Longest Way Round, Shortest Way Home

Temple Bar Gallery + Studios is partnering with Dublin Port Company on two solo exhibitions by Yuri Pattison and Liliane Puthod at The Pumphouse, surrounded by the active logistical operations of a thriving city port.

Yuri Pattison’s site-specific installation, dream sequence, is located in the disused 1950s Pump House No. 2, made accessible to the public for the first time. The former graving docks, where ships were repaired and maintained, is the site of Liliane Puthod’s Beep Beep artwork.

The exhibition’s title, Longest Way Round, Shortest Way Home, is drawn from James Joyce’s ubiquitous Ulysses. Characteristically elusive in his meaning, Joyce’s use of this popular idiom hints at a circuitous route back to one’s origins. The phrase itself is often used to describe the relationship between time and labour and, in the case of this exhibition, there are further associations with journeys, departures, homecomings, and new beginnings. These scenarios all resonate with the functions of Dublin Port, as well as Joyce’s own embedded experience of the city, the river and Dublin Bay.