Now Listen Closely, Fellow Humans
2023 - 2025
A project that was developed by Clara McSweeney as part of the Masters of Art and Research Collaboration 2023 - 2024 with IADT Dun Laoghaire. This body of work responds to the peculiarities of three distinct buildings located within Dublin City while focusing on the potential speculative dystopian future stemming from the current housing crisis.
Clara had imagined the experience of vacancy from the perspective of three buildings, speculating on the fears, anxieties, and confusions they might confide in her if they could voice opinions. From these imagined confessions, she scripted monologues and, with the help of voice actors, recorded them for a human audience. The resulting scripts My Third Floor, Best till Last, and A New Urban Future, are played through small rechargeable speakers in a drain pipe, an air vent and an intercom. Audiences are invited to eavesdrop on these confessions. My Third floor is from the perspective of an ignored vacant space above a shop on Talbot Street. A New Urban Future is based on a building in the Docklands, set in a future where the climate crisis has intensified, and flooding has occurred. Best to Last focuses on a state-of-the-art office block in Smithfield Square that has been left vacant for over a year.
This work was presented at water has no enemy the Art and Research Collaboration Master’s degree show at the LAB Gallery in Dublin in December 2024. It was later shortlisted for the RDS Visual Art Awards 2025 and exhibited at the RHA Gallery from the 21st November 2025 to 25th January 2026, where it won the Taylor Art Trust Award 2025.
Research presented at Vacancy, Occupation and the Commoning: Advancing Metagological Approaches workshop in Trinity College Dublin, Beyond the Paper: Innovating Research Dissemination in Dublin City University and International
Conference: Writing with Ruins in Matadero, Madrid.
Conference: Writing with Ruins in Matadero, Madrid.
Additionally, Clara is writing a journal entry for an upcoming academic publication following on from the International Conference: Writing with Ruins with Routledge.
