Don’t Need No Country, Don’t Fly No Flag

“Bernadette Kiely’s exhibition is a powerful invitation to show up in the face of the climate and biodiversity emergencies. The trees welcome us with open branches. The vibrant dandelion flowers and seed heads lure us in to the lush utopia of her wild garden and neighbourhood by the river Nore. Paradise is quickly lost as we are faced with the painting ‘the most terrifying day of my life’ and the devastating impact of extreme weather events, hurricanes, and fires. we are carried into flooded landscapes and the colours gradually lose their vibrancy until we are faced with monochrome melancholy. Bernadette speaks of the global migration crisis caused by climate change and the fact that those who do the least to cause the problem are often the firstto lose their homes to floods and fires. She has been there from childhood, trying to save what she needed from the rising waters of the river Suir. We stand in front of her daughter Amelia canoeing outside her own home. As Bernadette says “its not that this could be you, it is you”. This is you;, this is us. This exhibition is so timely and important for anyone with an interest in the future of the planet we live on”. Lisa Fingleton, Artist, writer and climate activist. Co-curator of this exhibition. July 2024.

The imaginary lines that we call borders are unsuitable for a warming world. Today the impacts of climate change are felt worldwide, with regions all over the world affected. and a subsequent evidence of a collapse in geography as we know it. When areas become too wet, too hot, where can people go?

Bernadette Kiely presents new largescale paintings and moving image concerned with the effects of flooding and decay on both the landscape and human lives. This has been an enduring theme in her practice for over 20 years, and now with even more urgency in our present time of climate emergency.
Having experienced heavy flooding on the river Suir while growing up and on the river Nore as an adult, Bernadette credits proximity to these rivers and living with the ever present threat of flooding to her keen awareness of environmental shifts and the effects of weather on landscape, rivers and on human lives. She was a founder member of the Thomastown Environmental Association in 1990. Coupled with paintings of natural plant life, and begging the questions, can we rethink our conception of borders, removing them or making them more flexible to embrace migration as a tool for managing global equality and justice and envision ourselves as a unified global community where we can live in harmony with the natural world?’

*title borrowed from the song Woody Guthrie from the album Power in the Blood by Alabama 3.

“One day there will be no borders, no
boundaries, no flags and no countries
and the only passport will be the heart”-
Carlos Santana, musician /

Festival Printworks Gallery
GALWAY INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL 2024

July 15 – 28th, 2024.
The exhibition was visited by almost 13,000 people over the two weeks of the festival.