Shell/Ter Artist Collective (S/TAC) Diana Copperwhite, Allyson Keehan, Niamh McGuinne, Sharon Murphy, Geraldine O’Neill.

In a Dream in a Happy House is S/TAC’s third show to date and their first show that focuses solely on the collective itself rather than through the lens of a historical collection or role as artistic shelter. Once again, S/TAC zones in on the emotional and psychological theme of shelter but this time sets it in a more ominous expression; one of confinement, duty, expectation and the delusions of domestic bliss.

Taking inspiration in the title from the 1980s Siouxsie and the Banshees track ‘Happy House’, which is both an ironic take and a protest against an ideal of domesticity. S/TAC questions the ambiguity of a safe, protective and detached shelter, by highlighting issues surrounding claustrophobia, containment and captivity. As ever, the expression of this concept is closely linked to the body, through identity, our many selves, the collective and the collective experience.

This exhibition highlights the role of an artist collective as a form of support, encouraging experimentation and the many hybrids that can develop alongside individual practices, which include painting, photography, print, installation and film. In this context, the ‘dream in a happy house’ is a space for the embodiment of ideas, creating the possibility for the body to function as the object, subject, material, and source of symbolic construction, and where the multiplicity of our many selves including that of the viewer, finds expression.