School of Hibernia (after Raphael)
click HERE for Key
Na Cailleacha are proud to announce the launch of our latest artwork – The School of Hibernia (after Raphael), created at The Museum Building, Trinity College Dublin, March 9th 2024.
As part of our ongoing aim to increase visibility for women artists and to challenge patriarchy we have taken a key work of European Renaissance art history, Raphael’s School of Athens (Vatican Museum 1509–1511), and recreated it to reflect a more inclusive world view. Raphael’s original fresco drew together the dominant influences on academia deriving from Ancient Greece and led by such male figures as Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes. Through Raphael and his Renaissance peers that influence continued in European educational fora until the end of the last century. Na Cailleacha’s all-female version of Raphael’s fresco is set in that great architectural monument to education, the Museum in Trinity College (1854–7), designed by Thomas Deane and Benjamin Woodward. No setting could be more appropriate, with its architectural references to the original painting and the wider references to academic history that the building and Trinity College embody.
The challenge to patriarchy comes from the participants, forty one contemporary Irish women representing a wide range of educational disciplines in the modern world. Together they draw on traditions and learning from other continents, abilities and social backgrounds, including history, the arts, sciences, medicine, engineering, the law, economics, social activism and sport, that both subvert and expand on the earlier traditions.
Following the tableau in the Museum participants were invited to a lunch time discussion on aspects of education now and on women’s place within it in the Senior Common Room, recorded by Michelle Browne and access students from NCAD. In keeping with the subversive nature of the whole event, catering was provided by Assassination Custard (@assassination_custard.)
A documentary film of the project is in preparation by Therry Rudin of Na Cailleacha and will be released later this year, while a print of the event (limited to an edition of 10) is currently in preparation.
For a full list of participants please see the key to the image devised for us by Cormac Larkin.
The project was devised by Na Cailleacha but could not have been realised without the collaboration of the Provost, Linda Doyle and the History of Art Department, Trinity College, especially Professor Rachel Moss. Medb Lambert helped to develop the concept and the staging of the tableau with Aoife Lyons, and Cindy Cummings and Third Year Drama and History of Art students Lily Conlon, Jack Leitch, Daisy Gambles, Alexandra Fortetsanaki, Makena Margolin, Maebh Scahill, Maeve O Dolan, Sampurna Mookerjee, Romily McGinn and Anya Clarke Carr.
The image was created by Ros Kavanagh (www.roskavanagh.com).
The figures of Artemis and Minerva in the background are the work of Helen Comerford, sculptor, painter and member of Na Cailleacha, who died very suddenly before the project could be launched to the public.
Artemis/Diana/Medb, 2022, height 180, soft sculpture with white cotton and hollow fibre.
Helen Comerford,
Athena/Minerva/Brigid/Medusa. 2022, Height 195, soft sculpture, white cotton and hollow fibre.
Helen Comerford
For social media coverage of the event see
Na Cailleacha Instagram
Na Cailleacha Facebook
Trinity College Instagram
TrinityCollege Twitter
As part of our ongoing aim to increase visibility for women artists and to challenge patriarchy we have taken a key work of European Renaissance art history, Raphael’s School of Athens (Vatican Museum 1509–1511), and recreated it to reflect a more inclusive world view. Raphael’s original fresco drew together the dominant influences on academia deriving from Ancient Greece and led by such male figures as Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes. Through Raphael and his Renaissance peers that influence continued in European educational fora until the end of the last century. Na Cailleacha’s all-female version of Raphael’s fresco is set in that great architectural monument to education, the Museum in Trinity College (1854–7), designed by Thomas Deane and Benjamin Woodward. No setting could be more appropriate, with its architectural references to the original painting and the wider references to academic history that the building and Trinity College embody.
The challenge to patriarchy comes from the participants, forty one contemporary Irish women representing a wide range of educational disciplines in the modern world. Together they draw on traditions and learning from other continents, abilities and social backgrounds, including history, the arts, sciences, medicine, engineering, the law, economics, social activism and sport, that both subvert and expand on the earlier traditions.
Following the tableau in the Museum participants were invited to a lunch time discussion on aspects of education now and on women’s place within it in the Senior Common Room, recorded by Michelle Browne and access students from NCAD. In keeping with the subversive nature of the whole event, catering was provided by Assassination Custard (@assassination_custard.)
A documentary film of the project is in preparation by Therry Rudin of Na Cailleacha and will be released later this year, while a print of the event (limited to an edition of 10) is currently in preparation.
For a full list of participants please see the key to the image devised for us by Cormac Larkin.
The project was devised by Na Cailleacha but could not have been realised without the collaboration of the Provost, Linda Doyle and the History of Art Department, Trinity College, especially Professor Rachel Moss. Medb Lambert helped to develop the concept and the staging of the tableau with Aoife Lyons, and Cindy Cummings and Third Year Drama and History of Art students Lily Conlon, Jack Leitch, Daisy Gambles, Alexandra Fortetsanaki, Makena Margolin, Maebh Scahill, Maeve O Dolan, Sampurna Mookerjee, Romily McGinn and Anya Clarke Carr.
The image was created by Ros Kavanagh (www.roskavanagh.com).
The figures of Artemis and Minerva in the background are the work of Helen Comerford, sculptor, painter and member of Na Cailleacha, who died very suddenly before the project could be launched to the public.
Artemis/Diana/Medb, 2022, height 180, soft sculpture with white cotton and hollow fibre.
Helen Comerford,
Athena/Minerva/Brigid/Medusa. 2022, Height 195, soft sculpture, white cotton and hollow fibre.
Helen Comerford
For social media coverage of the event see
Na Cailleacha Instagram
Na Cailleacha Facebook
Trinity College Instagram
TrinityCollege Twitter