Grace Weir
In Parallel
2017, HDV 17'19"

The film 'In Parallel' begins with the drawing of a straight line and is an exploration of Euclid’s Elements, a geometry book written c.300BC.
Devised originally by Euclid in Alexandria for the purposes of the taxation of land, where the flooding of the Nile caused continually changing boundaries, it became second only to the Bible in the number of editions published on the invention of the printing press. A singular book, it has been hugely influential in both mathematics and philosophy for over 2000 years through the systematic, axiomatic structures that Euclid's work introduced.


Referencing a particular edition by Oliver Byrne published in 1847 that involved for the first time a graphic and visual conception, the film considers the history of the concept of a parallel line. Through a sequence of coloured drawn geometrical propositions including the vanishing point of linear perspective, the film reflects on how
the shapes and forms of thought in which our beliefs are expressed, influences and constrains our perception of ourselves within the world.

Commissioned by the Irish Museum of Modern Art for
'As Above, So Below: Portals, Visions, Spirits & Mystics'.

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Shown during the
Artists’ Books Residency guest curated by Jo Melvin, in collaboration with Viaindustriae at The Mahler and LeWitt Studios in Spoleto, Italy.

"Grace Weir’s film In Parallel, which begins with her father’s palimpsestic drawing board, mysteriously found its way to Sol LeWitt's similar board. LeWitt’s board became a pedestal for the film, the echoes of works made upon it meeting the echoes of Weir’s father’s board behind the echoes of the film’s drawings. The origins, sources, of multiple works and thought were indeed seen here ‘In Parallel’. Spoleto had lent itself to a complementary coming-together of works, such that work from elsewhere came to be perceived as a dialogue with the new space. The film’s exploration of Euclid’s Elements, reflecting on “how the shapes of thought in which our beliefs are expressed affects our perception of ourselves within our environment”, seemed to be mirrored and realised into the three-dimensional space in which we stood."

Featured in
Soanyway Magazine, Spoleto Special Insert edited by Gertrude Gibbons and Derek Horton.
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