Months Mind
A solo exhibition by CRÓ.
ReTramp Gallery, Berlin
February 6th - 9th 2025
Month’s Mind by artist collective CRÓ brought together previous works and developed new ideas around the topic of the female mouth and voice. Collecting their thoughts from the previous events, Rose of Dolgensee and Fake Wake (for fake wake’s sake), led to this exhibition in ReTramp Gallery. Text, textile, sculpture and film were produced in a playful tone. Eavesdropping on a bird conversation, the Banshee laughing over the retro, shiny lips telephone and discussions on forums about what to do when you see a bird - these all tied in with the exploration of the bird/woman vocabulary crossover. As always the work was absurd and interactive, overlapping the digital and physical realms in one space.
“A whistling woman and a crowing hen are neither fit for God nor men.”
From pageant queens to Banshee screams, the Irish female voice has been examined and explored in CRÓ’s recent works. Rose of Dolgensee and Fake Wake (for fake wake’s sake) exposed the spotlight given to voices based on their purity and allowed space for the “monstrous feminine” voice without fear.
This body of work has led to viewing the female mouth and voice in the domestic sphere. The voices of mothers, daughters, grannies, phone conversations, spoken recipes as well as looking at the mouth as a continuous site of performance for women. The conversational and colloquial bird association with women and their voices.
hear crowing, clucking, crowing, screeching. Twittering, hooting, chirping.
Rose of Dolgensee explored a rare occasion in which Irish women are given the stage and respected air time. Their time to compete for the crown, performing as their purest and most righteous selves.
Birds as Women
Through the exploration of Irish death customs, Fake Wake uncovered how vital it is for Irish women to wail.
One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl
Surprisingly, beyond the wailing of upcoming death, the Banshee is actually quite funny and also…gorgeous?
“You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful and she’s laughing… “
They say that the sound of the Banshee one hears is actually a barn owl. Hannah’s dad has a barn owl and she heard wailing one night, and the sound was green.
Birds as Omen
This work plays with the idea of home made and made in the home. Not only do women sound like birds but we make homes like them too. Nesting and homemaking are a natural instinct, supposedly. The materials for them are quite similar; comforting fabrics, trash found on the street, etc.
Women as Omen
The mouth serves as the vessel for where women are seen as “too much”. In pageantry, there is a fine line with being confident and over the top. Courteous or conceited. In grief, it depends if the woman is respected or not. Or if she is alive or dead.
Bird, chick, hen. The only acceptable form is when older Dublin women call you “chicken” and makes you feel 5 years old and looked after or Alice calls you “hen” for the same reasons.
The mouth is to blame when women are “too”. Too “much”, too “loud”, too “(2)”.
