The Healers × Paul McGrane & Mark O'Gorman
Curators and longtime collaborators, Mark O’Gorman and Paul McGrane, first became aware of The Healers through a Dublin Digital Radio Broadcast in 2019. Since then they have followed their performances online, anticipating the opportunity to work together. The 10th periodical review at Pallas Projects provides a setting for this to take place. The Healers are the ancient midwives of noise. They hail from the island of Hibernia around 432 AD. They are saints who combined the ancient craft of healing with spirituality and electricity. They exist outside of institutions and only enter to heal the damage caused by those in power. They create ritual noise to cleanse, heal, deliver and end suffering. They exist to heal those who need it. They seek a time when knowledge and ideas were truly free. They are the haunting channel coming in at frequency 108.8. They wet the warts and lick the burns.
Paul McGrane and Mark O’Gorman are both Dublin based curators. They currently make up the curatorial team at The Complex Arts Centre, while also collaborating independently on various projects.
The Healers, (Doyle, Kerr and Ni Laoi)
Video stills, The Four Faced Liar, 2020
360 Interactive Video
Video length: 18:36
Interactive view on YouTube
Image courtesy of the artist.
Commissioned as part of Cork Sound Fair
Clíona Ní Laoi is an Irish artist & musician working chiefly through sound, music, performance and moving image. She performs with The Healers and solo as Mama Matrix Most Mystical. Her work investigates the politics of the body, nature, esotericism and technology through the sculpturality of sound and improvisation. She uses Dada performance with contact mics, live amplification, hydrophones, electronics & spoken word to create emotionally charged works.
She released the album Sacred Movements in 2019 and Illicit Rituals in 2020 as music and art performance duo Salac. She released the debut album Tears Voyuer as duo All Times Now Nothing in 2020. She has toured with her hybrid musical performances in Ireland, UK, Germany, Finland and Hungary. She is a recipient of the Music Bursary Award (2020) from The Arts Council of Ireland.
Michelle Doyle is a visual artist and musician working between sculpture, video and sound performance. She performs with The Healers as well as solo under the name Rising Damp. In 2020 she released her first album, Petrol Factory. Doyle's work is concerned with subculture, communes and the museum. Recent projects include group show, The Museum of Ancient History (2020), with live online performances as part of Box Moon and Spilled Milk Festival (2020). She is a recipient of the Next Generation Award (2019) and the Fire Station Residency Award (2021-2024).
Dylan Kerr is an Irish artist based in Berlin. They perform with The Healers as well as solo under the name Baptist Goth. Their work takes the form of durational, endurance-based performance, drawing on the embodied languages of ritual, protest, and worship. Their practice also focuses on audio-based work which operates on the cusp of sound art and contemporary music, with a prevalent influence of religious arrangements. Much of their work has been made public through site-specific performances and installations in adapted-use buildings.