Dry Facts And the Judgement of Imagination
Online April 13th until May 16th, 2026
Welcome to a unique take on the online exhibition format, featuring artwork by Aisling-Ór Ní Aodha and writing by Seán Ward. The exhibition adopts the signifiers (and html code) of an online state archive, it was curated and designed by Cóilín O’Connell.
This exhibition is compatible with being viewed on your laptop or desktop computer, and not on your phone.
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“My dry facts have too little poetry in them to reach judgment through the medium of the imagination”
On the Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, George Petrie, 1854.
Dry Facts And the Judgement of Imagination is a website and digital exhibition featuring art works by Aisling-Ór Ní Aodha and writing by Seán Ward. The exhibition adopts the signifiers (and html code) of an online state archive, it was curated and designed by Cóilín O’Connell.
The career and sometimes contradictory methodology of George Petrie (1790–1866) is taken as a point of reference for the exhibition. Petrie is cited as being the founder of ‘systematic and scientific archaeology in Ireland’, he was also a well known artist, prolific in producing paintings and illustrations of artifacts, historical buildings, landscapes and ruins. Before being fired for political reasons, Petrie played an important role in the fledgling historical department of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland. His work which is ostensibly ‘factual’ is infiltrated by poetry, while his ‘poetic’ output is inflected with the dry facts.
For the exhibition a selection of watercolors, drawings and found objects from Ní Aodha’s series To Hold the Mountaineer in Awe are presented. The series investigates the visual culture surrounding the Military Road in Co. Wicklow in the 19th century. The Military Road is an example of colonial infrastructure that was used to police the Dublin and Wicklow mountains following the 1798 rebellion. In the series art historical references to the site are reappropriated to highlight and subvert the role of visual art in reproducing ongoing colonial legacies.
Seán Ward has written a short new text in two parts in response to To Hold the Mountaineer in Awe. The textual categories of ‘Description’ and ‘Appraisal’, used by surveyors of historic buildings, archivists and archaeologicalists structure the text into explanatory and poetic registers. Ward takes the riderless military horse, a recurring symbol of Ní Adoha’s work, as a tormented vector for the contradictions of both overlapping statecraft and historical record itself.This exhibition is best experienced on your laptop or desktop computer, if possible.
Aisling-Ór Ní Aodha is an Irish multidisciplinary artist from Co. Wicklow. Through the mediums of painting, sound, text, sculpture and radio broadcast her practice interrogates the enactment of colonial ideologies and state institutions upon the body. This research is informed by archival investigation, queer and decolonial theory and investigating the history of resisting imperialism. Her research pursuits over the last four years have specifically explored the creative expression in Ireland and its relationship to imperialism. Covering topics such as the lamentation practice of keening, the connection between 19th century landscape painting and imperial policing, Ballinasloe Asylum and folk cures, and the Irish language as somatic knowledge. Recent works include collaborating with Alice Rekab as part of Liverpool Biennial, 2025, ‘bless every foot that walks its portals through’ at Galway Arts Centre for TULCA 2023, and the performance ‘Echo’s Disarticulation’ at Project Arts Centre, 2022.
Seán Ward is a curator and researcher based in County Derry. His practice explores how colonial narratives may persist in cultural spaces, using curating as a method to engage with spatial justice, contested heritage, and the hyperlocal, and approaches curatorial work as both a research method and a tool for commoning knowledge. Ward holds a BA in Curating from Goldsmiths, University of London, where he also studied with the Centre for Research Architecture. From 2023 to 2025, he was a Co-Director at Catalyst Arts, where he co-produced exhibitions, commissions, and public programmes. Ward is Currently part of Kunstverein Aughrim’s Creative Producer Programme. His writing has appeared in Art Monthly and other independent publications. Across his practice, he continues to explore curating and writing as tools for situated, collaborative, and politically engaged cultural production.
Photo by Rich Gilligan. Image courtesy of Kunstverein Projects.
Cóilín O’Connell is a multimedia artist from Dublin. As Brass Neck Press he publishes artists zines. Through a process of collecting and editing found and original image, object and text his work considers antagonisms between the methodical and the poetic for proposing pasts, presents and futures.
Telegram channel of Cóilín O’Connell: https://t.me/+K4cpoS8O0QkyNTI0
List of works
A Guide to the County of Wicklow_ From ACTUAL Survery_ (2025)
Llofty heath-clad brows_ (2025)
After The Military Roads, County of Wicklow 1804 (2025)
Bridle, Bit and Rein (2025)
Drumgaff Barracks (2025)
Found Frame (2025)
Monument (2025)
Quiet Repose (2025)
Twine (2025)
Twine II (2025)
Curated and designed by Cóilín O’Connell.
Commissioned by Screen Service 2026.