The Hunting Box Party was initiated in 2003 with a photographic and video documentation project of Hunting Boxes found in the woods of Wiepersdorf in Germany. In 2005 the idea for The Hunting Box Party was created and has been exhibited as part of 'Change Hunters Hide', Emmanuel Walderdorff Gallery Molsberg, Germany, 2021; 'Magaslesek' (Hochsitze – Raised Hides), Knoll Gallery, Budapest, Hungary, 2011; 'Buffer Zone', The Armoury Gallery, Sydney Olympic Park, Australia, 2011; 'Hochsitze' (Raised Hides), Knoll Gallery Vienna, Austria, 2010; 'C2' Crawford Art Gallery, Cork 2005 & 'ArtTrail' Cork, 2003.
The Hunting Box Party consists of a fake political party for hunting boxes; the hunting boxes are the members and the candidates of the party. Working strategies include photography, display cases, greeting cards, badges, murals and videos. In this work, I was interested in how our relationship with nature is a construct of identification with historic cultural traditions, such as painting, and how these traditions have created the idea of nature as a landscape. The distancing these ‘Hunting Boxes’ represent reduces nature to an object of desire to be viewed from a distance, expressed through issues of observation and hunting, hunting in this case, for something unobtainable, a connection with nature.
This work was made possible through a residency at Kunstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, Germany, with the Stiftung Kulturfonds, 2003 and an Arts Council of Ireland residency award, 2002.
Also see Videos Hunting Boxes 2003
The Hunting Box Party was initiated in 2003 through a photographic and video documentation project of Hunting Boxes found in the woods of Wiepersdorf in Germany. In 2005 the idea for The Hunting Box Party was created and exhibited as part of 'Change Hunters Hide' Emmanuel Walderdorff Gallery Molsberg, Germany 2021; 'Magaslesek' (Hochsitze – Raised Hides) Knoll Gallery, Budapest, Hungary 2011; 'Buffer Zone' The Armoury Gallery, Sydney Olympic Park, Australia 2011; 'Hochsitze' (Raised Hides) Knoll Gallery Vienna, Austria 2010; 'C2' Crawford Art Gallery, Cork 2005 and 'ArtTrail' Cork 2003.
The Hunting Box Party consists of a fake political party for hunting boxes, the hunting boxes are the members and the candidates of the party. Working strategies include photography, display cases, greeting cards, badges, murals and videos. In this work, I was interested in how our relationship with nature is a construct of identification with historic cultural traditions, such as painting, and how these traditions have created the idea of nature as a landscape. The distancing these ‘Hunting Boxes’ represent reduces nature to an object of desire to be viewed from a distance expressed through issues of observation and hunting, hunting in this case for something unobtainable a connection with nature.
This work was made possible through a residency at Kunstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, Germany through the Stiftung Kulturfonds 2003 and an Arts Council of Ireland residency award 2002.
Hochsitze ~ hunt (raised) hide / hunting box expresses a particular relationship with nature, which is romantic and depraved at the same time. Romantic in the sense that these ‘Hochsitze’ are designed to hold one or two people, for some time out in the woods, you sit and watch nature through a small window, high above the ground. The fact that you then shoot at the animals is a further expression of that romantic relationship, through a desire to obtain something, to control and own it.
The Hunting Box Party is designed to undermine the idea of the ‘object of art' and introduce a political movement as a context for the making of artwork. Exploring how the mechanics of politics has informed my work. Here the objects are reduced to the status of paraphernalia, their meaning becomes obscured, mixed up with what is suggested they represent.
The placement of this paraphernalia in a case where it can only be observed and not accessed mirrors the inaccessibility of nature from the hunting box.
These hunting boxes were documented in 2003 at Wiepersdorf in Germany and were made possible through a ‘Fellowship Stipendiatin der Stiftung Kulturfonds’ residency at Kunstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, Wiepersdorf, Germany and a Culture Ireland award 2003. The development and production of the work was made possible through bursary grants from the Arts Council of Ireland in 2004 & 2005, and an Arts Council of Ireland Residency award in 2002.
Sarah Iremonger 2011
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Raised Hides / Knoll Gallery, Budapest, Hungary 2011
"With the participation of international artists, this exhibition of Raised Hides focuses on the connection of several topic-related questions. Primarily created for hunting purposes, these special architectural developments became a symbol of nature and civilization, still marking human intervention and therefore recalling environmental problems as well. Made of varying raw materials, the special – sometimes bizarre equipment, raised hides are proof of individual creativity and inventiveness.
Society as a power structure is visualized in the work of the Irish artist Sarah Iremonger which consists of an installation and a site-specific wall painting. The Hunting Box Party refers to an imagined political party whose members are strictly raised hides. The installation recalls the theoretical and functional meaning of these architectural realizations; besides, by representing each "party member“ on a stylish badge it creates a political connection."
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Buffer Zone / Sydney Olympic Park, Australia 2011
"Another type of buffer zone is represented in Sarah Iremonger’s video film stills, Hochsitze/Hunting Boxes. They are symbolic of the particular paradoxical relationship to nature in hunting, where a love of nature is conflated with its slaughter. The hunter sitting above nature, observing, is intent on destruction."
Photographed in the woods at Wiepersdorf, Germany, 2003 (also see videos)
Exhibited as part of the 'Magaslesek' (Hochsitze – Raised Hides) at the Knoll Gallery, Budapest, Hungary, 2011
Exhibited as part of the 'Magaslesek' (Hochsitze – Raised Hides) at the Knoll Gallery, Budapest, Hungary, 2011 (also see videos)
Exhibited as part of the 'Magaslesek' (Hochsitze – Raised Hides) at the Knoll Gallery, Budapest, Hungary, 2011 (also see videos)
Exhibited as part of 'Hochsitze' (Raised Hides) at the Knoll Gallery, Vienna, Austria, 2010 (see also videos)
Exhibited as part of 'ArtTrail' at the IAWS building, Cork, 2003 (also see videos)
Exhibited as part of 'ArtTrail' at the IAWS building, Cork, 2003 (also see videos)