Paola Catizone

In May of 2023, our friend Paul Swan launched his first book of poems at The Patriot’s Inn, in Inchicore, as part of the yearly Culture Date with Dublin 8 Arts Festival.

Paul invited me, and two other artist friends, to contribute a work to the launch.

I selected a poignant poem from Paul’s book; L’Etranger. As a perennial foreigner, the poem’s thematic felt close to home. The growing atmosphere of nationalism and racism both in Ireland and world wide, together with the tragic ongoing deaths of migrants at sea, especially in my home country of Italy and in Greece, (where authorities often allow for these drownings to happen and humanitarian workers rescuing refugees from death by drowning are prosecuted), made this poem particularly important to me.

I performed in the pub and the whole night was a powerful experience, but the light conditions in the venue made video recording of the event impossible.

My son suggested making a version of the performance for video, possibly outdoors, by the sea.

Paul Swan enlisted the help of videographer Joey Cleary and with the help of my husband Nigel Wood, we filmed the performance in Curracloe beach, in Co wexford.

The video file lay in wait for some time, until recently, during a conversation with  friend and fellow artist, Marco Gutierrez, he offered to edit the video. Marco’s work goes beyond technical editing, his arts background and practice brings an aesthetic awareness to the work and he contributed with editing decisions which have enhanced the outcome.

It is to be noted that all working on this project are doing so on a voluntary basis. My gratitude to Paul, Joey, Nigel and Marco for their invaluable work in the making of this new performance video, which has yet to be exhibited publicly.