Aileen Lambert
Saturday 19 August

Breath Street.

Working predominantly in video and performance art, my practice is concerned with the relationship which the body has with it's environment, and represents a claiming of space. Using simple actions, gestures, processes and interventions, I trace my body's presence on the landscape, expressing and documenting a particular place and time. Many works are concerned with a vain attempt to preserve or measure a certain activity or process.

I have used breath and breathing as a material and an activity in a number of works in the last eighteen months. Breathing is a necessary activity, which acts as a simple metaphor for our engagement with our environment – the inhalation of the atmosphere into our bodies and it’s exhalation into the world around us: a constant rhythmical activity which begins at birth and ends with our death.

For me, performance begins with a private personal experience, an expression of my relationship with my body, and the body’s relationship with it’s environment. As a performance activity, I attempt to use breath to leave a trace of myself in a particular place and time. The personal, visceral, intimate gesture of breathing and creating breathmarks is a metaphor for life, and the continuous attempt to make your mark on the world - a vain attempt to leave something behind.

Having graduated from art college in Limerick, Ireland, with a first class honours degree in 1997, Aileen became involved with the Real Art Project (RAP), a Limerick based artists-run initiative dedicated to providing opportunities for emerging and established artists. Her involvement with RAP included the co-ordination of The Greatest Sound Art Album in the World...Ever! and Infusion live art festival.

Aileen’s artistic practise includes video and performance work as well as participatory public art projects.

Aileen’s performance work has been presented in Excursions performance art festival, Limerick, Ireland, Castle of Imagination performance art festival in Poland, and will feature in the ANTI Festival, Kuopio, Finland in September ’06.

Public art projects include Éist - soundworks on CD, a sound map of local places, for Ballymurn, Co, Wexford, and Bóthar - a collection of postcards featuring places relating to the theme of roads in the Clonroche area, Co. Wexford. Kilnasoolagh - A Place for Birds, an environmental art project commissioned by Clare County Council's Arts Office, at Kilnasoolagh, Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co. Clare was launched in November 2005. Clog and Chláir, a temporary, solar powered sound art installation featuring recordings of bells from churches throughout County Clare was situated on Scattery Island, off the Coast of Clare on June 25th ’06.

Aileen is a founder member of Ground Up Artists Collective, which is dedicated to the exploration, development and creation of art in rural contexts.

Since June 2005 Aileen has been on the Board of Wexford Arts Centre, and is currently studying for an MA in Visual Art Practices in Temple Bar, Dublin.