QUALIA DUBLIN
ART & CULTURE MAGAZINE issue two identity
SUMMER 2015
ISSUE 2 IDENTITY, Qualia Dublin are proud to bring you our second publication to coinside with our exhibition IDENTITY at Steambox. The work selected for this issue tackles social, political enviromental issues whilst also continuing to be aesthethically gripping and creatively interesting. Thanks to all the artists and writers who helped make this issue happen. Until next time, Qualia Dublin.
Contents:
3-4 Meet the Member- Ciara Donnelly 5-8 Culture Night Special 9-10 Review: Marc Guinan at Draiocht 11-12 Jill Christine Miller 13-14 Agnieszka Bolsch 15-16 Paul Doyle -SIgnifigance Reassurance 17-18 Calebe Simoes 19-20 Ebun Black 21-22 Achraf Baznani 23-26 Justine McDonnell 27-28 Responsibility of Identity: Contrasts of two female artists 29-30 Poetry of Jane Robinson 31-32 Aine Phillips / Contour 33-34 Music Nation- Gareth Walsh recommendations 35-36 Qualia Summer Picks - Exhibitions 37-38 Book Lauch at Oonagh Yough/ Take a Peek 39-40 Qualia IDENTITY Exhibiton
MEET THE MEMBERS introducing:
CIARA DONNELLY
Ciara Donnelly’s interest lies in the identity of a landscape. By asking a series of question all relating to our perceptions of landscape and the influence of digital media, she trys to find possible solutions through her work. When the image of a landscape has been altered through the medium of digital photography, does this in turn give a new identity to the landscape? Can this digital medium allow the artist to create a unique landscapes separate to what is seen through the camera lense? By exaggerating the ability to create unique and manipulated perspectives of a landscape through digital photography, she hopes to raise questions as to how much this digital medium can effect and manipulate our opinions and perspectives on the digital images that we are immersed in on a daily basis. Does this landscape then gain a misplaced identity as it has been identified through a digital medium which has altered and manipulated its own characteristics? Ciara is entering her final year of BA Honors Degree Fine Art at DIT Grangegorman and is an active member of Qualia Dublin. She was also involved in a summer internship at Black Church Print Studios in Temple Bar.
CULTURE NIGHT 2015 As always Culture Night is setting out to be a night full of wonder & delights, with open evenings, studio visits and ways to see Dublin in a completely different light than you’ve seen it before and all for nothing. With even more spaces opening their doors to the public this year, Qualia Dublin have picked a handful of place which we think are definitely worth checking out around The Liberties Quarter and Museum Quarter on 18th of September. Liberties Historic Quarter With creative spaces such as Pallas Projects/Studios, Mothers Tankstation, Steambox, NCAD Gallery and TOG, The Liberties Historic Quarter have plenty to offer. After Head over to Anoynomous for some music, a art gallery and antique store with an eclectic mix of mid century furniture, art, curios, lighting and oddities. Or perhaps, InTransit at NCAD who present a showcase of international outdoor music and dance performances, featuring the sensational Dublin AfroBeat Ensemble supported by a selection of street spectaculars in the exact centre of Dublin’s Liberties – The Oliver Bond Street Football pitch – organised by ourfarm.ie in the National College of Art and Design. Pallas Projects/Studios 1 The Coombe, Dublin, Ireland Time:5pm – 9pm Diagrams Martin Boyle, Craig Donald, Jacqueline Holt, Colin Martin, Brigid McLeer, Bea McMahon, Elvira Santamaria Torres. Curated by Niamh McDonnellDiagrams, curated by Belfast-based academic Niamh McDonnell, is a mixed media show of work by 7 Irish and Northern Irish artists based in Belfast, Dublin and London, comprising lens-based media, drawings, paintings and sculptures. The exhibition sees each artist using the diagram to describe a previous work or to make a preliminary sketch for a new work. The show explores how the dynamic space of the diagram visualizes different sets of relations between elements and so generates multiple reading narratives.
NCAD Gallery Oliver Bond Street, Dublin, Ireland 5pm - 9pm °°(Broken Mirrors)’ is a two-person exhibition, featuring the work of artists Jonathan Mayhew and Lee Welch that broadly explores the concept and representation of the future in a contemporary context. Through the medium of print, sculpture and photography this show will speculate about both the future’s potential and legacy.
culture night
Steambox
School St, Dublin 5pm-12am Visit the Steambox Group Exhibition, Open Studio Night & Enjoy Music. Steambox is an arts resource centre of studios, galleries and classrooms, with equipment and consultation available. Steambox is a project of the Independent Museum of Contemporary Arts [IMOCA].
Mother’s Tankstation 40 Watling Street, Dublin, Ireland Time: 5pm-10pm
Lee Kit’s site specific installation at mother’s tankstation represents a jewel-like opportunity to see his work in Ireland. Born in Hong Kong, 1978 and based in Taipei, his work inherits the essence of Chinese culture while simultaneously opening to western influence and the legacy of colonialism. Working in a board range of media, including painting, drawing, video and installation, Lee Kit professedly travels with little other than his inherent cultural references, allowing his superbly sensitive practice to reflect a spontaneity of combining found or chosen objects with an emotional response to the world he finds immediately before him.
TOG 4 Chancery Lane, Dublin Time: 5pm-11pm
TOG is a hackerspace based in Dublin City Centre. It is a shared space where members have a place to be creative and work on their projects in an environment that is both inspiring and supportive of both new and old technologies.
culture night
BLOCK T Smithfield, Dublin 5pm-11pm BLOCK T is opening its doors on Culture Night to showcase the amazing work being done within its walls. BLOCK T Open Studios evening is a chance for the public to see the creative output of studio members as well as work completed by participants of the Darkroom Photography school and Skillsets creative courses. An exhibition will take place in the studio building as well as a dropin art demo and photogram workshop, with some of the studios opening their doors to allow guests a glimpse of the work that goes on there. Lighthouse Cinema Smithfield, Dublin To celebrate Culture Night and a love of cinema Light House Cinema have partenered with Niamh Geraghty of Perfectionist Confectionist along with Geraldine Arnold of Cake My Day and Philip Mullen of Kickshaw Cakes to create an exhibition of cakes around the theme of Studio Ghibli! Alongside the exhibition, Light House Cinema will be screening Ghibli classic My Neighbour Totoro throughout the evening. Come along and celebrate the great Japanese animation studio.
IMMA 14 Kilmainham Lane, Dublin 5pm-9pm IMMA is the home of the national collection of modern and contemporary art and takes responsibility for the care and maintenance of this national resource. Visit exhibitions ‘What We Call Love: From Surrealism to Now, Mise en Scène’ by Canadian artist Stan Douglas and ‘El Lissitzky: The Artist and the State’.Take part in a free drop-in family workshop 6.15 – 7.30pm, take an exhibition tour, and IMMA25 presents Culture Crawl.
Bluefire on Smithfield Square 6pm-10pm On the eve of their annual Festival, BlueFire are delighted to bring their Smithfield Summer Picnics to Culture Night, but with a twist. Bask in the glow of candlelight; enjoy live music, performances and workshops. Pack some delicious treats and join in at Smithfield Square for an evening under the stars! There may even be a few surprises in store… Bluefire create free cultural and artistic events to make the most of Dublin, its diversity and its space.
review
Painting- A new identity?
Paul Rosser review recent DIT Graduate Marc Guinan’s first solo show at Draiocht, Blanchardstown. Marc Guinan’s first solo show at Draiocht shows an investigation into the materiality of paint as a medium.The forms are free from any background support with the work intending to be read as naturally formed entities. Painting has always been viewed as a 2d medium which sits within a frame and takes up certain amount of space. Many artists have challenged this stereotype no more so than the American Minimalists, whose work has been an influence for marc’s current body of Work. These artists like Marc use simple geometric forms, a monochromatic palette and industrial materials presented in their primitive state to give a new identity for painting one which has numerous new possibilities to expand beyond the traditional frame.
Marc Guinan, “What is Painting? “Exhibition view Marc’s process involves pouring PVA glue and a variety of paints including acrylic, gloss and metal paint, emulsions, industrial grade paints and oil paint anyone with some other “stuff” as Marc calls it, is a secret mixture he has perfected over time and keeps his secret recipe close to his chest .The Mixture is poured over glass or acetate and when dry it is peeled away, cut and placed over a stretcher creating an latex like skin which has an infinite variety of presentation depending on the angle of the stretcher, allowing this material to be manipulated into many configurations of different folds giving each artwork its own identity.
Slight imperfections such as air bubbles which naturally occur during the process add to the works natural identity each sheet never quite the same but share a close similarity being made from the same material. Colour is also an indicator of identity combinations of which can either be complementary like the work “Cream” have a subtlety which blends into the background and others can be more striking like “Yellow/Purple” maintain a vividness that sets them apart from the other works giving them an open or closed personality. Each piece through colour form and texture is displaying its own unique identity like all human beings they are all made up of the same stuff but all have different traits and flaws which make up part of their identity.
Marc ‘s background in the construction industry continually enhances his process-based practice, which is grounded in painting and mainly focused through a Post Minimalist lens. This is enhanced by his recent completion of a BA Honors Degree Fine Art studies at the DIT this year. He has also been accepted for an MA in Art Research Collaboration in IADT in September where he intends to further venture into the limitless world of materiality in painting. He is currently creating experimental and sculptural forms with paint and it is his intention to stretch the boundaries of conventional thinking about painting as a medium. Always exploring colour and texture, he invite’s a dialogue of provocation through proportion, form and fracture and question’s traditional ideas around the exhibition space and its relationship to painting. His work explores the traditional limits of the physical properties of paint, pushing the boundaries between the medium, composition and modes of application whilst acknowledging the installation of the forms to be as important as the creation. Marc Guinan’s show “What is Painting..?” runs until the 3rd of October at Draocht in the Blanchardstown centre which is open Monday to Saturday 10am-6pm. So if you’re around the shopping centre why not pop over and see how painting is changing its identity into more than just a 2D medium.
Jill Christine Miller
Jill Christine Miller’s work examines an autobiographical understanding of depression and emotional reactions inherent to states of consciousness. With depression, feelings can often be masked and turned inward, which can produce a melancholy outward reaction to internal turmoil. Studying the figure in psychologically conflicted states translated into physical form is expressed through visual metaphors of stripes, shadows and distortions. The background surrounding the figure is considered as a buildup of psychological tension, Whether as physical space or a metaphorical state hovering between the mental and physical realms. With the underpainting exposed in certain areas of the canvas, the figure struggles simultaneously with transparency of self and a sense of fading into the background. Bringing human emotional identity into a physical, cohesive visual representation with paint is the aim of the work.
As an emerging artist, her work addresses depression and the process of painting in continuation of her graduate thesis exploring melancholia and the artistic temperament. She received my BFA from the University of Michigan and her MFA from the Burren College of Art through the National University of Ireland, Galway. In 2013 I was the recipient of the Valerie Earley Residency Award through Visual Artists Ireland and in 2014, the Dale Metternich Memorial Scholarship and the Old School Akureyri Grant. Her residencies include the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin, Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Monaghan, Shankill Castle in Kilkenny, Gamli Skóli in Iceland and Kunstnarhuset Messen in Norway. Upcoming events include an exhibition at Garter Lane Arts Centre in Waterford and a residency at Cill Rialaig in Kerry.
Miller’s work approaches a theme which is important and frequently avoided within visual art exploring identity. Although using a traditional medium ike painting work like Miller’s could often percieved as mundane, However we found Miller’s work to be fresh, yet ominous. Her skill in contrast between style and subject is the reason why we chose her as one of IDENTITY’s featured artists. Check out more of Jill’s work: www.jillchristinemiller.com
Agnieszka Bloch a Dublin-based artist, was born in 1978 in Torun, Poland. Graduating in 2002 with MA Philosophy, she is extremely interested in Irish Literature, especially the works of Oscar Wilde and James Joyce. The works are part of the seriescalled ‘Nosce te Ipsum/Know Thyself’ that was dealing with psychological phenomena such us: death, depression, fears,identity, etc. First work ‘IDENTITY’ deals with the concept of identity expressed in the personal construct theory. Whereas idea of who we think we are is fluid and contextual depending on ‘the other’ that we relate to. We constantly redefine ourselves within the environment. Hence we are changing and ‘we are in process’. However, I do belive in some core predisposition we carry as a seed, so we change within some borders/limits. Second work called ‘LST’ refers to our tendency to lose ourselves and be invisible to others. It might stem from various reasons such as: mental or emotional problems, confusion or just will to remain unspecified as ‘unlabelled’.
Agnieszka Bloch
Paul Doyle Signifigance Reassurance This first instalment of our series of articles I would like to concentrate on conciousness and our significance in this ever- expanding undeniably large home we call the universe being misinterpreted or slightly jaded by particular essays I have come across a few times in the recent past. And if, like me, you are the kind of person that loves having a good bit of session banther about the less mundane and dreadfully normal everyday altercations we are constantly subjected to in life, then this bit of pub ammo should surely filter that out at your next outing with your solids. Now I’m sure its all in the spirit of good science and mind bending facts about our fascinating cosmos, that essays like my own have arisen about us, being asked a particular question: ‘’Do you feel significant now?’’ after the essay illustrate’s the vastness of the cosmos and the size of our little blue planet when scaled up to our own sun. Then the sun is scaled up the another then another then another, until if my knowledge serves me right, it gets up to one of our largest stars in our galaxy, The Pistol Star, which in fairness has an impressive size of about 115 times the solar masses of the sun and generates an impressive 100 billion times more energy. It is a true superstar on the scale of things, considered that the sun is a million times the size of the earth. Then certain essays go on to compare galaxies... and their sizes... and the abundance of them... and how many stars they have...and how many earth like planets they have orbiting them that could harbour life on and so on..... So immediately you see where we’re going here! We are the humans living on a planet possibly like countless others, the planet is a speck in comparison to the sun and the then sun is tiny compared to the true galactic giants that hang around our cosmic neighbourhood littered with other galaxies waiting outside our solar system like some enormous globular space bully ready to eat us up when we finish soul school at the end of our apparently insignificant lives. Now that really is an unnerving thought, when you come to the realisation that we really are an small planetary civilisation within a vast ocean of stars and galaxies, that we almost just couldn’t imagine given the size, scale and distance of things on the universal platform. But size isn’t everything or so says the man with rather small lunch-box. And for that reason, I’m going to attempt to turn this example of our place in the cosmos on it’s head by reminding you of just how significant YOU actually are. For a start I know there is one of essays that has small piece at the end about humans being unique and the chances of us being born are one in a couple of billion and so on so forth.Which is true and its fine we know that but given the amount of times humans have reproduced one could be forgiven for thinking that our own birth or existence is somewhat of a tiny drop in a big sea. Also it is at the end of the essays, and a lot of people may not always get that far. I’m guilty of it myself and we all do it click into a web page, look the colourful pictures, read the two sentence facts and boom! We’re gone. So if you’ve read this far, I’m guessing you haven’t got any intention to leave me now, so hang in there and lets proceed. This is where it gets weird! Now first and foremost I think its worth noting that are place in the universe is quite significant simple based on of the fact that we are the only self-aware life that we know of that are able to have these interactions with our fellow brothers and sisters of our species on such a conscious playing field.Which brings us straight to the next point. What is self awareness? Is it the introspective of a human’s consciousness? And then what is conciousness? Is it a bi-product of the resulting thoughts and feelings caused by chemical and electrical signals interpreted by the brain of a particular mammal?And more importantly where did conscious self awareness arise in humans? These are the burning questions have plagued philosophers ,cosmologists and astronomers for thousands of years so we wont go too deep into it simple because simple we don’t have the answers yet. Nevertheless people as intuitive animals will try ever possible scenario to dissect our reality to come up with conclusive answers about our existence. Purely because its the nature of the beast! We want to know! We need to know! Some of us are blessed with the curse! It’s an elusive answer we may never find on this side of reality?.Maybe when we join the big cosmic gig in the sky we may only find out the true nature of ourselves. We are victims of our own self awareness as I like to put it in a rather grim but humorous tone. However, we have a pretty good idea of how consciousness arose so far I suppose. Just like the Big Bang we can only get so far back before the very fabric of what we know and have proved with maths and physics decides to melt away and not make sense any more. This is the story with self awareness and consciousness, in a sense that we know where conscious we know we’re here, we know we have self-awareness, we know how certain parts of the brain function. However, the more we try get to the root of it, the more we realise that we just really don’t know how or why the brain works on these conscious levels of awareness or why, for example, we have free will. Or even why the universe billions of years into its existence decided at one stage to start evolution, on a path to bind together trillions of atoms to make a complex organism known as the brain, that’s in the drivers seat of a remarkable flesh vessel, (your body!)
So what make you significant? Well, as it turns out, you (yeah! you!) are a self-reflecting expression of the universe looking back out on itself. Now that sentence may require some thinking, but basically what it means is that, every time you look out into the void of the cosmos and ask yourself why you are here or what’s it all about, you are basically a piece of the universe asking itself a question because you are not here and the universe is not out there. There’s an amazing connection. The building blocks of your being are inherently intertwined with the cosmos and everything you’ve ever known. The very atoms that made you were born inside of a star billions of years ago, then it exploded, scattering it’s enriched guts all over the galaxy where stellar nursery’s were created by the fundamental forces of nature. Were a solar system spawned with a planet, that ended up containing the right conditions for complex life to arise! The iron in your blood that courses through your veins at this very moment was created inside of a star before it went supernova all those years ago! You are a star child of the milky way galaxy. OK, so your already starting to feel a little bit special aren’t you? Fast forward a few billion years shortly after the Earth’s formation 4.38 billion years ago to a period called the late heavy bombardment. A time when asteroids and comets rained down from the heavens and are thought to have brought with them at least 80% of the worlds most precious resource... water! And we’re almost certain that around this time the earth collided with another planet to give it its 23.5 degree tilt, which regulates the planets seasons and gave us our moon (this is paramount in our evolution). Now, in this time, the earth would have being an inhospitable ball of moulting rock and erupting volcanoes and shifting tectonic plates. But after the late heavy bombardment, when the earth became more ordered about 3.8 billion years ago the earth was a blue planet on the verge of radical biological change. And in the depths of our oceans life began to find a way were single and multi cellular organisms arose and initiated the precursor for the Cambrian explosion a half a billion years later. The Cambrian explosion could very well be the driving force of the complexity and biological diversity of where the earth’s species got to today. The current projections for every species on the planet is 1.7 million that includes bird, fish, insects, plants and mammals. But where did the intelligent brain we possess come from? Where did self awareness come from? When did evolution decide our faith would change from tree dwelling primates into a self-aware forward-thinking species that drove us from living in tree’s to travelling into space. The answer could lie in a baffling theory known as The Pulse Climate Variability Theory, proposed in 2009, which basically explains that weather and climate condition in the Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia, on three particular dates 1.8 million years ago , 1 million years ago and 200’000 years ago, corresponds to studies of the brain size of fossils of primates at these times. It was then they had to overcome adverse weather conditions and it forced them out of the tree’s to migrate and adapt to the conditions imposed by the climate. In turn could have lead to the increase of brain capacity and intelligence. If this is correct this means that the change in climate was driven by the motion of the planets, and the earth, around the sun on these particular dates and this lead to the next stage in the evolution of our intelligence. Have a little think about that for moment. Even the precise motion of our solar system drove the us in the direction of highly evolved mammals. Now I’ll be honest, the events I’m pointing out in this essay are over-simplified, but you can see the picture I’m trying to paint here. What makes these events so significant for us as a species, is the fact that it has drove and led our understanding of our place in the universe as a conscious entity. Our understanding of our place in the universe is changing in a phenomenal direction. We know now from studying the strange world of quantum theory, that human consciousness is an important attribute in constructing a three dimensional reality around us. Particles that form our reality behave a certain way unless they are being observed or measured. We literally affect the reality we live in by observing it. You can take comfort in knowing, that our understanding of conciousness has being re-thought, regurgitated and redefined in a relativity short amount of time. It’s an exciting and interesting time to be alive in relation to the history of consciousness and understanding of the universe. So the chances of you being here are so mind-bending and rare that even if one of these events I pointed out hadn’t have been the case, you simple wouldn’t exist, your mind wouldn’t exist and your thoughts wouldn’t exist! You are the sum of a multitude of scenarios that lead to your extremely bizarre existence. It is safe to say that we are extremely lucky to be here and I’m all for science... but I genuinely believe that the events that have taken place that lead to our natural existence aren’t a mistake or the roll of the dice. There must benevolent invisible forces at work here. I don’t believe you are just here by chance.The universe needs to figure itself out. Why come into existence at all without being able to marvel at its own grandeur. The reality of all this means that no matter how we scale up to size in the universe or whether we are just a random act of intelligent design based a series of extremely lucky events in nature, you as a human being on this planet are anything but insignificant.You, right here and now, are an amazing expression of a 13.8 billion year old ancient life force carved out by a chain of almost unfathomable well-timed events in a cosmic grand design, within a universe fine tuned for life that depends on your consciousness to make sense of itself. Because, ultimately you are the universe experiencing itself which ever way you look at it. So can you identify with your significance now?
Calebe Simões
Calebe Simoes is a Brazilian artist. He has been working for over 12 years with photography focusing on fashion, beauty, gastronomy, portraits and concerts for magazines and advertising. In 2008 he held a solo exhibition at Chivas Studio. He was awarded the best experimental video in Festcine Amazonia with the collective video ‘Almost Every Day São Paulo ‘( “Quase todos os Dias São Paulo”). Since then he has participated in many collective exhibitions in Brazil, Argentina, Spain and Northern Ireland.
LAST PARTY
I found years ago some photo albums in the dustbin from a building at São Paulo, Brazil. There were pictures taken by amateur photographer at Carnival party in 1980 in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After collecting and editing the material I “rephotographed” them and the flash produced a sphere that hide the faces of the people, as an artificial explosion, which also references the glitter and confetti in the Carnival festivities. This work seeks to redefine old photographic archives, taking off the images of the first situation in which they were captured, as well as to think about the relationship between Carnaval and sexuality in Brazil.
Keep an eye on our blog and website for our video interview with Calebe, where he will be explaining his upcoming projects. To see more of Calebe’s work visit : Site: www.calebesimoes.com Blog: http://www. calebesimoes. blogspot.ie/
Ebun Black Born and raised in Dublin, Ebun Black has been turning heads for some time. Now living in Brighton, just finished her BA Honors degree in Fashion Media and Promotion at Northbrook College, Ebun is gaining recognition in the industry, all in just a few years. She has worked at London Graduate Fashion week with some of the UK’s top upcoming designers, and modelled for names such as Gold Magpie and Guerilla Fashion III by Laura Woof. When she’s not busy working at Brighton’s sweetest music spot The Green Door Store, she’s selling the slickest of vintage threads with her online project Birds Of Prey, or shooting for their lookbooks on their website. Ebun began her journey here in Dublin, at Marino College of Further Education. While Dublin will always be her home, and the place where she found her unique and eccentric style, Brighton is the place where began to get the recognition she deserves while still having the freedom to work on smaller creative projects.
In this issue we feature Ebun’s ‘The Faceless Generation’. The work explores how diversity should no longer be an issue within fashion as our generation is slowly furthering itself from discrimination & institutionalized racism. The black and white nature of the shoot plays with the subject matter in a direct, yet subtle way. Oladeru’s work looks at issues that are so relevant in society today, especially for the younger generation’s who are still in conflict with the prejudices that plagued our ancestors. The work comments on an on-going conversation that will continue to be had until equality of race and gender is absolute within all industries. To see more of Ebun’s work visit her site. www.birdsofprey.co.uk
Achraf Baznani
Moroccan photographer and filmmaker Achraf Baznani (Born in Marrakesh) carries on the traditions of Surrealism with his wild, imaginative, and wholly impractical imagery. Among his inventive scenarios, small human figures -often the artist himself- appear trapped within glass jars or the size of a camera lens; in other works, Baznani more or less dissects his body, as for example, in one, he cleanly removes his brain from his cranium, or in another, twists off his hand, much as if it were a light bulb. Imparted throughout such works are strong senses of humor and wonder, and as such, Baznani’s art offers a Surrealistic take on life experience in the digital age. A self-taught artist, Baznani has no formal photography education. See more: www.baznani.com
COVER ARTIST
JUSTINE MCDONNELL
Justine McDonnell uses performance and video to offer an unsettling, uneasy exploration regarding the inequalities women are subjected to within Irish society and institutions of incarceration. The unravelling of individual testimonies and a struggle for communication immerses the viewer in a challenging world posing aesthetic questions of human suffering, identity, acceptance, tolerance and the disruption of language. Her work transforms the memories of oppression, shame and humiliation into actions where the female body is a site of endurance and struggle against dominant ideologies. Justine is interested in how stories of trauma may be constructed and encountered within the context of contemporary art. She is interested in developing contextual relationships that “the body� may have with different kinds of objects, media and materials as she progresses with her practice. Her use of live performance and various staging techniques portrays a way of artistically rendering the invisible and voiceless through a verbal and bodily experience. Throughout her use of video, loss of identity, restriction and refrained movements are explored through the use of framing. Justine uses video to explore manipulation of the live performance, challenging duration and how a performance may be encountered, constructed, framed and repeated. Inspired by the experimental nature of Samuel Beckett’s theatre works, Justine invites the viewer to engage theatrically with the work, extending the perspective that perhaps the cinematic or theatrical offering alone cannot.
Justine McDonnell has recently completed her BA (Hons) in Fine Art from the Dublin Institute of Technology and has been accepted for her MFA in The University of Ulster, Belfast. She has performed one of her works at “Livestock” with Market Studios and was featured in a group performance as part of Amanda Coogans contribution to “Live Collision” with The Project Arts Centre. For more on Justine’s work see www.justinemcdonnell.com
RESPONSIBILITIES OF IDENTITY Maria O’Donavan and Samantha Conlon are two of our featured artists with work that examines the importance of woman in society and how positive and negative circumstance of tradition are dealt with through visual art practice.
MARIA O’DONOVAN
THIS IS MY BODY II Ink & Lipstick on White Bread
Words and Hearts should be handled with care’ - Mixed Media Print
I grew up in a very remote rural area in Co. Tipperary, Ireland where tradition was valued and extremely important; the traditions of farming, story telling, of catholic religion, of crafts, of home baking and of resourcefulness. Growing up in this rural community on a small family run farm, the concepts of tradition and preserving tradition have always been strong themes within my work. As a female Irish artist I also feel the need to express what it is to be an Irish female in today’s society. I often use the figure and how the body can be represented as a platform for my work. I utilise traditional craft techniques in conjunction with new media practices and unusual medium to create original personal work. Whether they resonate with others is subjective. For me the use of white sliced bread accentuates the role of preservation; the importance of preserving our customs, traditions and our heritage whilst making a firm reference to the role of religion. The symbolic and cultural importance of bread has also become a real ingredient in my recent body of work.
SAMANTHA CONLON DAUGHTERS Before the media or society ever gets to a child the first construction of their identity is by their family. In a very natural way children become who they are by observing their surrounding environment and mimicking what they see. A mother can shape a human into any type of being with her own habits and projections; everyone dresses their daughters in tiny new pink clothes, as a signifier, so the new mother does too. Within the family unit girls seem to be socialized as ‘soft’ or‘sensitive’ beings, we allow them the freedom of vulnerability and intimacy. This could be said for sons too, but what I found most interesting was how later in life daughters were still afforded this luxury. The access to touch, to constructed rituals which allow them to get close to each other. The touching of the face when applying make up for one another, the almost ancient ritual of plaiting another girls hair, the casual dressing and undressing together. These situations afford women the intensity of intimacy which seems closed off to men because of it’s inherent signs of ‘femininity’. These signifies of femininity eventually turn into something trivial, along the way somewhere ‘soft’ and ‘sensitive’ become negative attributes. DAUGHTERS aims to show a portrait of softness as strength, to elevate the female experience and to show how important these intimacies and rituals between girls are to development.
Samantha Conlon, b.1990 London. Based in Cork City. Creator and curator of Bunny Collective, an all female artist collective aiming to showcase the work of emerging artists from Ireland, Uk, United Arab Emirates and South Korea. For more see: bunnycollective.com/
POETRY CORNER Jane Robinson lives in Dublin and won the Strokestown International Poetry Prize in 2014. Her work has been published in The Stinging Fly, Southword, CanCan, Science Meets Poetry, The Sunday Tribune, Census, Magma, Abridged and Poetry Ireland Review.
ON FORGETTING WHO YOU ARE I’m tearing another you out of a magazine. You look tireder than I expected with a notebook pressed between arm and ribs, those honeycombs recently tattooed. Wool hair frames your face made up to something shaped, deep lines by the mouth suggesting a puppet. Scooped out behind the clavicle, a hollow collects rain. See the bird cling on your net-hat’s brim waiting, perhaps, for fish to be drawn in. Textured under this hat, networks of neurons say book, hand, smoke, sky.
Jane Robinson
UNTITLED COLOUR FIELDS The dry chalky feel of your pigments scattering around the horizon line plumb on its side gazing across linen fields a bone-black fence breaking the back of your free and lovely ideas, your icon hand pressed with cadmium sulphides, synthetic oxides and powdered alloys. Always returning to the stone in your throat the fence across unfettered, opened space.
Jane Robinson ----------------------------------------------------------------------
LOOKING GLASS Too soon, they said, for nervous collapse. He paints her hunched and hesitant, about to dart, kingfisher to silver fish, wool-gatherer to barbed wire fence. Closing every door in that old house he clings to the wall and creeps down stairs, cantilevered and not too strong, from a room where the books instruct. Place your tin sheet on a stone table Rub in quicksilver with a hare’s leg. Pour on thick layer of the same metal. Float a plate of glass onto the layer. They say a mirror is dangerous to she who makes it, as well as to he who reflects himself. He’s taken down her image, turned its face to the wall.
Jane Robinson
AINE PHILLIPS
Aine Phillips, a cork-bred songwriter and musician, has been penetrating the Irish music scene over the past year. With a distinct husky tone and her toying with funk, soul and rock vibes, her album with bells on is one to watch out for. Qualia Dublin interviews her talking inflences, routine and video concepts.
L)Your music touches on a few genres, which style of music did you grow up listening to, or do you reckon that had any influences on your work today? A)Well it wasnt as easy getting your hands on music growing up. I was lucky to have an older cousin from Australia who visited and gave my brother AC/DC tapes. I loved them as a small girl, no kylie for me. I listened to alto and recorded so much different things off the radio with a tape player. I kept my own style and always did thing my own may, not on purpose it just happended that way. I may be lucky I never heard the Eddie vedder voice till I had developed my own. some people sing with this twang and I often feel it inhibits their range. L)The music industry attempts to mould people into what they think the public wants to see, or the music they believe is popular. The creative element is obviously quite important to you, how do you keep yourself true to your music and your ideas? A)I had to get tough skin!! The things they tell you in LA is crazy. but New York was all about being yourself. I cant help but be tru to myself, cos whatever comes out is what I use, people have the choice if they like it or not, I wont shove anythihng down peoples throuts. My music is always a little journey from the start of the song to the end. My friend in New york said to me..... «make sure you ahve a long runway before you take off, then you can stay up longer» L) Alot of writers and visual artists have a schedule when it comes to working daily on a project. Do you feel you need to prepare, sit down and really push yourself to get working on a project/tune/lyrics, or do they come naturally to you? Do you have a routine when it comes to working? A)The routine, along with most people self employed people etc, is you are always working!! If I get an idea I put it in my phone. I don’t say ok tomorrow at 5 I must write..... I write even while im asleep. I read alot and write down ideas in a book at any point of the day/night. I have more of a routine for recording, booking gigs, rehearsal, proposals, travel schedule,videos,Press tours. etc. But not for the creative thing. L)Your videos are interesting, do you bounce ideas off anybody else, or do you come up with the creative concept for them? A) I have ideas always but now i am getting my stride and confidence to be more verbal. I was lucky to be introduced to Maurice Supple of blue shed productions and he was totally on the same wave length as me. I told him, if there is rain and much while we are filming, I want to see that rain and mud splashing, if my hands bleed I want to see that too! As they say «keeping it real.»
KEEP AN EYE ON
CONTOUR
Contour have been causing shockwaves across the Irish electronic music scene for the past year and a half, with their debut EP chaos theories landing them support of label Champion Records and numerous gigs across the country. If you didn’t catch them at Electric Picnic last year, you may have at Life Festival, Longitude or Knockanstockan, where they tore the place asunder with their bass-heavy melodic delights and insightful lyrics. With Anna Doran on vocals and Conan Wynne on the equipment, the duo are set to release their second EP ‘Blessed with weird things’ later on this year. The chaotic, agressive yet beautiful sounds confuse and astound, yet are without a doubt the one of the freshest you’ll hear in Dublin as of yet. The genre is open to interpretation, and the mix of soulful vocals and harsh industrial will sure have you hook after the first track. You can pre-order Blessed with Weird Things now on pledgemusic.com/projects/blessedwithweirdthings, and listen to Chaos Theories on soundcloud.com/contour-music.
Image credits: Contour Music
MUSIC NATION
Gareth Walsh talks the price of beer, being terrified of cameras in Berghain, and where to get a slice of the action in Dublin this month.
Grat
image credit: resident advisor
This section is coming to you from a bed in Berlin. A week of 70¢ beers, 24 hour license kiosks and clubs, and kebabs has finally caught up with me. It’s pretty hard to find an empty bottle during the night because they are all being picked up and recycled for cold hard coins. It goes without saying the best I have seen so far is the almighty concrete adult’s playground that is Berghain. We arrived at 2am on the Saturday to find a 5 hour queue. It was not worth the risking waiting it out only to be refused. We went to session at a kiosk until 5am and returned. After a half hour, and chaining our bags to our bikes, we were in. The first thing you notice is how meticulous they are with searching. They take your phones and place stickers over the cameras. It makes sense, because the second thing you notice is the cloakroom queue. It’s people taking off what little clothes they already have on and moving upstairs. There’s a huge emphasis on being comfortable with being yourself. Sometimes the last place you would like that version of yourself to end up is in the public eye. Inside Berghain, you are safe. It’s painfully dark upstairs. I was expecting the sound to be a bit overbearing at times but it is as clear and crisp at it gets. Not a frequency out off place. The kicks travel from the speaks into your chest and try to beat their way out. No matter where you stand, the sound is perfect. Upstairs in the Panorama bar the sun is up, but while we are there the shutters are down. It’s 28 degrees outside already. The garden is open, the bathrooms are unisex so there never seems to be a queue. What can Dublin take from all of this? I think the license time part is most important. Because of the fact you can buy a beer at any time of day or night, it seems to remove the whole concept of binge drinking. There is no pressure. You’re not desperately sprinting to the nearest petrol station for an €8 bottle of piss that you’re going to see again shortly in some form or another. There is always somewhere to go. Drinking on the streets is not illegal and many shops and kiosks have seating outside. But Berghain is a paradise and 130bpm reigns supreme. A sea of people churning in a concrete stomach. Expect queues, paying €15 in, podiums, jockstraps and not seeing one person on their phone all night. Expect a pat down more intimate than any airport experience and a very well built German frau stamping your arm. Do not check the time once you’re in there and you won’t be disappointed. If you want a taste of Berlin direct from Dublin this month, Marcel Dettmann is taking over District 8 in the Tivoli on the 28th(€18-€22). Sim Simma are hosting an all day summer party in the Sugar Club on the 23rd. Yoga, dancehall dancing lessons, ping pong, and a Simma Dinnah are all on the menu. It could be the last real glimpse of summer we see for a while so get to it. If you are lucky enough to be heading to Electric Picnic try to catch some of the homegrown talent before they take off and you’re left saying «Ah yeah, but they were better when i saw them last year». New Jackson is playing on Sunday at the RBMA stage. Meltybrains? are playing the Body & Soul stage at some point. Last year when I saw them Brian got on the roof, who knows what will happen this time. Jape has a brand new show off the back of his superb This Chemical Sea release. From further afield Battles are back with even more loops and Jon Hopkins is sure to make you blind judging by his Glastonbury set. I promise it will be worth it.
As far as music releases go Mac Demarco just released an 8 track Mini-LP entitled Another One, filled with classic Mac lovesick-pop-belters. If you search for «Some Other Ones» on Youtube you will find a half our of instrumental b-sides from the release. Dublin’s own Girl Band are set to release their first full length LP next month entitled Holding Hands With Jamie on the 25th. There’s a new video on the way very soon and if it’s anything to go by from the last one directed by Bob Gallagher, it’s gonna be great. Koreless just released on of the best electronic tracks of the year last week called TT if you want something to run very fast to. If you are on Spotify subscribe to Jamie XX’s own personal «Played by Jamie XX» for some regularly updated nuggets. Other than that, start saving. Move to Berlin.
QUALIA SUMMER PICKS RUARED- Approaching the Landscape Runs until August 31st
A show ran by the RUARED Young Curators project,curated by Matthew Fitzgerald, Rachael Kennedy and Sarah Usher. The project allows the curators to conduct studio visits to discuss the work and make a selection for the show. With work from Niall De Buitlear, Margaret Corcoran, Lili Heller, Jason Deans and Conor Mary Foy, the show looks at converging artist and work examining the changing space around us, and how they respond to it. With intricate wood carving and a masked video performance, surely one we reccomended to visit before August is over.
Douglas HydeUIGI GHIRRI / ALEANA EGAN - ‘SHAPES FROM LIFE’ Runs until September 30th Ghirri’s work is small, simple and engaging, with a seeming nostalgic notion. Photographing banalities from the 70’s, the artist looked to make strange what was so normal to the rest of the world. An interesting look at material memory from Alena Egan, with a canopy sculpture which eludes to fleeting moments. Two very contrasting styles on display, but worth a look all the same.
The Dock Galley – Leitrim Water Conversations - Anna Mcleod Runs until September 12th Anna Mcleod’s solo show looks at our environmental impact on the landscape. The show is an amalgamation of the research focusing on the politics, traditions and practices surrounding water in a variety of global communities. The show includes an interesting video performance involving walking across a frozen lake. Showing different elements of her practice including sculpture/video/carving and craftwork produced over the last 8 years (2007-2015), the exhibition runs until September 12th in The Dock, Leitrim, Ireland.
Temple bar Gallery Display Show Runs until August 29th The show looks at the manifestations of display and exhibition. With innovative display and great use of the windows, the show promises to make you question ways of display, while educating you on historical importance of the study of display.
Anna Mcleod Water Conversations
Exhibition Picks
Uigi Ghrri at The Douglas Hyde Gallery
IMMA Stan DouglasMise en Scène Runs until September 20th In these works, Douglas has closely interwoven music, film, theatre, photography, and digital formats, allowing them simultaneously to be associated with various forms of media, and together they provide both a rich introduction to an artist whose investigations into mistaken identity and unstable memory, reconstruction, reinvention and the long shadows the past cast into the present, make him one of the most interesting and important artists of our time. Curated by Seamus Kealy.
Trinity Science Gallery Secret Runs until November 1st Questioning our views on privacy and many interactive exhibits which engage the viewer.
Gater Lane Arts Centre Ainmhithe -Ronan O Reilly Runs until September 24th With microscopic detail and storytelling, O’Reilly’s work provides so much in a subtle manner. Vivid Colour and texture captivates the viewer, drawing you in to examine the work more closely, by which time your probably already engrossed in the narrative.
Ronan O’Reilly at Gater Lane Arts Centre
book launch
Dragana Jurisic’s YU: The Cost Country at Oonagh Young Gallery ROSIE MC KINNEY Qualia (also) attended the book launch of Dragana Jurisic’s YU: The Cost Country at Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin on the 5th of August 2015. The book is designed by Oonagh Young Design HQ and printed by MM Artbook Printing and Repro, Luxemburg. “With the disappearance of Yugoslavia in 1991 [the] Yugoslavs vanished, like the citizens of Atlantis, into the realm of imaginary places and people”. YU: The Lost Country YU: The Lost Country explores, the construction and destruction or disappearance of a National, Cultural and Personal Identity. Jurisic has an ability to display intimacy and empathy while still creating a weighted presence of a past nation in her photographs through colour, landscape and composition. YU’ is based on the 1941 book Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Anglo-Irish writer Rebecca West, Jurisic uses West’s journey as a framework and re-interprets the book though photography in order to create this contemporary memorial.
Take a peek at ... The amazing installation work of Sarawut Chutiwongpeti www.chutiwongpeti.info/
Digital collage work of www.agentxart.com
QUALIA DUBLIN
Qualia Dublin presents IDENTITY at Steambox. Following the success of SPACE/s at Pallas Projects/Studios, Qualia Dublin return with a second group show, with 6 of the 8 members exhibiting new work. The group’s works addresses contemporary ideas of the communication and interpretation of identity. How we identify with society, as artists, as citizens, with our cityscape and with the digital world are all questions raised within Qualia Dublin’s second group show. The work looks to create conversations and engage the viewer in discussion; who or what, solidifies identity? What internal or external factors affect identity? Is an individual the sole owner/creator of their identity? Do society and our Government have the ability to change a persons identity? The artists exhibiting are currently Fine Art students entering their final year at The School of Creative Arts, DIT Grangegorman. The artists exhibiting are Laura Skehan, Rose-Ann McKinney, Paul Rosser, Sarah O’Keeffe, Ciara Donnelly, Michael Mangan and Emily Mc Gardle. Working with a range of media, including video, performance, print and installation and sculpture, the artists attempt to provide possible solutions to the questions raised through visual art. The show will open on Thursday 20th August 18.00 - 21.00. Come join us to preview the show and for some light refreshments. The show will continue from Friday 21st August until Saturday 29th August. Gallery opening hours. 11.00 - 19.00 Daily
Qualia Dublin Magazine 2015