This exhibition is Frieda Meaney’s response to her residency in Panama in 2017.
She was invited to participate in a residency living with the Guna tribe in the remote Guna Yala region of Panama.The village of Armila where they live is difficult to access, bound in the north by rough seas and the only land access is by foot from Columbia through the Darien Jungle which is renowned for drug trafficking. She also visited another Guna community on Goedupu (Isla Caledonia) one of the 365 islands that is part of their territory.
The experience was a challenging and intense one leading Frieda to reflect on her role as an artist among indigenous people. She feels increasingly concerned that indigenous people are treated as subjects of research like flora and fauna and not as our partners, jointly responsible for the fate of our planet.
The works presented in this exhibition deliberately combine different mediums : painting, collage, print, video and organic matter to represent the interconnectivity of the ecosystem. A lot of the organic materials, such as plants, earth, sand, stones, shells etc. used in the works are sourced from her garden and the local landscape on the Beara, Peninsula Co.Cork where she lives and works.