Amelia Stein : Palm House
Rubicon Gallery, Dublin
1 - 26 May 2001
AMELIA STEIN is a photographer noted for; her touring solo-exhibitions and work in group shows such as EV+A & RHA in Ireland as well as extensive portraiture of creative people in music and theatre worldwide. As usual, this work bears her signature sensitivity, formal rigour and perfectionism.
‘The Palm House’ comprises of a series of photographs documenting one of the oldest structures in The National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin. The gardens were established by the Dublin Society (now the Royal Dublin Society) in 1795. The Great Palm House was fabricated in Scotland and built in 1884, after an earlier wooden version was destroyed in a gale. It is a huge glass structure held erect by walls of teak and roof glazing bars of wrought iron. It houses rare cycads; primitive cone bearing trees some of which are extinct in the wild, tropical palms and bamboos from countries as diverse as South Africa and Brazil. It is a great national treasure and welcomes 140,000 visitors annually who have, in recent months, anxiously watched the slow arduous work of moving the precious plants, one by one (often deploying large earth-moving machinery) to a temporary home. The restored glass house, currently under supervision by the Office of Public Work, is scheduled to reopen in three years .
“ It is beautiful but not effortless. The first plants to be placed in the house had been shipped from tropical countries as resting specimens or as seed collected on a palm lined beach or a dark, dripping forest. They awoke to confined root runs but thrive, ensconced in a duplicate climate with water and food lovingly applied every day.” - Brendan Sayers, of the Botanic Gardens, in describing the “Pot and Tub” culture of the Great Palm House.
Amelia Stein embraced this project immediately and instinctively on hearing of the imminent changes at the Great Palm House. Plants were pivotal in Amelia’s relationship with her late parents. In the last few years of her mother, Mona’s, life they became particular close, as Amelia stepped in to care for her beloved garden. After her mother’s sudden death the activity became a bittersweet reminder of that time and, during her father Mendel’s illness some years later, the garden became a place of refuge and reflection. At first, she intended only to accurately record the plants and their extraordinary surroundings in the Great Palm House, but the opportunity to reenter, in solitude, this enchanted ‘secret’ garden was part of a very poignant personal journey for the artist . Much of her work addresses the universal subject of loss and memory, absence and presence and no more so than in this series. Amelia Stein came and went regularly, watching and waiting as each individual plant marked the passing of time, and each one rewarded her with a quiet moment of splendour. Time has another meaning here. The Great Palm House has been lovingly mastered by many over the decades and millions of people - thousands of families - have a remembered experience of the place. These plants are sentinels to many dramas but they are not still or inanimate, they mark time in their own way.
“Its vastness belies the fact that one is indoors, yet the atmosphere is alien. It is damp, still and scented as though in another world and it touches you as would an unseen spectre in the night. The light is filtered, first by the opaque glass and then by the taller inhabitants of the house, their vegetation casting ever-changing shadows. There is no great sound.” - Brendan Sayers.
RUBICON GALLERY
10 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2
www.rubicongallery.ie
