Art exhibition in Lismore explores issues as the refugee crisis

By using the theme of ‘weeds’, the curator of a major new art exhibition at Lismore Castle has touched on such issues as the refugee crisis, writes Alan O’Riordan

IF WE would take a little pains,” wrote Victor Hugo in Les Miserables, “the nettle would be useful; we neglect it, and it becomes harmful. Then we kill it. How much men are like the nettle! My friends, remember this, that there are no weeds, and no worthless men, there are only bad farmers.”

It is an insight that needs little encouragement to work as a metaphor for the fears and scandals that have been sparked by the crises of migration and Islamic extremism in Europe. That anthropomorphic way we look at weeds can be found in numerous places: books like The Day of the Triffids, films Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the very language we use about these “invasive” plants. Weeds are uncanny. They follow us, they creep us out with the resilience and their speed of growth. Their dark associations are even clearer in Hugo’s original French “mauvaises herbes”.