Beyond Survival School Bus: Audio Tour, Léann Herlihy

Beyond Survival School Bus: AUDIO TOUR (2024) is an audio tour with a pedagogical discourse that spans from eighteenth-century hedge schools to twenty-first-century school tours. Departing from the urban sphere and commencing its voyage deep into the mountains, the school’s curriculum explores the polemic effects of ‘self perseverance’ through the social practice of survivalism; moving through examples such as an assimilated ‘outdoor’ swimming pool situated in a 15-story underground survival bunker designed for those who hoard economic wealth, to skimming the surface of open resources available from online prepping communities. Delving into the lack of depth within these social movements, the narrator, Ranger Herlihy, forewarns of the damaging effect of implicated de-prioritisation of collective scale action—that is, the point at which preparing for the potential risks brought about by environmental, economic and/or societal damage supersedes the more important task of advocating for structural and revolutionary change. 



Intended for either a long drive across country or as a pedagogical tool to disrupt lecture halls & reading groups, this audio tour utilises the scripted nature of reality survival shows and provides a participatory script to each listener and invites them to take up a single role spanning from Doomsday Prepper alumni, ‘Warrior’ Martin to ‘eco crusader,’ Al Gore. 



Beyond Survival School Bus: AUDIO TOUR (2024) is adapted from a 90-minute free bus tour performed in 2022 at Dublin Fringe Festival and adapted for an audio tour for TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2024. Beyond Survival School Bus: AUDIO TOUR (2024) was kindly supported by the Arts Council of Ireland. 

Audio, text and design by Léann Herlihy
Photographs by Niamh Barry

Audio Cassette
110 x 70 mm