts of immersion, 2023, six-channel video installation, HD + low res video, audio