Blow-In reflects Danger Museum’s experience as outsiders in Cork, Ireland. The project includes a booklet of interviews with local cultural practitioners conducted during Cork’s European Capital of Culture year, and two collages, exhibited at the Cork Public Museum.
The collages blend architecture, wildlife, and local elements—like brewery fog—to open up questions about life in a small city life. Cork appears as both a haven for urban escapees and a constraint for the ambitious. The interviewees themselves feature in these bleak, playfull, “postcards” from Cork, directing the question of the state of culture back at the community.
Cork Public Museum, located in Fitzgerald Park—site of the 1902/03 International Exhibition—holds rare relics of the once-grand event, now largely forgotten. Among them is a dried up cigar, said to have been gifted by King Edward VII to Mayor Fitzgerald during a royal luncheon.
Reflecting on the fading legacy of Cork 1902/03, we questioned what might remain of Cork 2005. It felt fitting to use the museum’s history as a backdrop for our exhibition. To mark the occasion—and the uncertain future memory of 2005—Shimizu and Renberg donated a cigar-shaped textile piece, embroidered by Tokuko Shimizu, to the museum at the opening.