The Student Body cast the idea of a collective body through the lenses of the gut–brain axis (the ‘second brain’), school ‘traffic’ flows and ritualistic procession.
In the autumn term of 2016, Jennie Guy brought artists Maria McKinney and Rhona Byrne to work with students and teachers of Blessington Community College. McKinney introduced students to her practice by presenting one of her existing artworks; a sculpture from her body of work ‘Sire’ – which explores correlations between modern genomics and pre-Christian fertility rituals. This prompted group discussions across a range of topics and resulted in a performance titled The Student Body – a procession through the school grounds inspired by the complex structural patterns of DNA and the gut-brain axis. Byrne and her collaborators responded to the idea of a student body by arranging a set of traffic systems in the corridors of the school, stemming from her practice of forming new means of configuring personal and shared boundaries and spaces. She prompted the students to rethink the layout and space of the school, splitting doorways into ‘in’ and ‘out’ routes and using fabric to form roundabouts for the corridors, stationed with student guides to aid the direction and flow of student traffic.