Home\Sick: Post-Domestic Bliss
The Science Gallery, in Dublin’s Trinity College, is one of the most innovative exhibition spaces in the city. Now open for almost eight years, the ever-changing exhibitions are not afraid to court controversy and to challenge visitors’ preconceived notions.
None of the Science Gallery’s collection is permanent, and all exhibitions are free. The aim behind this policy is to encourage visitors to return repeatedly, experiencing new and interesting ideas throughout the year, as opposed to a once off visit where they may never step inside the doors again.
Home\Sick: Post-Domestic Bliss Exhibition
HOME\SICK: POST-DOMESTIC BLISS is the Science Gallery’s summer exhibition, running from May 1 straight through to July 19. It examines in depth what people’s understanding of the word ‘Home’ is. Gather ten individuals in a room and you will probably get as many equally valid interpretations of what home means to them, but this exhibition poses questions and asks how visitors’ definitions of the word can be re-engineered or changed for the better.
Changing Concept of ‘Home’
Through a series of fascinating exhibits, visitors are shown how the universal concept of ‘home’ may change in years to come as a result of emigration, technology, innovations in design and changes in how our food is produced. It also looks at how our idea of home might be re-evaluated as the spaces where we live and gather are heated and powered through 21st and 22nd century means.
Every year, millions of people around the world are forced to leave their homes and countries as a result of political persecution and unrest. Millions more are estimated to have thus far spent their entire lives in refugee camps. Their idea of what the word ‘home’ means is very different to that of someone who has made the choice to move house or to leave their native country for work.
Some of the exhibits are particularly relevant in an Irish context. HOME\SICK hypothesizes that there is a cognitive dissonance between the Irish fondness for property ownership, combined with our enduring love of the national ideal of family and community, and our increasingly fractured society, forced to emigrate through lack of employment and opportunities yet connected via the Internet, social media and smartphones like never before.
While browsing the exhibition space, you will find yourself asking, is our collective notion of what home means changing for the better or worse, or is it simply changing and evolving for a modern world?
Child Friendly and Fascinating for Adults
As we all know, summer is the time when children are off school and hence have more time to visit galleries and museums with their parents. With this in mind, the Science Gallery’s summer exhibitions are traditionally the most child friendly – whilst still holding the interest of their parents!
In comparison, a lot of the spring, autumn and winter exhibitions, while being fascinating for adults, tend to go over the heads of younger visitors, who may simply be too young to comprehend what it is they are looking at and experiencing.
HOME\SICK is definitely one of the Gallery’s most appealing for families, but that is not to say it is necessarily their best. Nevertheless, it is still one that old and young alike will enjoy and get something new from.
The exhibition is open six days a week (closed on Mondays).
Opening hours are 12pm – 8pm Tuesday to Friday, and 12pm to 6pm Saturday and Sunday.
