In my own time is a collection of four new films exploring time – from the subjective experience to measured clock time – initiated during an eight week artists’ residency at St John’s College, Oxford. During this period Grace Weir investigated black holes, notions of time and light, Einstein’s theory of relativity, the possible changing relationship between clocks and the planets and philosophical ideas surrounding our understanding of the planet. The resultant films explore how we construct, rationalise and experience time.
Grace Weir, who has previously represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale, said, “My work attempts to align a lived experience of the world with scientific knowledge and theory. Einstein’s theory of relativity, and its redefined perceptions of ‘space-time’, initiated my interest in exploring how space and time are fundamental to personal identity and constructions of reality. I am fascinated by the concept of time – the different ways we measure our temporal existence, from clock time to event time, and how new discoveries in theoretical physics continually shift our understanding of time. I hope that visitors to the exhibition will leave with a more complex sense of time, of the connection between the concept of one’s self as a being in time, and the sense of one’s life as a narrative.”