Sounding the Depths (1993-95)

Video and photographic installation with sound. A collaboration with Louise Walsh

Sounding the Depths symbolically opens up the body allowing it to speak and even laugh in defiance of patriarchal and heteronormative definitions of ‘woman’.

The artwork addresses the silencing of women and the State’s control over our sexuality, fertility, and bodily autonomy.

In a deeply repressive social and political climate, Cummins and Walsh utilise their bodies as active agents, subverting oppressive religious and legislative controls. These embodied works reject consumption and confront ´the male gaze´, overcoming the protective tendency to retract and tighten. The artists respond to the oppressive atmosphere and to the lack of freedom of sexual expression.

Sounding the Depths was recently exhibited as part of the Narrow Gate of the Here-and -Now Protest and Conflict at IMMA. You can find more information here.

Sounding the Depths at IMMA (2022)
Sounding the Depths at IMMA (2022)
Still from video
Sounding the Depths at IMMA (1995)