The potato is a potent image to evoke in relation to food and food security revealing conscious and unconscious attitudes to land and otherness, both in Ireland and beyond. Deirdre O'Mahony's film presents a poetic understanding of the potatoes' cultural and economic role in our histories, and reminds us that real sustainability lies in our capacity to provide for ourselves.

The Persistent Return is a large scale, two-screen installation that reflects upon the history of the potato and the role it played in consolidating and concentrating power in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

Deirdre O’Mahony’s research and art practice is grounded in collaborative engagements with different rural publics and contexts. She developed her PhD research around “X-PO”, a defunct rural post-office re-imagined as a social and cultural public exchange space. More recently her SPUD project has focused on tacit, place-based knowledge and its relevance to food production today.For more information see the artists website here

Writer/Director: Deirdre O’Mahony
Camera: Tom Flanagan
Editing and Post Production: Connie Farrell
Irish Script: Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Vocals: Branwen Kavanagh and Julie Kavanagh, Twin Headed Wolf
Electronic Score: Alexandru Trendler
Voiceover: Deirdre O’Mahony, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Sound: John Brennan
Audio Post Production: Brendan Rehill, Outer Limits Post Production

Commissioned by Workhouse Union and co-produced in partnership with VISUAL Carlow

Funded through an Arts Council Visual Arts Project Award, commissioned by Workhouse Union as part of Workhouse Guild with additional support from VISUAL Carlow, Leeuwarden Capital of Culture 2018 and the residency programme of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.