Swimming to Inishkeel

Swimming to Inishkeel presents recent multi-media, sculptural, and performance work by LSU School of Art Professor Malcolm McClay. While McClay’s earlier work engaged the political and the external, this body of work turns sharply inward to the spiritual and meditative. His most recent durational performance Chasing the Invisible meditates on his daily swims to Inishkeel, an island off the coast of Donegal, Ireland. While there, McClay swims two hundred fifty meters from the shore to the island of Inishkeel and back each day. Through these durational, rhythmic exertions, McClay finds focus—the “thin space.”

“In the Celtic tradition a thin place is the name given to a place where the visible and invisible worlds touch or are at their closest, a space where the veil between the temporal and celestial worlds has grown thin,” says McClay. “For me, Inishkeel is such a place…The coldness and clarity of the water, the stillness and unchanging nature of the landscape bring me to a place where I am more alive and connected than at any other time.”

Since arriving at LSU’s School of Art in 2003, McClay has become a dedicated member of the artistic community at LSU and in New Orleans, where he is a founding member of the artist-run Good Children Gallery. His artistic and teaching practice ranges across sculpture, installation, and performance and demonstrates a strong commitment to community organizing and equal commitment to teaching, which manifests most fully in his immersive Art in Ireland Summer Program for LSU School of Art students. lsumoa.org.

Don't Miss: November 1: Reception and Q&A with artist Malcolm McClay at 6:30 p.m. Hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar will be available. $10 for general public, free for students/faculty with ID and LSU MOA members. 6–8:30 pm.

December 2: Gallery Talk: Tour the exhibition with artist Malcolm McClay in conjunction with Free First Sunday. 2 pm.

February 6: Brown Bag Lunch: Lunchtime lecture with artist Malcolm McClay on durational performance. Free to attend.