Images of Ireland, exploring whether ours really is The Happiest Country in the World (as the exhibition title suggests) were unveiled at an exhibition in Dublin this week.
"How do you measure a society's happiness? Art is another intellectual act, it's a counterpoise to the facts," said Clíodhna Shaffrey, who co-curated the show with Ruairí Ó Cuiv. "Artists are more willing to probe issues," Ó Cuiv added.
The show comprises work by 17 artists, including film, paintings and photographs. Artist Martina Mullaney, from Bohola, Co Mayo, said her work, Killing Time, was the result of a project with homeless people. "I asked them to photograph where they would kill time," she said.
Fellow artist Gerda Teljeur, said she found her piece, Shopping Trolley, in the ruins of Dún Laoghaire's Harbour Market. "It was a victim of a steamroller when I found it," she said.
Artist John Byrne's film of individual responses to the question "would you die for Ireland?" is also in the show. Other artists in the show who attended the opening included Tom Fitzgerald (with his daughter, Eleanor); Amy O'Riordan, whose own show, Eye Candy, opens in Dublin's Kevin Kavanagh Gallery on Wednesday; and Dermot Seymour, whose glowering portrait of the Rev Ian Paisley, Spacedoctor, especially appealed to singer Seán Ó Sé, the president of Oireachtas na Gaeilge.
Funded by Culture Ireland and the Department of Foreign Affairs, the show is organised by the Irish-language Oireachtas na Gaeilge, which hosted its first art exhibition in 1905.
"Is bliain ar leith í seo [this is a special year]," said Tomás Mac Ruairí, leader of the 250-strong Irish delegation which will travel to Lorient in Brittany, France, next weekend, to take part in the special Year of Ireland programme that is the centrepiece of the 35th Festival Interceltique de Lorient 2005.
The Happiest Country in the World is open to the public until next Thursday at the Office of Public Works Atrium, 51 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2