[If you have landed on this page from the link on the National Heritage Week website, please note that no booking is required]

The Olivier Cornet Gallery is a repeat participant of National Heritage Week. Check out our 2023 project with Hugh Cummins's homage to André-Charles Boulle, our 2022 project with Annika Berglund's interest in locally-bred wool and her feltwork practice, our 2021 project with Eoin Mac Lochlainn's Harold’s Cross Heritage Apple Trees and our 2020 project with Yanny Petter's wonderful Calla Lily Blue for instance.

In view of the theme for National Heritage Week 2024, Connections, Routes and Networks, we invited our artist Miriam McConnon to reflect on her most recent body of work in that context.

The series of works was called The Refugee’s Armour and it was exhibited at our gallery in September 2023.

Our brief provoked the artist to contemplate the complexities of preserving one’s heritage and social culture amidst the ongoing global refugee crisis:

For this body of work I interviewed five young males who were forced to leave their homelands of Syria, Iraq, Cyprus and The Democratic Republic of Congo. I presented the individual stories of these young men in paintings of personal objects that narrate their journey of displacement, of integration and of aspirations for the future. The objects that they brought with them on their journey held a strong connection to their heritage, their loved ones, and often their religion. These personal possessions didn’t hold any monetary value but were invaluable to the preservation of their stories and their personal connection to their homeland. They did not bring objects that would help them physically survive but objects that would restore the connection to their heritage and their life before they were displaced. Among the objects were rosary beads, a Koran, a child’s shoe, blankets, school books, a baby’s bracelet and photographs.

In the five paintings entitled The Refugee’s Armour the viewer is presented with a male suit jacket suspended from a wire. Each suit jacket bears decorative patterns that originate from personal objects related to an individual journey of displacement. These jackets represent each young male refugee’s armour or safety net against the issues they face in their attempt to establish a new life following conflict and war. The patterns reveal a strong link to the heritage of each young man and their connection to their past.

These young men whose stories were the inspiration for my recent work are committed to connecting with their new place and its culture. And at the same time, they spoke of their struggle to not lose the connection with the heritage from their homeland. My work raises the question to what extent different heritages can exist side by side, intertwine together, evolve and preserve simultaneously. It highlighted the importance of creating discussion around the challenge to preserve one’s heritage and at the same time adapt to a new one. 

The increase in migration, the global refugee crisis and the digital age connecting all heritages more than ever leaves the impression that the preservation of individual heritages is becoming more difficult or is threatened. Right Wing politics have amplified the fear that cultures and heritages cancel each other, replace each other. This body of work considers an alternative way forward, one where there is room for heritages and cultures to connect, compliment and evolve together and to enable the preservation of the other without threatening its survival.   

Miriam McConnon, July 2024