Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is an exhibition of works by artists who address relationships to the natural world, reframing the natural world as an ecological system that is co-extensive with a broad range of supranatural materials and concepts. The exhibition includes video work, two- and three-dimensional work, as well as plant life, wishful thinking, polystyrenes, a water-cooling system, and a host of other agents. 

There are artworks that reference psychoactive plants (Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh, Melanie Bonajo), the automations of Swedish forestry production (Edward Clydesdale Thomson), environments of spiritual enrichment (Veit Laurent Kurz) and morphologies of animal, vegetable, and mineral form (Gemma Anderson). These artistic approaches do more than take the natural world as a passive and addressable “thing” or mute reference. Instead, the natural world is understood here as an active system with incorporating powers of its own.  Alongside works by contemporary artists are a selection of prints by photographer Karl Blossfeldt (1865–1932)—close-ups of plant life that simultaneously emphasise the mechanistic structures that exist in nature and the camera’s revolutionary powers of magnification.

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is curated by Matt Packer (Director, CCA Derry~Londonderry) in two separate versions, at CCA Derry~Londonderry and Lismore Castle Arts St. Carthage Hall, County Waterford. The exhibition title is taken from an album by Pavement. 

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain - public programme at CCA:

Critical writing workshops with Paper Visual Art editors and critics Nathan O’Donnell and Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll with guest writers:
7 February, 10–17. Guest: Rebecca O’Dwyer
7 March, 10–17. Guest: Morgan Quaintance

Workshops are free but places are limited, so booking via info@cca-derry-londonderry.org is essential.

Screening of The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts by Adam Curtis, an episode from his 2011 BBC Television series All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. Thursday 19 February, 19.

Throughout the exhibition, a series of video talks by theorists whose work addresses the ideas in Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain will be screened in CCA’s library space.

For further information, please contact info@cca-derry-londonderry.org or gallery@lismorecastlearts.ie.