Karol&Rory
I entitled this project "Karol & Rory", "Karol" being the Pope's birth name and "Rory" being Panti's. This is a play on words as well as
a tongue-in-cheek reference to marriage, which was at the forefront of politics last year during the Marriage Equality Referendum.
a tongue-in-cheek reference to marriage, which was at the forefront of politics last year during the Marriage Equality Referendum.
Film: The exhibition in use
The viewer was invited to 'root around' the bedroom, where in the drawers they would find photo's of Pope John Paul II's visit to Dublin in 1979 (originals, designer's own), prayer cards with 'verse' from Panti Bliss' 'Noble Call', make up, rude items that refer to the 'pre-eminent drag queen' that Rory O'Neill was in the 1970s as a young boy... On the bed they would find an embroidery of "That feels oppressive", a recurring line in The Noble Call. On the bedside locker they would find a book entitled "Karol & Rory", which resembles a small Bible which would often have been placed on a bedside locker in a typically Irish bedroom from the 1970s. The viewer is invited to sit on the bed and read the 'bible', which is the main typographic element of the exhibition. As the exhibition is experiential, it alternates between a quiet evening before bed in rural Ireland and a drag disco, complete with disco lights and Donna Summer's music, who was responsible for most of the 1970s 'gay anthems'. I wanted to juxtapose the two worlds of 1979 Ireland, where we worshipped the Pope; and gay and drag culture, which has been welcomed more and more in contemporary Ireland as the Church's influence wanes.
The Book
The cover of the book is ambiguous, so reader does not know which half they are reading until they open it. These are photos of the inside of the "Karol & Rory" book. The "Karol", Pope half was printed on actual Bible paper and was designed in reference to the layout, colour and typographic styles of a prayerbook. The photos are my mother's. She took them herself when Pope John Paul II came to the Phoenix Park in Dublin the same year as a young Panti saw him in Knock, Co. Mayo. The "Rory", Noble Call half was printed on quite heavy high gloss paper to convey the outrageousness of Panti, and in reference to the thick, caked make-up of a drag queen. For the typography I asked "If a typeface was a drag queen, what would that be?". I based the illustrations and layout on the Panti aesthetic, referencing real Pantibar club night posters, and using the brightest colours possible. The halves meet in the middle with a photograph of a young Rory and a photograph of Panti Bliss on the day that same sex marriage was passed in after the 2015 Marriage Equality Referendum in Ireland.
Exhibition stills
Props
I designed a 'hypothetical' LP sleeve for "The Noble Call". I kept to the 'Panti' aesthetic and designed a sticker for the record itself. I also made small 'prayer cards', like the ones you might find in your granny's handbag or as a bookmark in your parents' current bedtime reading. I used quotes from both pieces of text and set them out like verse. I laminated them to give them that 'mass card' feel. I embroidered "That feels oppressive", and left it slightly unfinished to give a feeling that it's work in progress by the person who's bedroom this is. "That feels oppressive" is a recurring line in the Noble Call speech.
