How can we collectively come to terms with unresolved histories? And how do these histories persist in the body, landscape, and collective unconscious? All That Is Tangled Will Be Unraveled explores these questions through installation, painting and community-based workshops. The work responds to the discovery of the mass grave of children at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Co. Galway, as well as the several uninvestigated sites relating to connected institutions around the country.

Drawing its title from an inscription at St Brigid’s holy well in Clare, All That Is Tangled Will Be Unraveled acts as a kind of incantation, a warning that the web of systems of control which continue to obscure marginalised bodies and lives cannot endure indefinitely. The spectral figures in these works exist between presence and absence, becoming and unbecoming. Just as long-suppressed emotions often find expression in a burst of intensity, these spirits emerge with a frenetic energy, a reminder that we are living among ghosts who reach into and shape the present, particularly when they remain improperly acknowledged.

The show asks the viewer to be present with these restless forms caught between marginalisation and empowerment, this world and the next; and in doing so consider how bearing witness and communal making can be reparative political acts.

Bio

Grace McCaffrey is an interdisciplinary visual artist based in the west of Ireland. Her practice explores the interplay between the body, history, and belief systems in Ireland through painting, installation, and community engagement. Grace completed a BA (hons) in English literature and French at the University of Galway before going on to pursue her visual art practice full time. Having lived between Lisbon and Montreal in recent years, she has worked as a freelance artist and as part of the Montreal Art Center and Museum, where she coordinated cultural events. Grace has exhibited both in Ireland and internationally, and is currently pursuing an MA in studio practice at the Burren College of Art. Upon completion of her MA Grace will form part of the Irish team supporting Isabel Nolan at the 2026 Venice Biennale.