Dunhill and O'Brien

In Nov 2006 Dunhill and O’Brien spent 3 days contemplating and examining an excavation of a hole on the site of a Cistercian Abbey in Tuscania, Italy. The hole, originally dug by itinerant bell founders in the 11th Century, was a special pit used for casting the Abbey’s bell. Being in consecrated ground within the Abbey’s walls it was later employed as a burial site for the Abbey’s monks.
Situated in a remote agricultural area the Abbey’s bell was principally used to mark the monks’ daily routines. It also served to exert the Church’s authority (as the principle keeper of time) over a wide geographical area.
The work that Dunhill and O’Brien exhibited in 2008 as part of the exhibition Just World Order, comprised of 3 parts, Object – a tailor made lining formed in the bell pit; Walk – a guidebook of a walk that set out to mark the distance the sound of the 40cm diameter medieval bell would have travelled with the gallery as the nominated location of the bell tower; and Phone – a mobile phone with a ringtone of a medieval bell of the same size, weight and shape, recorded at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, that rang intermittently throughout the exhibition.

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