Jaki Irvine

In 2008 The LAB and Draíocht invited Jaki Irvine to think about William Hogarth's 1732 series of prints, A Harlot’s Progress. City of Women is the work developed by Irvine in response to this invitation. Irvine’s short film, City of Women, was shot on Foley Street, formerly Montgomery Street and now the site of The LAB, in June 2009.

“Evaluating the lithe proximity of narrative and remonstration Jaki Irvine’s short film City of Women was shot on one long night in Foley Street. A diverse range of women volunteered to meet and stay together in the darkness enacting twenty-nine gestures with intimate precision.” The participants included Macushla dance group, the young women of the Swan Centre in Sheriff Street, and many more. “For the duration of the evening, these women’s inhabitation of the street and careful attendance to each other neutralizes the workaday functionality of Foley Street as minor thoroughfare smack bang in the middle of a large city, instead rending the street into a dialogical space that critiques contingent expressions of public access.” Maria Fusco

Draíocht was delighted to present City of Women in 2009 before it moved to The LAB, Foley Street in January 2010.