Art Monthly - Chris Clarke review of The Law is a White Dog
"There is a tendency to think of the law as immutable, its legitimacy based on its consistency and equal application across all members of society. This is, to be sure, an idealistic view, whereby laws are agreed to be followed by consensus, by a shared willingness to concede certain of our individual rights to a greater common good. In this scenario, we adhere to the law because it works to the advantage of all; it is imperfect but essentially fair, reliable, equitable. In reality, though, when challenging established precedents, one encounters any number of biases and agendas, omissions and obstacles. The Law is a White Dog, a reader accompanying the 2020 TULCA arts festival in Galway, Ireland, curated by Sarah Browne, addresses such inadequacies as well as the capacity of individuals and movements to effect legislative change." Chris Clarke
Chris Clarke is a critic and senior curator at The Glucksman, Cork.
Art Monthly 445 is available to order here
The Law is a White Dog
This limited edition book is published on the occasion of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, 2020, titled The Law is a White Dog. Curated and edited by Sarah Browne, the book features a richly-illustrated introductory essay which frames a wide range of newly commissioned writing, imagery and other original research by artists, poets, activists and lawyers.
Contributions include poetry by Julie Morrissy, photography by Rajinder Singh, and an illustrated essay by Eimear Walshe. The book also presents extracts from two intergenerational projects concerned with feminist activism: artist duo Soft Fiction Projects contribute a selection of censored periodicals from the 1970s they are using to develop a collaborative zine with a group of young people in Galway. Caroline Campbell (Loitering Theatre) presents ‘Protest Archive’, a feminist folklore enquiry made in collaboration with ageing activists. The book closes with new writing by Mairead Enright, a Reader in Feminist Legal Studies at Birmingham Law School whose research extends beyond traditional methods of law reform to consider illegality, protest and experimental legal drafting. Her essay explores how the imagery of dogs roams across testimonies of institutional abuse in Ireland, and how survivors insist on forms of repair, accountability and truth-telling that might one day redeem both the law and the state that underwrites it. Together, this creative and unruly collection speaks of a refusal to be restricted by categorisation, and the necessity (through law or art) to invent new languages and forms of expression in order to develop affinities with others.
Paperback with folded cover, full colour illustrated, 146 pages.
Publisher: TULCA Publishing, Galway
Publication date: 2020
ISBN: 9781838228408
Price: €15.00
Available to order here
