Niamh McCann 
Born 1971, Ireland
Lives and works in Dublin, Ireland 

Hairline Crack: All Locations 2023 – 2026
single-channel video with stereo audio, looped 36:36 mins

Presentation at the 25th Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous support from Culture Ireland
Courtesy of the artist and Green On Red Gallery, Dublin 

Created as a response to the 100th anniversary of the institutionalisation of a North and South border in Ireland, Niamh McCann’s Hairline Crack: All Locations, is a cinematic refusal to cede control to the colonial and capital systems that subjugate man, beast and place. 

Colin, an eyeless dog, guides us through three separate landscapes as a rumination on human hubris: the Natural History Museum, Dublin where a pygmy hippo was mounted for display soon after her death on arriving from Sierra Leone in 1873; the stairwell of Belfast’s Divis Tower flats whose top floors were repurposed from residence to observation post by British forces during ‘The Troubles’; and finally, the bronze age burial ridge which divides opposite ends of the country. Interspersed with Colin’s journeys are recordings of a live ensemble (Iarla Ó Lionáird, Ceara Conway, Tonnta Choir) performing in the exhibition landscape of someone decides, hawk or dove in The MAC Belfast in 2024. 

As if myth himself, Colin embodies a deep perception that transcends lived history, through humour, humility and a shared humanity.