Munster in 30 Artworks, No 29: Vacuuming in a Vacuum, by Aideen Barry

The Cork artist was inspired by her high-flying cousin Breda, and travelled to a NASA facility to create her short film 

A still from Vacuuming in a Vacuum, by Aideen Barry. 

The artist Aideen Barry may not have been the first Cork woman in space, but she came pretty close in 2008 when, dressed as a vacuum cleaner, she was filmed floating in a zero gravity chamber on a NASA aircraft known as ‘the Vomit Comet’. The result is one of her most striking works, a short film called Vacuuming in a Vacuum.

The project came about after Barry, with support from the Arts Council of Ireland, was awarded an arts residency at NASA at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. Much of Barry’s artistic output is concerned with ‘the domestic uncanny’, videos of the artist engaged in manically repetitive activities such as slicing bread, mowing the lawn or eating cake.