Benjamin Robinson: How do the two objects in the diptych relate to the title Lady Liberty, Liberty Cap?

Pádraig Ó Raghallaigh: On the left Lady Liberty has been reduced to her torch. It’s lying abandoned, with its core exposed. Beside it, a dilapidated liberty cap crackles with countless historical and symbolic associations. 

BR: Both these objects, the torch and the cap, resemble each other. 

PÓ’R: That’s because they are the same object photographed for different angles.

BR: The liberty cap has its origins in the pileus of antiquity. It was traditionally made of white felted wool, to represent an egg shell. 

PÓ’R: The pileus was given to Roman slaves when they received their freedom.

BR: It’s similar in style to the Phrygian cap, a soft conical hat with a pointed phallic crown that curls forward. 

PÓ’R: That’s the hat the Smurfs wear.

BR: It’s linked to various rituals and myths, associated with sacrifice, fertility and male circumcision. The pileus gained cultural currency after Julius Caesar was murdered on the Ides of March. Brutus minted a coin, to mark the fact that Rome was free of Caesar’s tyranny. On one side there was the head of Brutus and on the other side there was the legend ‘EID MAR’ beneath a pair of daggers and a pileus. The liberators went through the streets with their bloody weapons held aloft. A pileus was placed on the tip of one of their spears.

PÓ’R: And it was a symbol of the French revolution, where it was worn with the crest facing backwards.

BR: Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom and liberty, is typically depicted carrying a rod and holding out a soft pileus.

PÓ’R: The flaccid, low status pileus became the hard currency of an elite political symbol. 

BR: How does this play out in Lady Liberty, Liberty Cap? 

PÓ’R: Packaged in a user-friendly interface, Lady Liberty, Liberty Cap combines defunct utility with an atrophied symbol of emancipation, positing the pursuit of liberty as a cyclical endeavour plagued by distortions, appropriations and unexpected transformations. 

BR: When it’s pictured from two different angles, an antagonistic circle is formed that gives the work its dialectical dynamism. Utility and symbolism are turned into something that is greater than the sum of its parts. 

PÓ’R: Freedom and tyranny, form and function, fear and boredom, are chasing their tails.

BR: The torch and the pileus look like they’re covered in teeth marks.

PÓ’R: Lady Liberty and the Liberty cap have been bitten into a conch.

BR: A couch with sculptural pretentions.

PÓ’R: A couch with artistic ambition. 

BR: Each object leans into the cavity of its own inverted replication.

PÓ’R: I can hear the sound of the sea.

BR: I can hear a flame being extinguished. 

PÓ’R: Liberty’s torch is empty.

BR: The flame has burnt itself out.

PÓ’R: The couch is missing its sea snail.

BR: Papa Smurf has lost his Phrygian cap.

PÓ’R: Two gnarled whorls have been reduced to a binary snarl.

BR: Gone is the 24-karat glow that covered Lady Liberty’s torch in glory.

PÓ’R: Liberty’s torch is a holy terror. 

BR: She’s made her bed and she can lie in it.

PÓ’R: Bodies are sinking to the depths. 

BR: Bodies are rusting on the seabed.

PÓ’R: Everyone’s trying to fit in.

BR: Everyone’s keen to advertise their adherence to the new regime.

PÓ’R: Madame Defarge sits beside the guillotine, knitting through the executions.

BR: The blood is draining from Marianne’s bonnet rouge.

PÓ’R: Papa Smurf is trapped in a flute with six holes. 

BR: He lives in a cursed land.

PÓ’R: He lives in the sound of a flame going out.

BR: He is singing the old orange flute.

PÓ’R: They say visiting Lady Liberty’s crown is a rewarding experience.

BR: Have you ever been inside her flame? 

PÓ’R: They say you can see the broken shackles up there.

BR: Do you think we’ll ever be free?

PÓ’R: Defeat is not an option. 

BR: To the victor the spoils.

PÓ’R: I think Lady Liberty secretly wants to be the Winged Victory.

BR: That’ll only happen if there’s structural reform and a programme of inward investment.

PÓ’R: In banking jargon structuring is also called smurfing and it’s a way of executing financial transactions that avoids triggering financial institutions to file reports that are required by law. Smurfing is parcelling what would otherwise be a large transaction into a series of smaller transactions to avoid scrutiny by regulators and law enforcement. 

BR: Do you have something large to transact?  I know a lot of Smurfs who are itching to get back in the game. 

PÓ’R: Your people should talk to my people. 

BR: Isn’t that what I’ve been saying all along?

…

Benjamin Robinson is a writer and artist from Ireland. His work has recently appeared in Minor Literature[s], Abridged, 3:AM Magazine, Sonder Magazine, forthcoming in Source Photographic Review and God’s Cruel Joke. He is the winner of the 2022 Source Photographic Review Writing Prize.