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RHONA BYRNE ACE, 2010 (2nd Floor) DVD Collective assembly, 2010 (2nd Floor) 5.1 Surround Sound installation Stop the world I want to get off, 2010 (3rd Floor) recovered wood, nails, metal Coaster choir, 2010 (3rd Floor) DVD Rhona Byrne, Stop the world I want to get off, 2010 Rhona Byrne makes sculpture, films, context specific installations, collaborative event-based projects and books. Her work explores and engages with multi-layered surfaces and the workings of the built environment and navigates intangible and transient layers of physical, mental and social space. In developing this series of works, Byrne examines the amusement park industry and in particular wooden roller coasters, their physical experience and people who love them. Prompted by an ongoing fascination with how these man-made places and structures came about and how they can affect emotional states and alter our involvement with our environment, Byrne went about visiting theme parks, roller coaster designers and manufacturers in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is home to more amusement parks and roller coasters than any other state. Pittsburgh’s main park, Kennywood, is a traditional amusement park opened in 1898 by the Monongahela Street Railway Company at a time when technological innovations that initially applied to mills, factories and railroads found their way to places of play and recreation connecting humans to the dynamism of technology in a very different way. During her explorations she met with the American Coaster Enthusiasts club (ACE). United by a common interest, ACE (founded in 1978) is the world’s largest ride enthusiast organization and has nearly 7,000 members across the U.S. A number of works were developed with members of this club. ACE, a two screen video work, documents interviews of ACE members about the love and experience of the journey of a rollercoaster, recorded at the East Coaster Convention at Allentown, PA. Byrne also worked with composer Nathan Hall on producing a choral score of the sounds of a journey on the ‘The Racer’, a historical wooden roller coaster at Kennywood, built in 1927. She later invited Pittsburgh-based members of ACE to perform “Coaster Choir,” a vocal soundscape of this journey. These works are exhibited as a video, Coaster Choir, and a five channel sonic journey, Collective assembly. Rhona Byrne, ACE, 2010 During the off-season many rides at Kennywood park undergo annual care and maintenance and some of the very old wooden sections require replacement. The generous management at Kennywood allowed Byrne to procure a number of the older wooden sections from ‘The Racer’. Byrne’s fourth work in this exhibition, Stop the world I want to get off, is a sculptural work made from this reconstituted material. It offers a pathway through the gallery space, a slower trajectory through the world and vantage point to other places, inviting us to experience imaginary mental and perceptual spaces as much as a shared physical one. Rhona Byrne would like to give a special thanks to Duncan Horner, Jeff Filicko (Kennywood PR), Chris Gray (Great Coaster International), Tom Reddy (Philadelphia Toboggan Coaster Inc.) and to the members of the American Coaster Enthusiasts and in particular the ‘Coaster Choir’ ACE members; Bill Linkenheimer, Lee Ann Draud, Lisa M Corbly, Linda Spar, Maggie Altman, Chris Grella, Sarah Windisch, Erik Frankenstein , David Hahner, Jim Futrell, Linda Cramer, Bernie Cramel, and ACE members interviewed at East Coaster for the work ACE; Juan Dominguez, Mike Betzlere, Chris Smilek, Stephen O’Donnell, Dave Altman, Derek Shaw, Robert Derman, Lee Ann Draud, Colleen Whyte, Stacey Smilek, Bill Galvin, Jason Ballard; also Jeremy Boyle and the Voice Assembly group; Nathan Hall, Kerrith Livengood , Ben Harris, Dave Bernabo and Brandon Masterman. Recent and forthcoming exhibitions include; Rhona Byrne, Temple Bar Galleries, Dublin (solo), 2010; The Glen Park Project, The Glen, Cork (solo); Architectures of Control, Radar, Loughborough University, Loughborough; Work in Space, Connaught House, Dublin, all 2009; Green Screen, ICA, Sydney; It’s a Rollercoaster, Four at the Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, (solo); Instead of Walking, The Process Room, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, all 2008; Nothing Happens, Gallery for One, Dublin (solo); Learning how to fly over Swansea, Locws international 3, Swansea, Wales all 2007. Byrne lives and works in Dublin, Ireland.