About
Kelley O’Brien is an interdisciplinary artist working between the American South and Ireland. With her background in Architecture and Design, Kelley’s work negotiates boundaries between industrial and “natural” landscapes, through a feminist perspective, to explore cultural links between gender hierarchy and the domination of the natural world. Political and environmental systems intertwine to form the core of her practice, often taking the form of time-based media and installations to offer a glimpse into personal and collective experiences across spaces of heightened social and environmental importance. Her artistic practice extends into her academic and curatorial research through collaborative projects with Francis Halsall under the title “Mapping Systems.” Collectively they have held workshops, lecture courses, and curated residencies in Ireland, the United States and the Philippines. Through her art, curatorial, and collaborative research practices, O’Brien seeks to highlight precarious and indeterminate environments as a political act to give power to untold histories and providing underrepresented perspectives as alternative ways to critically engage with our ecosystems locally and globally.