Richard Proffitt × Miranda Driscoll

Richard Proffit's Pathways Written in Smoke (2015), a mixed media installation underneath Dawson Street; was accessed through the basement of a record store, and by crawling through a narrow gap, into a dark space. The work was an assortment of found ephemera, assembled like remnants of a shrine or ritualistic site. It felt like a sketch or a prototype; never meant to be seen publicly, although some ESB workers later found it, concluding that ‘devil-worshipping’ was afoot. References to counter-cultures were implied through the ritualistic aesthetic and the performative, illicit act of viewing it. Richard brought me there for a studio visit - we both felt more comfortable there than in the formalities of the traditional studio visit. In a strange turn of events, this image - the only one that exists of the work; can’t be seen in person either, but rather in a publication about an exhibition that cannot be visited.

Miranda Driscoll is an arts manager and multidisciplinary cultural producer & curator, and is Interim Executive Director of Solas Nua, Washington D.C. She was the Director of Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh, Co. Cork from 2014–2019, and co-founded and directed the Joinery in Dublin from 2007–2014.