Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh: Vague Symptom Clinic
Project Arts Centre, Dublin
★★★★☆
The artist Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh grew up in Derry in the 1980s. Raised Catholic, he was acutely aware of the consequences and legacies of British political repression, not only in his own life but also in the stories circulating through his extended family. His grandmother Celine stands out, a central presence in his childhood and a touchstone for the political landscape that shaped it. She now forms the core of Vague Symptom Clinic, his latest exhibition, at Project.
Celine lived in a small maisonette beside Derry’s landmark Rossville Flats, which were demolished in 1989. Enormous brutalist constructions in the heart of the Bogside, they were designed to alleviate the city’s overpopulation problem. Referred to by locals as the Rubik’s Cube, because of their primary-coloured doors and panels, the flats became infamous during the Troubles, serving as the backdrop to intense rioting from 1969 onwards and, most tragically, to the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972.
The political violence of the time, and the system of oppression that provided its context, lurk below the surface of Ó Dochartaigh’s work, like sharks skimming the ocean floor; you become aware of their activity only in the water’s turbulence and churn.
The overt theme of Ó Dochartaigh’s exhibition is chronic illness – his own and his grandmother’s. A “vague symptom clinic” is where GPs can send patients presenting with undiagnosed illnesses. (They’re now more commonly known as rapid referral clinics.)
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The mobile installation Granny Lift is emblematic of the exhibition as a whole. It takes the form of a two-sided vertical light box. One face shows a pharmaceutical blister pack; the other depicts Celine stepping into the small elevator that she needs in her home to manage her respiratory disease.
The lightbox is mounted on a pneumatic pole that rises and falls, replicating the motion of the lift; its rhythmic movement introduces a sonic element: an inhale-exhale hiss that, amplifying the exhibition’s clinical undertones, evokes a medical breathing apparatus.
Motifs relating to breath recur throughout the exhibition, most strikingly in the glass pieces that populate the room, such as Coughed-Up Lung and Airways. Working with the glassblower Andrea Spencer, Ó Dochartaigh has created a series of intricate sculptures modelled on lungs and their interior bronchial structure. Some appear pristine; others bear blemishes and signs of extreme deterioration.
What these glassworks gesture at might be the exhibition’s governing idea: the deployment of CS gas by British soldiers against the people of the Bogside. Ó Dochartaigh has noted elsewhere that this gas lingered in the air long after its release, and he has wondered about its afterlife in the persistent respiratory problems among Bogside residents.
Vague Symptom Clinic is at Project Arts Centre, Dublin, until Saturday, January 17th, 2026
