History of The Present

History of The Present: Maria Fusco and Margaret Salmon

Golden Thread Gallery

15th February – 29th March 2025

Together with the Golden Thread Gallery, Scotland-based Artists Maria Fusco and Margaret Salmon present History of the Present, an exhibition based around the critically acclaimed work of the same name, History of the Present (2023). This 46-minute experimental opera-film was made collaboratively by Fusco and Salmon, featuring new compositions by Annea Lockwood, libretto by Maria Fusco and improvisational vocal work by Héloïse Werner.

History of the Present is an intersectional, intergenerational feminist work which forefronts working-class women’s voices to ask: who has the right to speak, and in what way? Layering sociological, cultural, and political themes from the recent history of Northern Ireland, the work exercises voice, breath and field-recording composition through a range of film techniques and operatic articulations, to amplify marginalised stories.