Carpet for the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2009. Research image at Dublin Castle, c.1970.
Sarah Browne’s practice implicitly addresses ‘the economy’ as the dominant metaphor for contemporary social and political relations. She is concerned with the creation or documentation of intentional economies and temporary ‘communities’. These small-scale systems tend to form and be formed by forces of intention or desire, and are typically influenced by emotional affects. She often works on a domestic scale, using technologies such as upholstery, knitting, flower-pressing, carpet-knotting and filmmaking (super 8 and 16mm). Browne is interested in forms of non-market exchange such as gift economies, subsistence, subsidies and poaching. The work is often carried out with the participation of a ‘community’ where it is based, or creates a fictional or temporary ‘community’ for itself.
