The Piper’s Grip is a reading with live soundtrack by Eimear Walshe, originally commissioned by Mirror Lamp Press – a tender and reverent account of the homo-erotics of an Irish music session. In the tradition of Irish musical bawdry, this story portrays a man’s ecstatic reconnection with his culture, and in turn with himself. Eimear Walshe’s performance is presented as part of the exhibition project state of us, co-curated with EVA International.

state of us is a project that comprises an exhibition at de Appel and a parallel series of screenings and performances, focusing on the inherited traumas of colonial violence and control that continue to shape social, mental and physical bodies across generations.

Thematically departing from Ireland – widely regarded as the first historical subject of the British colonial enterprise – state of us brings together artists who address Ireland or the Irish experience, alongside ongoing and historical struggles in places such as Palestine, Bangladesh and Curaçao. The research-based artworks trace how the everyday and insidious effects of colonialism and its legacies recur in aspects of memory, sexual relations, social behaviours and health dysfunctions, among other examples.