One out of Many Afrophilias (detail)

About the artists
Ceara Conway (b. 1977, Connemara) is a multidisciplinary Irish artist using methodologies from song, performance and traditional arts.
George Hallett (b. 1942, Cape Town) has worked in Europe for three decades photographing the positive aspects of people lives, South African exile.
Linda O’Keeffe (b. 1975, Dublin) is a sound artist based in Lancaster, England.
The Otolith Group (Anjalika Sagar, b. 1968, London; Kodwo Eshun, b. 1966, London) explores the legacies and potentials of speculative futures and science-fictions.
Rusangano Family is a musical trio based in Limerick, producing social-engaged music that mixes a global variety of cultures and traditions
Statement:
Education should foster; this education is meant to repress.
Education should inspire; this education is meant to tame.
Education should harden; this education is meant to enervate.
Pádraig H. Pearse (1916)
Murder Machine revisits thoughts and writings by Irish linguist and activist Pádraig Pearse (1879-1916), one of the leading figures of the Easter Rising, who voiced criticism against the English educational system imposed on Ireland. In his eponymous pamphlet, The Murder Machine (January 1916), compiling articles and notes dated between 1912 and 1914, Pearse spoke of a system devised “for the debasement of Ireland”. He described it as a system doing “violence to the elementary human rights of Irish children” and compared it to slave education.
His criticism echoed many of the concerns expressed by leading African intellectuals and anti-colonial activists who challenged the effects of colonisation on African cultures. In South Africa for instance, the usage of European languages in the formation of African modernity quickly became a matter of debate. This was, for instance, the case of the New African Movement (1860s-1960s) that championed the cause of African languages.
Murder Machine was presented at Ormston House in partnership with EVA International and Making Histories Visible as part the Federation of arts organisations and institutions.