This new exhibition by Vanessa Daws is the culmination of the project Swimming a Long Way Together, an ambitious art and swimming project, 2021-2024, curated by Rosie Hermon. The project is a multi-sited celebration of open-water and endurance swimming, its histories and communities, inspired by the pioneer swimmer Mercedes Gleitze.

Launching on the River Liffey, it has since travelled around the island of Ireland – to Midleton, Co. Cork, Donaghadee and Galway – to Brighton and Dover in England, shadowing key locations and moments in Mercedes’ life and swimming career. The exhibition brings together new and existing artworks and documents of the project and of Vanessa’s recent English Channel swim, which she completed 97 years after Mercedes Glietze became the first British woman to complete this crossing.

Central to the exhibition is the first presentation in Ireland of the film ‘At Home in the Water’, which premiered in Brighton in 2022. Meshing together the swimmer’s inward monologue, the physical sensation of the water and the challenge of the open water endurance swim, the artwork invites us to wonder what strange fascination the sea has for us, why we choose to immerse ourselves in it and feel compelled to navigate it.

Within the exhibition space this is contextualised within Vanessa’s own journey across the Channel this summer. Part of Vanessa Daws’ fascination for Mercedes Gleitze is in the resonance across time between their two practices, which bring together swimming and the creative arts. For Mercedes, music and performance were essential to her success as she would always request musical accompaniment when she swam – musicians playing to her from boats, singers, a gramophone. Almost one hundred years later Vanessa’s practice can be seen as existing in the wake of Mercedes Gleitze. For Vanessa, swimming sits at the core of her artistic identity; as an enquiry into place, as a performance, and as a generative process that spills over into many more traditional artistic mediums – drawing, painting, filmmaking, photography, sculpture and participatory practice.

Indeed, the bringing together of people and communities in the production of artwork is in evidence in the cube gallery. A shoal of clay sea creatures accompany a ceramic swimmer. Made by hundreds of people across Dublin Bay and swimming amongst fish made in Dover last year, this artwork is just one example of the “togetherness” of Vanessa’s ways of working. This is exhibited alongside the song ‘As easy stop the sea’ written by artist and musician Ruth Clinton, and performed by Landless. Vanessa commissioned this song at the start of the project and it has been interwoven throughout.

The exhibition includes a film by filmmaker Barry Lynch. Composed of footage of the Swimming a Long Way Together live events, it follows the project themes through discussions between key contributors and participants, drawn from across the geographies that the project has covered. The exhibition also serves as the launch of the Swimming a Long Way Together publication, designed by Peter Maybury, alongside other artworks and images which have been produced and collated over the course of the last four years. All of which reflect the inspiring nature and ongoing influence of Mercedes Gleitze, a fellow swimmer in the journey of the project.

Artist and Curator Walk Through for Culture Night: For Culture Night Dublin, 20 September 2024, The LAB Gallery will welcome visitors to view the new exhibition ‘Swimming a Long Way Together’ by Vanessa Daws, curated by Rosie Hermon. There will also be an artist and curator walk through starting at 5pm.