2024, Day Magee
Free Space: Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, 04 October 2024
Sermon of the Body Only explores the soft power of ideology in shaping individual lives and societal structures. In a newly commissioned sermon and pamphlet, through speech, text, sound and visuals, Day Magee investigates how belief systems—particularly religion—guide our understanding of the world and dictate our behaviours. Ideology is very effective at normalising certain beliefs and practices, making them seem natural or self-evident. As individuals internalise these ideas (or ‘ideals’), they enact the cultural and social norms of their immediate surroundings. This results in real, tangible effects on how they treat themselves, interact with others, and shape the wider organisation of society. In this way, though ideology itself is abstract, it has significant material consequences.
Reared in a fundamentalist, Evangelical family, this sermon traces Magee’s journey of faith as a queer non-binary person in Ireland. The work draws heavily from Evangelical Protestant aesthetics, emphasising minimalism, functionality, and a rejection of excess, reflecting a focus on spiritual and moral discipline. Many Evangelical congregations convene in ad-hoc spaces, such as rented conference rooms, rather than in permanent, ornate buildings like Catholic churches, further emphasising function over form and a focus on the transient and communal aspects of congregation. This sermon explores the use of cultural spaces as a one such setting, blurring the lines between religion and art.
Day Magee is an artist, performer, and writer based in Dublin. Exploring the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and the intersections of queerness, illness , and religiosity, their work engages phenomenology as an enactive creative material via performance-centred multimedia and workshops. Their work has been commissioned by and appeared in TULCA Festival (2019); Arts & Disability Ireland (2021); Pallas Projects/Studios (2022); Limerick City Gallery of Art (2022); 126 Gallery (2023); Rua Red (2023); the Hugh Lane Gallery (2023) and Mirror Lamp Press (2024). Their transdisciplinary practice is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.
Curated and commissioned by Sara Muthi
Image and pamphlet designed by Paul Guinan
Garments by Amie Egan
Sound engineering by Sebastian Adams
This work was kindly funded by The Arts Council of Ireland and Fingal County Council
Sara Muthi 