The Irish face is the culmination of Wasser鈥檚 artist residency at Tate Library, a collaborative exchange organised with Ireland鈥檚 Askeaton Contemporary Arts during 2025. Wasser鈥檚 research initially asks how national identity, and his own Irishness, has and continues to be mediated through systems of classification and categorisation, and what kinds of alternative evocations can still emerge. Drawing from narratives and subjects such as Derry鈥檚 famed Orchard Gallery, Tate Britain鈥檚 location on the former site of Millbank Penitentiary, the design lineage of the library itself, or representations of Irish physiognomy and history as seen in Dublin鈥檚 National Gallery, Wasser creates a counter taxonomy of knowledge, speculating where potential blind spots might lie.
Presented as a gradually unfolding presence, an open rehearsal will take place at Tate's Reading Rooms during the afternoon, alongside a display of artefacts and ephemera key to Wasser鈥檚 research. Acknowledging a desire to 鈥榓ct and read out loud鈥 inside the typically silent spaces of the library, Wasser will gather and theatrically enact scripted writings, monologues and archival quotations that evoke entangled narratives of identity and institutional authority.
