Orla Barry: A Shepherd’s Heart

Deeply rooted in her activity as a shepherd on her farm in Wexford, Orla Barry’s work confronts the patriarchal norms and gendered stereotypes that frame representations of farming, whether idealised or silenced. Using natural materials such as wool, horn, felt and wood, she highlights the chain of gestures underlying production, as well as the solidarity and trust she maintains with her flock of Lleyn sheep, while also exposing their interdependence with economic structures like auctions and competitions.

At the centre of the exhibition is “Spin Spin Scheherazade” (2019), a performative installation comprising a podium, printed texts, sculptures and audio recordings, periodically activated by long-time collaborator Einat Tuchman. Combining auto-fiction and auto-ethnography, the work traces Barry’s decision to adopt a pastoral life, navigating the cycles of breeding, selling and showing sheep while bearing witness to the systemic sexism of rural social circles.

By weaving references to popular figures such as Scheherazade, Rapunzel and Bo-Peep into a language that resists fixed meaning, Barry probes our relationship to rurality and its vernacular cultures, while questioning the political, ecological and social realities embedded within. Her practice brings a feminist, poetic and critical lens to the lived experience of the countryside.