Synkroniciti is thrilled to welcome visual artist (and composer), Robert Gillespie from Derry, Northern Ireland, residing in London. We present his powerful Ainriochtán photo series, which also incorporates assemblage and costuming.
“Poor Ainriochtán began as a panic attack. I had to attend a prize giving and was appalled by the prospect of having to stand up in front of people. I wanted to hide behind a mask. The name, the design, the meaning, all arose out of the critical self-examination stemming from that initial anxiety.”
Ainriochtán, pronounced AN-rick-ton, is Irish for “freak.” Assembled from found objects: recyclables, litter and rubbish, it allowed Robert to dialogue with a part of himself that is hard to engage, a part that is accustomed to hiding and being unacceptable. As Ainriochtán, Robert is no longer Robert, but someone else, unique and rather beautiful, evoking the rodent and the owl—simultaneously the prey and the predator, as well as something manufactured, inorganic, space-age. As we process this costume of otherness, we begin to feel empathy for it, as well as acknowledging it as something that can be taken off and put on. As anyone with anxiety or depression knows, it is often difficult to remember you exist below the labels and layers of identity classifying and marginalizing your being. Robert gives us a unique strategy for healing.
Experience Ainriochtán and read about Robert’s process and concept in our accompanying article, Externalizing Otherness, in Synkroniciti’s “Belonging” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
I am Robert Gillespie. I grew up in Derry, Northern Ireland, during the Troubles. It was a brutalised, traumatised society and as an anxious, sensitive, geeky child I was brutalised by that society. I was afraid. All the time.
The Ainriochtán photo series is intended to convey the sense of the alienation, estrangement and dissociation resulting from abuse. One’s sense of self is fractured and distorted and every relationship following is affected. One feels estranged from oneself and from society and healing can seem like a distant, unachievable ideal.