Visual Artists' News Sheet - 2015 July August

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet issue 4 July – August 2015 Published by Visual Artists Ireland Ealaíontóirí Radharcacha Éire

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FREE TO APPLY £2000 prize for the winner £250 prizes for four runners up The five selected artists will be shown in an exhibition Deadline for entries: 5pm Monday 31 August Selection panelists include: Sarah Glennie (IMMA), Peter Richards (Golden Thread), Patrick Murphy (RHA) Application Process Please ensure your entry meets the following criteria: Only applications made through the online system will be considered. No art works (originals, copies or images) should be physically sent unless requested.

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About Suki Tea In 2005, Annie and Oscar set up a stand at a small farmer’s market in Belfast. Having both wandered through Asia, their eyes were opened to a world of really (really) good ethically-sourced teas, which they wanted to share with everyone. And so it began. A decade later, the Belfast-based team still sources ethically and blends big, flavourful, loose leaf teas, herbal infusions and fruit blends from all over the world. Today, Annie and Oscar still lead the team. They are focused on growing a sustainable business for all by supporting communities, both at source and at home. Having a historic relationship with VAI through the Open Studio project of 2014, Suki Tea recognised the need for support in the arts community and so the Suki Tea Arts Prize idea was formed.

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4

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

Editorial

Contents

Welcome to the July – August 2015 Visual Artists’ News Sheet. In this issue we present the first iteration of VAI’s 20:20 Vision project, comprising responses to the question ‘What do you want from the art world?’, gathered by Glenn Holman and Andy Parsons at VAI’s Get Together 2015. VAI are creating the first longterm vision document dedicated to individual artists, informed via a research programme of artist peergroup gatherings.

As ever, the VAN focuses on the contexts in which visual artists work and live. Participants in the Arts Council’s Curator-in-Residence programme reflect on the scheme’s benefits to artists. Michaële Cutaya reports on ‘Nimble Spaces, Ways To Live Together’ (Visual, Carlow), a conference on creative strategies for housing, and Rob Hilken discusses ‘Developing Creative Practice Across Borders’, a seminar showcase for this trans-European exchange project.

Our columnists present a bouquet of issues and ideas. Jonathan Carroll wonders Who’s afraid of performance art?. Tara Byrne alerts us to ageism and cognitive dissonance. Joanne Laws introduces FOOTFALL, a survey of Irish artist-led organisations. Chris Clarke writes about curating Newfoundland and Labrador’s representation at Venice.

In a report on our Professional Development Programme, our project partners reflect on how and why they work with VAI. Details of upcoming Professional Development Programme workshops, peer reviews and seminars are on page 35. North Down and Ards gets the regional profile treatment. Reports from the Arts Office, Seacourt Print Workshop and artists Jo Hatty, Sharon Regan and Lee Boyd offer insights into visual arts resources and activities. Other regional focuses include Catherine Harty’s round up of visual arts issues and activity in Cork and Northern Ireland Manager Rob Hilken’s consideration of digital art practices in Northern Ireland. Two new venues are profiled: the Social Studios and Gallery, Derry and An Táin Arts Centre, Dundalk.

Reviewed in Critique section are: Basic Space at 126, Galway; Gabhann Dunne, The LAB; ‘I will go there, take me home’, the MAC, Belfast; Kathy Prendergast, Crawford Gallery, Cork and Daniel Chester, Paul Roy and Gary Robinson, Luan Gallery, Athlone.

Suzanne’s Mooney’s career development article reflects on her move to Japan, while photographer George Robb outlines his recent shift to becoming a full-time artist. ‘How is it Made?’ articles include ‘Making Metal Sing’, an interview with sculptor Jane Murtagh and Karla Black discussing her IMMA exhibition, which utilises cosmetics and craft materials.

We also showcase varied modes of collaborative / public art practice. Helen O’Donoghue interviews artist Bernie Masterson about her work in prison education. Fiona Whelan considers the motivations and thinking behind her book Ten: Territory, Encounter & Negotiation: A Critical Memoir. Cliona Harmey outlines the making of Dublin Ships, a generative systems-based public artwork for Dublin’s Docklands and Denis Roche profiles ‘Panchaea’, a two-year engagement with mental health service users in Carlow County.

And of course there is more: exhibition and public art roundups, news from the sector and various current opportunities.

1. Cover Image. Cliona Harmey, Dublin Ships, installed February 2015 North Wall Quay Dublin. Commis

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sioned by Dublin City Council, photo by Ros Kavanagh 5. Column. Chris Clarke. Scratching the Surface.

6. Column. Joanne Laws. Articulating Value.

7. Column. Jonathan Carroll. Who’s Afraid of Performance Art? 8. Column. Tara Byrne. Ageism & Cognitive Dissonance.

10. Regional Profile. North Down: Resources & Activities. Arts Office, Jo Hatty, Seacourt Print Workshop, Sharon Regan, Lee Boyd.

13. Conference. Homes & Possibilities. Michaële Cutaya reports on ‘Nimble Spaces, Ways To Live Together’ at Visual, Carlow.

14. VAI Activity. 20:20 Vision. Responses to the question ‘What do you want from the Art World’ gathered by Glenn Holman and Andy Parsons at VAI’s Get Together 2015.

16. Career Development. Balance & Momentum. Suzanne Mooney discusses her art career.

17. Profile. Dialogues & Mediations. The Arts Council’s Curator in Residence scheme.

18. Art in Public. Insider Witness. Fiona Whelan outlines the motivations and thinking behind Ten: Territory, Encounter & Negotiation, A Critical Memoir.

19. Critique. Basic Space at 126, Galway; Gabhann Dunne, The LAB; ‘I will go there, take me home’ MAC, Belfast; Kathy Prendergast, Crawford; Daniel Chester, Paul Roy and Gary Robinson, Luan.

23. Career Development. It’s Never Too Late. George Robb outlines his recent shift to becoming a full-time artist.

24. VAI Activity. Responsive Synergies. Partner organisations and VAI’s Professional Development Programme.

25. Profile. Consciously Experimental. Declan Sheehan introduces the Social Studios and Gallery, Derry.

26. How Is It Made? Making Metal Sing. David Lilburn interviews Jane Murtagh.

27. How is it made? If You Shout, No One Listens. Karla Black talks to VAI about her IMMA exhibition.

28. Art in Public: Self Encounters. Helen O’Donoghue interviews artist Bernie Masterson about her work in prison education.

29. Art in Public. Circulation and Exchange. Cliona Harmey outlines the making of Dublin Ships, a public artwork for Dublin’s Docklands.

30. Profile. Local and National. Introducing An Táin arts centre, Dundalk.

31. Conference. Irish Invasion. Rob Hilken reports on the ‘Developing Creative Practice Across Borders’ symposium.

32. Art in Public. Collective Imagining. Denis Roche discusses ‘Panchaea: In Search of an Equal Utopia and a Willing Suspension of Disbelief’, made in collaboration with Brian Maguire, Emma Finucane and people using mental health services in Co. Carlow.

33. VAI Regional. Positioning & Location. Catherine Harty offers a Spring roundup of visual arts issues and activity in Cork.

33. VAI Northern Ireland Manager. Technology Enthusiasts. Rob Hilken considers digital art practices in Northern Ireland.

34. Public Art Roundup. Public art commissions, site-specific works, socially engaged practice and various other forms of art outside the gallery.

35. VAI Professional Development. Current and upcoming workshops, peer reviews and seminars.

36. Opportunities. All the latest grants, awards, exhibition calls and commissions.

Production: Editor: Jason Oakley. Assistant Editor: Lily Power. News / Opportunities: Emer Marron, Adrian Colwell. Invoicing: Bernadette Beecher.

Contributors: Chris Clarke, Joanne Laws, Jonathan Carroll, Tara Byrne, Patricia Hamilton, Jo Hatty, Seacourt Print Workshop, Sharon Regan, Lee Boyd, Michaële Cutaya, Andy Parsons, Glen Holman, Suzanne Mooney, Fiona Whelan, Colm Desmond, Áine Phillips, Ben Crothers, Mary Catherine Nolan, Susan Campbell, George Robb, Declan Sheehan, David Lilburn, Jane Murtagh, Jason Oakley, Karla Black, Helen O’Donoghue, Bernie Masterson, Cliona Harmey, Elaine Cronin, Rob Hilken, Denis Roche, Catherine Harty.

Contact: Visual Artists Ireland, Ground Floor, Central Hotel Chambers, 7–9 Dame Court, Dublin 2 T: (353) 01 672 9488 E: info@visualartists.ie W: visualartists.ie Board of Directors: Linda Shevlin (Chair), Naomi Sex, Mary Kelly, David Mahon, Maoiliosa Reynolds, Niamh McCann, Donall Curtin, Richard Forrest.

Staff: CEO / Director: Noel Kelly. Office Manager: Bernadette Beecher. Publications Manager: Jason Oakley.

Assistant Editor: Lily Power. Advocacy Programme Officer: Alex Davis. Professional Development Officer: Monica Flynn. Communications Officers: Niamh Looney, Emer Marron. Book-keeping: Dina Mulchrone.

Membership Services Officer / Listings Editor: Adrian Colwell. Northern Ireland Manager: Rob Hilken (rob@ visualartists-ni.org). West of Ireland Representative: Aideen Barry (aideenbarry@gmail.com).

The views expressed in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, do not necessarily reflect those of the Editors, Editorial Panel or Visual Artists Irelands’ Board of Directors.

Visual Artists Ireland is the registered trading name of The Sculptors’ Society of Ireland. Registered Company No. 126424.

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

Column

Chris Clarke

5

Roundup

curated by the Olivier Cornet Gallery (1

for communication,” the press release

391 Days

– 13 June) which featured works by

noted, and “considers identity and the

Yanny Petters and Tondo artists Eve

self whilst addressing the artist’s personal

Parnell, Gerard Cox and Eoin Mac

experience of dyslexia”.

Scratching the Surface The invitation to curate ‘Under the Surface’, Newfoundland and Labrador’s official representation at the 56th Venice Biennale, came as something of a surprise. I had been back last year to give a couple of lectures in my home city of St John’s and arranged to meet Mireille Egan, the curator of the province’s inaugural pavilion in 2013 under the auspices of the Terra Nova Art Foundation. In the course of the conversation, she mentioned that they were interested in participating in the 2015 Biennale and asked whether I had any thoughts regarding a curator for the exhibition. As I have been living away from Newfoundland for the past dozen years, I suggested that their choice should be someone immersed in the province’s artistic community, curating exhibitions there and working closely with local artists.

She then told me that the board had already met and decided to invite me to take on this role. After some furious backtracking on my part, I agreed in principle and, over the subsequent months, we embarked on a lengthy process of email exchanges, Skype meetings and long-distance phone calls.

As it turns out, my initial apprehension about the position had already been considered, with the foundation looking to invite the 2015 artists through an open submission application. So, while I have always (remotely) followed the artistic happenings of the province, it was this very distance from the local scene that allowed for an objective – and more transparent – process of selection. To assist, they also organised an advisory committee of Canadian curators (including Sarah Fillmore from Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Mary MacDonald of Eastern Edge and Jonathan Shaughnessy from the National Gallery of Canada) that would serve as a sounding board for any queries or complications which might arise through the application process. This proved particularly useful in assessing the previous projects and exhibition histories of several applicants while at the same time retaining my role in making the final decision. A thorough evaluation of submissions culminated in the selection of two artists: Jordan Bennett and Anne Troake.

I was immediately struck by the affinity between their respective projects. Bennett, a visual artist of Mi’kmaq heritage, proposed a multi-layered installation entitled Ice Fishing that incorporated photography, documentary film, ice fishing ‘holes’ (flat screens of underwater footage embedded in the gallery floor), audio-visual projections and an actual ice-fishing shack that he had built with his father. Troake’s film OutsideIn was an immersive 3D film installation, beautifully tracing the interaction between two unclothed dancers (Carole Prieur and Bill Coleman) with the natural surroundings of the artist’s ‘re-wilded’ family farm in Logy Bay, Newfoundland, set to sound design and music by Ross Murray and Jim O’Rourke. Despite being from the city (or a ‘townie’ in the Newfoundland vernacular), both works impressed a sense of the primal, elemental nature of the province’s landscape, its unforgiving extremes of frost and wilderness and the centrality of this climate to the ways in which its inhabitants live and work. And yet they are resolutely unromantic artworks: their effect is achieved through new media technologies that run counter to preconceived notions of the traditional or rural. The exhibition title, ‘Under the Surface’, exemplified these contrasting ideas: physicality, geography, heritage, history, spectacle and site-specificity.

A multitude of tasks took place over the following months: preparation of texts for the Biennale catalogue, arranging transport, organising the venue (the wonderful Galleria Ca’Rezzonico), fundraising and finalsing details of the proposed layout. We arrived to discover that Venice, for all its charms, is just about the most complicated city in the world in which to install an exhibition. There were few stores to purchase essential equipment, materials and tools, so, over the course of a week, our team (myself, Bennett and Troake, along with the artist Amy Malbeuf and TNAF chairman Peter Wilkins) made several trips to the nearby city of Mestre. By car, water taxi and on foot, we gradually brought in the required projectors and plug adaptors, drills and stereo systems, working all hours to create the immersive environment that the exhibition required.

Yet, despite the moments of great stress, there were also several instances of pleasure and camaraderie: switching on our 3D glasses for the first time to see Troake’s film in full, sitting in Bennett’s ice fishing shack with the sound of whistling wind and radio static blowing through the structure, eating pizza together while seated on upturned Newfoundland salt beef buckets, the satisfaction of opening the exhibition and seeing a vaporetto waterbus pull up, offloading loads of Irish and Canadian arts professionals (thank you!).

There was also a particular moment that will stay with me. After our last night of installing the exhibition until 4:30am and then being back in the gallery for 8:00am, working through until our launch that evening, the artists told me that I should go back to the apartment for an hour to get cleaned up and prepare for the official opening. After showering and dressing, and having a quiet beer by myself, it occurred to me that I should head back. We were, after all, just about to open our show for the Venice Biennale. That’s when the ambition, the magnitude and sheer unlikeliness of what we had achieved finally sunk in.

Chris Clarke is a critic and Senior Curator at Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork.

Lochlainn (1 – 13 June). The works pre-

adf.ie

sented were inspired by two of Yeats’s poems:

Sailing

to

Byzantium

and

POSTCARDS FROM HOME

Byzantium.

Brian Duggan, image from ‘391 Days’, 2015

STILL, WE WORK

Brian Duggan was selected to present a new solo project, ‘391 days’, with Balzer Projects at Art Brussels Discovery in April 2015. This proposal was selected by Daria de Beauvais, curator, Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Chris Fitzpatrick, Director, Kunstverein (Munich) and Katerina

Work by Miriam O’Connor for the Legacy Project

Postcard by Sarah Fuller

Brussels. The project explored various

‘Still, We Work’ was held in the Regional

‘Postcards from Home’ was held in the

elements that continue to unfold after

Cultural Centre, Letterkenny as part of

Courthouse Gallery, Co. Clare (8 May – 4

the Tsunami that hit the Fukushima

the National Women’s Council of Ireland

June). The exhibition was the result of

power station and devastated Japan.

(NWCI) Legacy Project Tour 2015 (12 –

collaboration between artists and half-

23 May). The show included work by

sisters Sarah Fuller (working in Co. Clare)

Sarah Browne, Vagabond Reviews,

and Jessica Fuller (working in London).

Miriam O’Connor and Anne Tallentire.

The press release described how the proj-

The artists in ‘Still, We Work’ were origi-

ect was motivated by a “shared desire to

nally commissioned by NWCI to recon-

make work through gift exchange and to

sider representations of women and work

communicate with each other in a more

and to make a travelling exhibition to

intimate and tactile way”. Approximately

reveal common causes and produce new

100 postcards were shown, made using

connections and inquiries among artists,

drawing, watercolour, mixed media and

activists and audiences. The exhibition

collage. The images presented were

was curated by Marie Barrett.

drawn from the artists’ immediate envi-

Gregos, curator / artistic director, Art

balzer-art-projects.ch

A Mass Communication

Still from Casting Jesus

regionalculturalcentre.com, nwcilegacyproject.com

The Limerick School of Art and Design Gallery (30 April – 5 May) recently pre-

ronments and show routes to work or walks in the country, found objects from these locations and the stories associated

MAGENTA HONEY

sented ‘A Mass Communication’, which

with them.

featured 16 films by sculpture and com-

thecourthousegallery.com

bined media students from LSAD alongside Christian Jankowski’s Casting Jesus

INTRODUCING BRIAN

(courtesy of Lisson Gallery). The student films were made in response to a brief by Roger Childs, head of religious programmes at RTE, who was looking for new material for the one-minute Angelus

Gabhann Dunne, Durragh, 10 x 15 cm, il on board

slot. Jankowski’s Casting Jesus shows 13

Gabhann Dunne’s solo show ‘Magenta

professional actors compete for the role

Honey’ was held in The LAB, Dublin (1

of Jesus. A panel from the Vatican judges

May – 13 June). Dunne’s work deals with

the actors as they complete a variety of

the space within which rational language

tasks including breaking bread, perform-

has failed and meaning is found in con-

Millennium

ing a miracle and carrying the cross. The

templation. This exhibition was accom-

Portadown presented Introducing Brian, a

exhibition was curated by Peter Morgan,

panied by a commissioned text by Nathan

film by Belfast-based artist Nicholas

Mellina van der Valk, Ian Tully and Daire

Hugh O’Donnell.

Keogh, based on stories by Brian Brown

O’Shea.

thelab.ie, gabhanndunne.ie

Introducing Brian, Millennium Court Arts Centre

Court

Arts

(9 – 30 May). Keogh’s film is a blend of wildlife documentary, alleyway travel-

amasscommunication.wordpress.com

LOREM IPSUM

ogue, sitcom and drama.

Byzantium

millenniumcourt.org/introducingbrian

CRUCIBLE

Paul Moore, from ‘Lorem Ipsum’, 2015 Work by Eoin MacLouchlainn for ‘Byzantium’

Centre,

‘Lorem Ipsum’ was a new body of work by Paul Moore held in the Arts & Disability

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the

forum, Belfast (1 May – 19 June). “Moore’s

birth of W. B. Yeats, Hodges Figgis book-

work deals with ambiguity of informa-

shop, Dublin presented an exhibition

tion and the limits of language as a tool

Richeard Hearns, image from ‘Crucible’

6

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

Column

ROUNDUP

Joanne Laws

‘Crucible’ was an exhibition of abstract

‘Fitter, happier, more productive’ was the

paintings by Irish-Lebanese artist Richard

first fixture in a yearlong programme

Articulating Value

Hearns held in the Burren College of Art,

titled ‘Endurance | Resilience’, a Curated@

Co. Clare (4 June – 4 July). The press

Source project that explores the links

release stated: “In this cohesive series of

between sport and human effort in con-

abstract paintings, Richard Hearns pres-

temporary art, held at the Source Arts

ents works with a primary concern for

Centre, Co. Tipperary (14 May – 25 June).

the alchemy of oil paint, and the physi-

The exhibition included: the installation

cality involved in creating large-scale

of a functional climbing wall made from

Last year I was commissioned to write a report for 126 Artist-Run Gallery. FOOTFALL: Articulating the value of artist-led organisations in Ireland collates a timely and ambitious body of research, initiated by 126 in response to a funding crisis the previous year which almost resulted in its closure 1. FOOTFALL primarily provides much-needed quantitative and qualitative data on the ideologies, funding structures, programmes and audiences of diverse artist-led organisations in Ireland. With this research, we now have a clearer idea of why these organisations are established, their perceived strengths and who benefits from their activities.

Secondly, the report gathers together relevant Irish and international research and discourse on issues across the arts and humanities, such as artistic labour and measuring non-economic value. Research in the Irish context on artist-led practice has been relatively sparse; however, recent activity, such as a forthcoming EU-funded publication on artist-led spaces and the reactivation of the artist-led archive, suggests positive momentum. 2 Thirdly, and most striking for me, is the fact that the report highlights the connections between artist-led organisations and wider arts ecologies. Most artist-led spaces are not utopian, counter-cultural projects, but intrinsically linked with their surrounding communities, as well as with regional, national and international art scenes. In this regard, they make valuable contributions and develop important groundwork from which larger organisations and biennials frequently benefit.

Just as artist-led organisations are not isolated from the rest of the art world, neither are they shielded from the bureaucracy that vexes it, evident in the increasingly administrative nature of work cited by survey respondents volunteering in these organisations. With the recession, the time and effort devoted to grant writing and funding applications appears to be increasing, in order to access the supports to ‘make art happen’. Concurrently, the main additional form of income cited by organisations is generated through studio rental and venue hire. Within 80% of the organisations surveyed, no one gets paid. However 60% indicated that they try to pay a fee to exhibiting artists. The multi-faceted and diverse nature of the labour occurring in these organisations – from curatorial research and technician work to book-keeping and web design – is of particular interest. There is certainly scope for further research on the contribution that artistic labour makes to the rise of the ‘polymath’ in the modern labour landscape.

Despite the research indicating that volunteers can benefit from working in artist-led spaces, it is my personal view that there should be more paid labour in these organisations. However, it would be up to organisations to mediate how this might work for them, perhaps avoiding divisive hierarchies by paying volunteers on an alternating project basis for particular roles. The jaded expectation that we should work for free in the arts, has been suitably challenged during the economic recession, producing a palpable anger within the sector.

With a gaping hole where Ireland’s national cultural policy should be, now might arguably be the ideal time to generate and gather as much relevant data as possible, in advance of the proposed phase of public consultation on Culture 2025. Influencing future policy formation was never the main goal, but the research process has illuminated the role that lobbying can play in gaining recognition for a sector. In this regard, consensus at the FOOTFALL symposium suggested that a group formation for the artist-led sector might prove too cumbersome or compromise the diversity of individual models. An over-arching ‘strategy’ seemed a more viable option.

Post-FOOTFALL, 126 Artist-Run Gallery have embarked on ‘Primary Resource’, a year-long, curatorial project which furthers the working relationships developed with peer organisations during the course of the research, while returning the gallery’s focus back to practice-based exhibition making.3 Catalyst Arts, Basic Space and Ormston House have already developed exhibitions and members’ shows in 126 in response to the findings of FOOTFALL. Prior to FOOTFALL, 126 gallery successfully developed other research projects, including ‘Tracing Artists’, and publications such as the current 126 Quarterly Magazine series, marking the gallery’s 10-year anniversary.4 With the recent appointment of several PhD candidates to the 126 board, it seems fitting to suggest that ongoing publishing and research activities might remain a worthwhile future trajectory for the gallery.

Joanne Laws is an arts writer based in Leitrim. She has previously written for publications such as Art Monthly (UK), Art Papers (US), Cabinet (US) and Frieze (UK).

Notes 1. FOOTFALL is available as a free downloadable PDF on the 126 website. To purchase a hard copy, contact 126 Artist-Run Gallery at contact@126.ie.

2. Initially devised and compiled by Megs Morley in 2006, the Artist-led Archive is a valuable database housed in NIVAL, which is currently on display as part of the ‘More Than One Maker’ exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (4 June –12 July 2015). The archive is seeking the submission of new material from artist led organisations across Ireland.

3. The title ‘Primary Resource’ emerged during one of the research interviews, where ‘using oneself as primary resource’ was raised as an important factor in the ‘high level of burn-out and fluctuating levels of enthusiasm within the sector 4.‘Tracing Artists’ is an ongoing research project initiated by 126, which aims to reconnect with artists and organisations who have worked with the gallery since it was established in 2005

gestural pieces.”

re-purposed school desks, drawings based richardhearns.com

BODY OF WORK

Damien Flood, Spout

on long-distance open-water swimming

Galway Arts Centre (30 May – 4 July).

and performance work using familiar

The artists involved were Damien Flood

gym equipment. The artists featured

(Ireland), Veronica Forsgren (Sweden),

were Dan Shipsides, Roisín Lewis and

Tom Watt (Ireland) and Sarah Baker

Debbie Guinnane. The show was curated

(USA). The press release explained that

by Annette Moloney.

the title was “responding to the imagined

thesourcearts.ie

‘recall’ of an idea or a situation,” continuing, “‘Product Recall’ strives to eviscerate

BETWEEN SEEING AND BLINDNESS

the meaning of the displaced, misfiring ‘product’, whether real or imagined, and explore the credo of material culture (gone bad).” The show was curated by Anne Mullee. galwayartscentre.ie

UNDER THE RADAR Jordan Hutchings, image from ‘Body of Work’

‘Body of Work’ was a photographic exhibition by Jordan Hutchings held in the Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (4 – 25 June). Over the past six years, Hutchings has documented Bbeyond, a collective of performance artists based in Belfast. This

Poster for ‘Between Seeing and Blindness’

exhibition reflected a selection from an

TACTIC Gallery, Sample Studios, Cork

extensive photographic archive of their

exhibited ‘Between Seeing and Blindness’

monthly meetings. The show was curatPaul McAree, 9 Dumb Acts at the location of the Irish Glass bottle site in Dublin Docklands, photo by Paul McAree

ed by Mary Morgan.

MILK OF ISRAEL

This year’s edition of the Catalyst Arts

er the worlds of literature and visual art

members’ show, ‘Under the Radar’, fea-

by displaying them in one space “in an

tured the work of Charlotte Bosanquet,

attempt to heighten the sensation of art

Jane

Tonya

by way of a void”. The participating visu-

McMullan, Andy Parker, Jim Ricks and

al artists were: Billy Dante, Richard

Amanda Rice (12 – 27 June). The show

Proffitt, Billy Childish, Terence Birch,

was produced in collaboration with

Kevin O’Shea, Helen Horgan, Colm

Michele Horrigan.

O’Brien, Femke Vandenberg, David

Butler,

Paul

McAree,

catalystarts.org.uk

TRACES

‘Milk of Israel’ comprised two new video

Down Arts Centre presented ‘Traces’ by

works, Yaccov, Yanki, Jack and Monitor I-IV,

Patrick Conyngham (5 – 27 June). The

by Colette Lewis and was held in Sirius

press release noted how Conyngham’s

Arts Centre, Co. Cork (5 June – 5 July). Set

paintings “explore the connections

against the backdrop of the dairy farming

between the mythic world and the real

community in Kanturk, Co. Cork. ‘Milk

world … invoke from the past and aim to

of Israel’ follows the supervision process

present a consciousness of that for us in

of Super Kosher milk production in

the present”.

Keating. The participating poets were: Lewis

Kenny,

Seamus

Barra

Ó

Súilleabháin, Cathal Holden, Alicia Byrne Keane, William Wall, Paul Casey, Victoria Kennefick and Orla Travers. The show was curated by Billy Dante. billydanteart.wix.com/billydante

Wunderkammer downartscentre.com

Joanna

Kidney’s

exhibition

‘Wunderkammer’ ran at Mermaid Arts

Yavney Food Industries, Israel. “Through sensitive handling of this complex mate-

Mathúna, Bren Smyth, Mark Buckeridge, Mariah Black, John Dwyer and Joseph

Colette Lewis, stil from Yakov, Yanki, Jack

North Cork Co-operative Creameries for

(18 June – 2 July). The press release described how the show brought togeth-

goldenthreadgallery.co.uk

FITTER, HAPPIER, MORE PRODUCTIVE

Centre (5 June – 18 July) and comprised

rial,” the press release noted, “the artist

new works including a series of drawings

follows the inroads of these uncommon

and encaustic paintings, a stitched sculp-

processes, revealing the challenges inher-

tural drawing and her own cabinet of

ent in radically alternative worldviews”.

curiosity. Kidney’s “intuitive practice of

Writer/curator Maria Tanner presented a

drawing and redrawing,” the press release

text in conjunction with the exhibition.

noted, “speaks of worlds from a microscopic to a cosmic scale and visualises

siriusartscentre.ie/exhibitions/colette-lewis

the unseen interconnectivity and complexity within these worlds”. In her

PRODUCT RECALL ‘Product Recall’ was a group show held in

Debbie Guinnane, Her, Subject, to Ellipse, 2015

accompanying text, Cliodhna Shaffrey

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

Column

7 ROUNDUP

Jonathan Carroll

Northern Ireland. The couple also viewed

Tejal Shah. The works, the press release

the original Madonna of the Lakes altar-

noted, “measure themselves against geo-

Who’s Afraid of Performance Art?

piece, painted and given to the Parish by

logical and human time. They are art-

one of its renowned sons, Sir John Lavery.

works that give speculative forms and

Ulster Museum’s Curator of Fine Art,

images to periods, epochs and eras: vast,

Anne Stewart, reminded the Prince that

unknowable expanses of time that help

Lavery painted a number of his family

us to look outside of ourselves and the

members, including Queen Victoria and

worlds we inhabit and, in so doing,

King George V.

attempt to stretch the possibilities of

It’s perhaps too easy to take ill-informed pot shots at performance art. But I must confess, for me, sometimes group performance art events resemble William Hogarth’s The Rake in Bedlam (The Rake’s Progress, 1734) and have me scampering for the exit. On at least one recent occasion I’ve nearly brought the set down in my urgency to escape a performance art piece shown in a confined space to a seated, ticketed audience.

It seems that there have never been more performance art events. They appear not only to be an intrinsic component of art exhibitions, but also more and more popular as stand-alone events. This may have something to do with the wider availability of performance art-based modules at universities. The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) recently received some unwanted publicity, with the headline ‘Fury as students told they should get naked to pass exam’ (Doug Bolton, The Independent, 13 May 2015).

We also have Marina Abramovic to thank (or not) for popularising performance art to an extent not seen since Yoko Ono decided to invite the world’s press into her marital bed (Bed-ins for Peace, 1969). Abramovic, although garnering notice, has lost a lot of respect of late from within the artworld as a result of her flirtations with celebrities – see ‘Jay Z v Marina Abramovic: what’s the beef?’ (Guardian G2, 21 May 2015).

Whatever the reasons, there has been a huge variety of performance art events happening in Dublin recently: Live Collision International Festival (29 April – 3 May); Influence (@Livestock) at 12 Henrietta Street, curated by John Conway (8 May); Overstock# 1, 2 and 3, a series of performative lectures curated by Jennie Taylor in Mart (29 April – 24 June); the Performance Collective at NCAD Gallery (9 – 16 April 2015) and the 4 Foaming at the Mouth spoken word events, to name just a few (see VAN Issue 3, May – June 2015).

What interests me most are the formats and contexts of these performances.

Some occupied the territory traditionally used by comedians – the spare room of a bar used by FATM, for example – while others brought you to an atmospheric historical building to perform to a ghostly past: Influence (@Livestock) and Dublin Live Art Festival’s performances at the Casino at Marino (26 July 2015).

Two key dynamics in terms of the presentation of live art were well illustrated by Seamus McCormack’s ‘Roadkill’, a night of performance and live events (12 February) that responded to ‘Primal Architecture’ at IMMA and ‘Excuse me, I’m not finished!’, a series of live performances and an exhibition by the Performance Collective at the NCAD Gallery. While ‘Roadkill’ engaged exclusively with a well-versed art audience (in the confines of IMMA), the Performance Collective had the advantage of both engaging with an art audience (those who went into the gallery space) and the unsuspecting passing audience (with several artists focusing their work looking out onto the street through the expansive window frontage).

My preferred performance art pieces are those that engage with these unsuspecting passers-by. My second preference would be for the more traditional interaction of performance with existing work (as with ‘Roadkill’) where a more classical idea of the ability of performance art to expand on the viewer’s relationship with an artwork lie.

As part of ‘Roadkill’, Smilin’ Kanker (aka artist Ciarán O’Keeffe), took us on a tour of ‘Primal Architecture’. This bearded, hairy-legged man dressed in a summer dress, face painted like a clown and sporting a fine blue feather-boa headdress, brought to life an exhibition that I had previously found dull. Kanker was a perfect embodiment of the mixed up, confused, hilarious and alternatively creepy clown-like work that Mike Kelley (whose work featured in the exhibition) produced. Kanker’s storytelling often returned to his childhood (a technique also employed by Kelley) and his mixture of humour and moments of sad, dark reflection (for example singing Feed the Birds from Mary Poppins in the gallery, after describing singing it to his dying mother in hospital in the 1960s) were pitch perfect for the troubled Kelley, who killed himself in 2012.

Kelley’s work was often risky in both concept and manifestation. For example, his live piece Petting Zoo for ‘Sculpture Projects Muenster’ (2007) featured horned animals roaming amongst the audience and referenced the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I have a hunch that allusions to petting zoos is something generally to be avoided by anyone working with performance artists.

So how then do I account for my recent programming at ArtLot, with its fencedin performers – and in one instance a caged in performer? 1 In my opinion, presenting performance art as we do at ArtLot brings back the element of the unexpected (where the audience is not invited or known to the performers) that has its origins in the earliest performances organised by artists. This passing audience are also less reverent than an audience cloistered in a gallery space and, arguably, closer to the more robust responses recorded from some seminal early performances.

Jonathan Carroll is the curator and founder of ArtLot Dublin.

Note 1. DLAF 2014 at artlotdublin.wordpress.com

human imagination”. The works examJoanna Kidney, Wunderkammer (detail), 1997 – 2015, found objects, microscopic and diagrammatic images, remnants from artmaking, drawings, insect pins, photographs, text, 244cm x 142cm x 122cm.

ine sites such as man-made ruins, excaDendritic

vated sites and empty mines as well as issues such as “language and its limits, burial, ritual, forecasting, futures and

further stated that Kidney’s methodolo-

radioactivity”.

gies “demonstrate a contemporary exper-

projectartscentre.ie

imental approach to drawing, using a diverse range of materials and methods

Typewriter Series

in an exploration of drawing as a medium, but always doing so in relation to thinking through our existence within a scene – our interrelationship with the physical world around us, the connectivity between all things and matter…”

Eoghan McGrath, Fractal Density

An exhibition of work by Eoghan

+

McGrath ran at Carton House, Maynooth (10 – 24 June). Following a residency at

Christophe Dillinger, from the ‘Typewriter Series’

the house, McGrath’s works focus on

Claire McCluskey, image from ‘+’

Claire McCluskey’s exhibition ‘+’ ran at deAppendix, Dublin (16 June – 17 July).

The piece was located inside the waiting room of Amanranta family medical practice and was created, the press release stated, “with collective well-being in mind, drawing upon the idea that each individual exists alongside the next, fundamentally equal and integrally connected within a greater social structure”.

dendritic patterns, those that have a tree

Christophe Dillinger’s ‘Typewriter Series’

or branch-like appearance. Sited at

ran at Ps2, Belfast (4 – 20 June) as part of

Carton House is ‘Silken Thomas’, esti-

the Belfast Photo Festival. The exhibition

mated to be Ireland’s oldest tree, which

comprised 11 1-metre-square photo-

features in McGrath’s work as an embodi-

graphs, a compositional decision that

ment of the Fitzgerald family tree. The

aimed to merge concepts of landscape

press release describes how McGrath’s

and portrait photography. Dillinger’s

paintings explore uses of dentratic forms,

works feature everyday objects and situa-

such as in “thinking patterns and prob-

tions; they are all absent of people but

lem-solving heuristics”. It continued:

feature, the press release noted, a “layer of

“The questing intellect is deliberate and

interference”, such as typed notes and

unidirectional and tends to march for-

comments. The artist described this as

ward step by step. We are encouraged to

“an attempt at filling the gaps between

believe that solutions lie at the end of a

what photography can show and what

logical chain of reasoning. Unconscious

needs to be explained before”.

thought, however, is a natural explorer

pssquared.org

and tends to spread out producing creative links and unlikely parallels.”

Common Patterns

McCluskey described how this work was based on a universally-recognised icon: “+ is a symbol that carries many interpre-

Riddle of the Burial Grounds

tations: addition, connection, accumulation, positivity, even spirituality”. deappendix.wordpress.com

Madonna of the Lakes

Anna Adahl, from ‘Common Patterns’

CCA, Derry presented ‘Common Patterns’, an exhibition of work by Swedish artist Mariana Castillo Deball, Mschatta Fassade, 2014

Anna Ådahl. The press release described how the show examined “the conditions

Eve Parnell, photo by Karen Busby

Eve Parnell produced a large drawing for St Patrick’s Church, Belfast based on a painting in the church by Sir John Lavery.

Parnell’s work was produced in pencil and chalk pastel on tissue paper. The drawing was presented to the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall on 21 May, the first day of their visit to

Group show ‘Riddle of the Burial Grounds’

of the ‘mass ornament’ (a notion devel-

ran at Project Arts Centre, Dublin (1 June

oped in the early twentieth century by

– 1 August). The exhibition was curated

cultural critic Siegfried Kracauer)” and

and by Tessa Giblin and the featured art-

featured video, sculpture and ready-made

ists were: Lara Almarcegui, Stéphane

objects “associated with methods of con-

Béna Hanly, Rossella Biscotti, Simon

trol, order, decoration and display”. The

Boudvin, Matthew Buckingham, Mariana

exhibition explores “how urban patterns

Castillo Deball, Dorothy Cross, Regina de

and the choreography of our bodies in

Miguel, Harun Farocki, Peter Galison and

the city shape our behaviour and further

Robb Moss, Tracy Hanna, Mikhail Karikis

our subjecthood”.

and Uriel Orlow, Nicholas Mangan and

cca-derry-londonderry.org

8 Column

Tara Byrne Ageism & Cognitive Dissonance In recent years I’ve been spending some time in academia via a doctorate in cultural policy, in addition to devising discursive arts events. There’s an unspoken tradition of choosing either academia or practice, but remaining connected to arts activity and real-world policy has always been important to me. This is because I see huge value in connecting thinking, analysing and doing. It was in this context that I came to be the visual arts curator / programmer for the Bealtaine Festival, an annual event run by Age and Opportunity that takes place every May and celebrates creativity as we age.

Having taken over from artist, curator and educator Michelle Browne, my immediate concern was to do her vision justice and to have some creative input of my own.

Bealtaine raised a couple of fundamental and policy-oriented questions for me. I wondered at first whether older people necessarily needed a separate festival – after all a festival is a festival, right? And I asked myself whether this separation further ghettoises or patronises an already marginalised and undervalued community. These concerns dissipated as I gained a deeper understanding of Bealtaine’s remarkable 20year history of sustained and critical commitment to a sector that is often neglected by the arts. In fact, Age and Opportunity, through Bealtaine, promotes intergenerational exchange – therefore reducing ghettoisation – and, critically, makes visible a community who feel excluded from cultural and media representation. In addition to this, Bealtaine’s extensive commissioning programme provides professional opportunities for artists – opportunities that get increasingly scarce as artists get older.

Bealtaine also raised issues for me about the imagery typically used to represent older people in PR or advertising: passive images of well-dressed, jolly-looking people.

Are these fully representative of the complexities of older age and will I personally identify with these images when I reach the age of 55, the official age of the older person? Bealtaine again surprised me by showing me its wide bank of alternative images that do not fit this passive stereotype, and happily agreed to use a more dynamic image on its brochure cover for 2015: Tina Keane’s magnificently vibrant image of a neon woman swinging gaily on a trapeze.

Bealtaine offered me the opportunity to address (as well as encounter) the tricky issue of ageism in the arts. Ironically, when I invited some artists to participate in the festival I was met with a certain froideur (was I suggesting that these artists were old?). Artists also expressed serious concerns about the reputational implications of being associated with old age in a sector where attributes such as dynamism, innovation and relevance are so highly prized and tend to be – albeit erroneously – associated with the young. It’s a good example of the ‘cognitive dissonance’ around ageism.

We criticise ageism, but at the same time we don’t want to be labelled ‘old’.

This issue arose at ‘Intergenerational Conversations’, a new Bealtaine artists’ professional development initiative run in partnership with Create and VAI (held at VAI’s recent Get Together at IMMA), exploring the knowledge embodied and exchanged between artists of different generations. Alice Maher, who was joined by artists Kevin Atherton, Michelle Browne and Patrick Hall, opened the conversation by referring to the challenges I’d faced inviting artists as being precisely the reason she came on board – a spirited response to the gauntlet thrown down by others’ refusals.

Social psychologist and curator Dr Medb Ruane chaired the event and argued that on some level the image-based medium of the visual arts makes the issue of age and aging a particularly keen one for visual artists – and perhaps female visual artists even more so. The artists reflected on their careers, discussing how they had survived the difficult terrain of working or even simply being an artist. They explored issues such as what ambition might mean, the changing approach of arts education and the relevance or irrelevance of time on an arts practice.

‘Intergenerational Conversations’, and together with it Bealtaine’s parallel set of workshops for older actors called PRIME (run with the Irish Theatre Institute), fundamentally underlined the difficulties of making a living as an artist (as if one needed reminding). It also highlighted the impact of age on artists’ abilities to be visible and ready to take up existing, and make new, opportunities. These workshops also showcased the loneliness of freelance artistic practices, which can be exacerbated as we age. Such critical issues are well documented in broader employment studies, but are rarely debated in the arts. This may be due to the high level of self-employment within the sector – where retirement is not an option – but also, perhaps, a more general lack of state care and concern about the arts in terms of regulation, employment practices and working statuses. We should take note.

Dr Tara Byrne is an independent arts and cultural manager, researcher and policy analyst based in Dublin. She has recently worked with the Bealtaine festival run by Age and Opportunity, the Northwest’s Harnessing Creativity Project, Dublin City Council’s European Capital of Culture bid, and Flat Time House Institute (London). In 2014 she wrote the Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH) report on Digital Humanities and the Innovation Ecosystem, undertook comparative research for the Arts Council of Ireland and devised a series of critical colloquia (interactive seminars) for the National Campaign for the Arts (ncfa.ie).

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

News VOID The Derry-based contemporary art space Void has received a substantial uplift from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and Derry City and Strabane District Council towards new premises on the first floor of the City Factory Building. The space, which will be one of the most impressive visual arts spaces in Northern Ireland, had been maintained by the former Derry City Council for Legacy programming. In recent months Void has entered into a new period of growth and development with a new Board of Directors formed.

Newly appointed Chair of Void Eamonn Mc Cann described the premises as a “new space where art and imagination can blossom and billow, transcending division, and abrasion at the interfaces of our society, spark new ideas, understandings and syntheses”.

Deirdre Robb, Visual Arts Officer at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, emphasised that the new space would “offer Void greater opportunities to collaborate with international galleries and to bring high quality work to Northern Ireland audiences”. derryvoid.com

Building Peace Through the Arts The Building Peace Through the Arts Re-Imaging Communities programme – funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the European Union’s Programme for Peace and Reconciliation (Peace III), managed by the Special EU Programmes Body and International Fund for Ireland – enables people throughout Northern Ireland and the border region of the Republic to tackle sectarianism and racism. The programme funds local consultation and engaged communities in the exploration of themes which unite rather than divide, ultimately leading to the creation of public artwork that promotes tolerance and understanding Stage 2 of the programme is now near completion and will see the unveiling of projects across Northern Ireland and the border counties. The Building Peace Through the Arts Re-Imaging Communities programme has changed the landscape of Northern Ireland and the border region, positively transforming the public realm and community relations.

Mary Cremin: TULCA Curator Mary Cremin, a writer, art historian and independent curator based in Dublin, has been announced as the Festival Curator for TULCA 2015. Cremin graduated from University College Cork with BA in History of Art and Political Geography (2004) and graduated with a Masters in Visual Art Practice (curating) from the Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Dublin in 2007. Recent curatorial projects include: ‘Aether’, Martin

Healy, Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin (2014); ‘Bring in the Noise’, Ormston House and Limerick City Gallery (2013); ‘Lights, Camera, Action!’, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (2012). Cremin was Project Manager for the 2013 Irish Pavilion at Venice Biennale. Prior to this she was Project Curator at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, where she has produced major exhibitions on Eileen Gray, Lynda Benglis, Francis Alÿs, Carlos Garaicoa, Romuald Hazoumè, Gerard Byrne and Alice Maher. She is the curator of Dublin City University art collection. tulcafestival.com

Arts Council Online Collection On 21 May the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphries, launched the Arts Council’s online collection. The public now has access to over 1,000 works purchased by the Arts Council since 1962. If you know of a publicly-accessible institution that would like to borrow a work from the collection you can find out more on the website. artscouncil.emuseum.com

TBG+S Studio Members Temple Bar Gallery + Studios is pleased to announce five new studio artists for the year 2015 / 16. The new artist members were awarded their studios by a selection panel, following an open submission application process, which took place in May 2015. In total, four Membership Studios for a three-year period were awarded to Lucy McKenna, Miranda Blennerhasset, Stephen Dunne and Alison Pilkington. In addition, a one-year extension was awarded to Susan MacWilliam, who began her threeyear studio membership in 2013. templebargallery.com

Kevin Gaffney: Sky Arts Award Sky Academy announced the five artists aged 18 – 30 who have each been awarded a Sky Academy Arts Scholarship, including Kevin Gaffney, a 28-yearold visual artist from Dublin, working in photography and film. Revealed at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards the five winners will each receive £30,000 / €38,000 towards the development of an artistic project and the cost of living for one year, along with mentoring from Sky and the arts industry. The scholarships aim to help young artists across Ireland and the UK to develop their creative practice and take their work to the next level. This year, four scholarships were awarded in the UK and one scholarship was awarded exclusively to an Irish applicant.

Kevin Gaffney has also been selected as one of the four artists for the first edition of the Kooshk Artist Residency Award (KARA 2015) in Tehran, Iran.

KARA has been implemented to support artists, creativity and the development of new ideas in the unique space of Tehran. This residency programme is a chance for attendants to do research and experiment, develop professionally,

July – August 2015

exchange ideas in order to grow and try new methods of working and thinking.

The jury selected four artists from 247 applications coming from 70 different countries. businesstoarts.ie/sky, kevin-gaffney.com

JOAN CLANCY GALLERY The Joan Clancy Gallery Annual Exhibition Prize was presented to Fine Art graduates Elisa Feiritéar and Claire Lee at the 2015 Fine Art and Applied Art Degree Show, ‘We Do Not Leave Pyramids’.

In 2014 the Joan Clancy Gallery formalised their relationship with CIT CCAD awarding an exhibition prize to graduates Maria O’Sullivan and Lee Lucey and are delighted to offer this opportunity again as part of their ongoing commitment to promoting emerging talent. joanclancygallery.com

ARTS IN EDUCATION PORTAL The Arts in Education Portal was recently launched by Minister for Education and Skills Jan O’Sullivan TD and the Minister for Arts Heritage and the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys TD. It is envisaged that the portal will be the key national digital resource for arts and education practice in Ireland. Supported by the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, the portal will provide a platform through which good collaborative practice in arts education in Ireland will be supported, developed and enhanced. Submissions for the portal will be invited on an ongoing basis.

The recommendation to develop a digital resource of this kind dates back to Points of Alignment, the report of the Special Committee on the Arts and Education published by the Arts Council in 2008. The proposal has since been developed with the support of both Departments in the context of the Arts in Education Charter. artsineducation.ie

arts & business ni Arts and Business NI announced that, in partnership with Harbinson Mulholland, they have developed The Art of Giving, a tax guide to demystify the tax incentives that exist for donors in NI. Harbinson Mulholland’s tax specialists have created a guide that will inform and inspire strategic giving to the arts. It is a practical guideline for both arts organisations and those who donate.

In today’s changing economic climate private giving could provide vital support to the cultural sector. However, many arts organisations and their potential donors are unsure of the tax benefits of efficient giving to the arts and culture.

This guide will start conversations that will grow into exciting, innovative and powerful collaborations, allowing the arts to prepare for future opportunities.

Copies of the Art of Giving guide are available from the Arts & Business NI Office or by requesting a copy by telephoning 028 9073 5150. artsandbusinessni.org.uk

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

9

News

VAI News VAI Belfast Office and New NI Services Visual Artists Ireland NI will open a new dedicated Northern Ireland office on Friday 3 July at 109 – 113 Royal Avenue, Belfast BT1 1FF. The office will be a focal point for the advocacy and support of Northern Ireland’s visual artists and will be managed by Rob Hilken, Northern Ireland Manager reporting directly to Noel Kelly, Chief Executive Officer, Visual Artists Ireland, who will also have a base there. The opening of the office is accompanied by the launch three exciting new initiatives: Suki Tea Art Award – sponsored by Suki Tea and facilitated by Arts & Business NI. The Suki Tea Art Award will be open to all visual artists in Northern Ireland and Visual Artists Ireland members in the South. The award is a main prize of £2000 and will include a smaller prize of £250 for each of the shortlisted artists. The award will culminate in the announcement of the first recipient in an exhibition of the short listed works in Stormont later this year.

Free visual artists’ combined liability insurance – sponsored by Standard Utilities. This insurance will provide Visual Artists Ireland members with combined liability insurance to facilitate them in their professional lives.

New Northern Ireland Visual Arts News Service – based on the highly successful Visual Artists Ireland eBulletin service. The new Northern Ireland Visual Arts Service will provide sectoral news, exhibition and events announcements, as well as jobs and opportunities that available to Northern Irish artists both at home and in other parts of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. The service will be provided weekly and is an addition to the other ranges of news services that Visual Artists Ireland offers to artists and the arts community, as well as to journalists / media and the general public.

Visual Artists Ireland NI will provide the broad range of services that support visual artists and continue the activities that VAI have undertaken across Ireland. These include: acting as an advocate for the visual arts; advisory and Helpdesk products; discounts schemes; membership of international representative bodies; professional development and the ever popular Visual Artists’ Cafés that take place across the island of Ireland on a monthly basis.

Deirdre Robb, Visual Arts Development Officer at the Arts Council Northern Ireland, commented: “The Arts Council is proud to support Visual Artists Ireland with their new dedicated Northern Ireland office and package of innovative initiatives designed to support the professional development of our artists. It is imperative that we support our artists in order to be able to de-

velop, grow and sustain a strong, vibrant arts sector in the region and this new focal point of services and information for use by our talented artists is most welcome indeed. Congratulations to all involved.”

Speaking about the new office and the launch of new services, Noel Kelly, Chief Executive Officer of Visual Artists Ireland, said: “This day is the culmination of many years work supporting the visual artists of Ireland both North and South. It is a proud day for Visual Artists Ireland as we open the doors of our new office. We see this as a clear expression of our confidence in the visual artists of Northern Ireland.”

He went on to say: “Visual artists in Northern Ireland may not have the same face recognition of other cultural workers, but behind the scenes in studios, homes and workshops, Northern Ireland’s visual artists work away to provide us with our visual identity. Without our visual artists, Northern Ireland would be without colour and would not have the vibrancy that we see evidence of on a daily basis as we walk through the streets. We are grateful to our supporters, who are enabling us to launch these new services, for the support that they, our funders and our members provide us with.”

The Visual Artists Ireland NI Mission Statement is: listen, advocate, support, advise. “It is the mission of Visual Artists Ireland NI to provide visual artists with the services and knowledge to support all stages of their careers. Our friendly, knowledgeable and professional staff listen, advocate, support, and offer information and advice to visual artists, arts organisations and other interested parties.”

VAI Online Calculator VAI has developed an online calculator for galleries, venues, festivals and events to calculate payments for artists.

The calculator makes it easier for you to calculate different types of payments.

Enter your organisation type, the type of exhibition or event, details of the type of artist(s) that you will show and it will generate the figure that you need. Add this figure to the list of other fees as appropriate and a figure will be produced.

Please let VAI know how you get on, and remember that you can always give us a call if you are having difficulties or need us to offer advice or assistance. We are always there to listen, advocate, support and advise!

Profile Your Public Art If you have recently been involved in a public commission, Per Cent for Art project, socially engaged project or any other form of ‘art outside the gallery’ we would like you to email us the information for publication in the Visual Artists’ News Sheet. Information can be sent at any time.

Send images (3 – 4MB in size) and a short text (no more than around 300 words) under the following points: Artist’s name, title of work, commissioning body, date advertised, date sited / carried out, budget, commission type, project partners, brief description of the work.

Work must have been undertaken in the last six months. Send your info to Assitant Editor Lily Power: lily@visualartists.ie.

Alice Maher wins VAI Members’ Award Acclaimed Irish visual artist Alice Maher has been named as the recipient of the first Visual Artists Ireland Members’ Award. The announcement and presentation took place on Friday 15 May at 5:30pm during Visual Artists Ireland’s National Day for Visual Artists – Get Together, which took place at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The presentation was made on behalf of Visual Artists Ireland’s membership by Noel Kelly, Chief Executive Officer of Visual Artists Ireland.

Kelly stated: “This award recognises the significant contribution made by Alice to the development of the visual arts in Ireland. The award is made on behalf of our membership as an acknowledgement by Alice’s peers for the work and service that she has offered both through her practice and her remarkable dedication to supporting her fellow artists.”

Alice Maher was one of 10 artists nominated by members of Visual Artists Ireland. The nominations were open to any visual artist working and / or living on the island of Ireland. The vote was by secret ballot and was conducted earlier this year. Kelly continued: “We hope that each time Alice sees this piece of blue glass that she will remember the very high esteem that we all hold her in.”

Get together 2015 Get Together 2015, the fourth iteration of the event, was a fun-filled and informative day. Myriad artists and arts workers came together to discuss challenges, opportunities and supports for visual artists.

The day was made up of presentations from artists about their careers and their current areas of interest, as well as panel discussions focusing on maintaining creativity and careers. 32 selected curators interacted with artists on the day in our Speed Curating strand. The event also included arts organisations, support groups and key funders, who chatted to attendees in the Visual Artists’ Café area.

VAI would like to thank to all those who presented, listened, chatted and helped out at Get Together 2015. Here are some photos from the day courtesy of Angelique Cheronnet.

10

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

North Down: Resources & Activities Shaking Things Up

Communication Across the Sector

Jo Hatty, Pesky Rabbits, plaster with iron particles and wheels, ForM exhibition, Bangor Castle Walled Garden, 2013

Jo Hatty, Strain, bronze, 2015, Flux exhibition, London

Jo Hatty, Drawing myself into a corner, live drawing, March 2015

I’ve been a self-employed artist for 16 years, since I finished my Master’s degree in site-specific sculpture in London. The external examiner advised me to return to Northern Ireland and I took his advice.

This proved timely in terms of the major increase in public art opportunities that followed the Good Friday Agreement. Investment, new businesses and major building projects marked a new era for public art in Northern Ireland.

For most of my career I worked mainly in this field, but in recent years I have made a deliberate move away from public art to focus on more personal, smaller-scale works. I found that I was getting more and more frustrated with not having the time to do my own work. It feels rather daunting, like starting my career again, as I have less experience in the world of exhibiting.

My decision coincided with an emergence of new arts activity in my hometown, Bangor. There was the creation of Firsty?, an informal networking group started by local artists Andy and Inga Hamilton and Lee Boyd. Firtsy very rapidly grew from its humble beginnings as a group of artist friends meeting in the local pub to a now mostly online organisation and resource with over 600 members.

The group’s main achievement, in my opinion, was uniting all the different artists and creative people in the area. It brought us together and created opportunities to network and establish strong working relationships.

There is an abundance of talent in this area and a lot of interesting things happening, but historically artists would be inclined to focus their activity outside of Bangor and the local area, favouring Belfast or other city centres.

Project 24 was established on Bangor’s seafront.

This innovative and unique temporary project has transformed the derelict and unused gap in the town centre. It houses 12 customised shipping container ‘Pod’ studios and an events area. I was part of the first group of artists selected for a Pod studio.

The aim of the project is to support artists and demystify the artistic process allowing visitors access to talk to and observe artists at work. It also has a programme of events establishing a “creative hub for both residents and artists”.

Project 24 has succeeded in using creative energy to rejuvenate the town centre and along with the Open House festival has given it a much needed boost in confidence and pride, helping put the heart

back into the town and bringing people and revenue into the centre.

There are many off-shoots growing from Project 24. I am involved in one, Boom! Studio Collective. Myself, Marianne Kennerley and Kate Mitchell were all resident artists in Project 24 and from our experience decided that there was demand for artists’ studios in Bangor. So we took the leap and just did it ourselves. We have taken over the top floor of 80a Main Street, right bang in the centre of town. Six months in we have established five studio spaces, a workshop area and a gallery area. We hope to expand further in the future to create more studio spaces and a programme of workshops and events. We hosted our first event, Wee Residencies, in March, which gave 16 artists a 2-hour residency each in a studio at Boom! to create work. We had a fantastic response with some great work being produced; the event also served as a perfect introduction for Boom!. Visual Artists Ireland are hosting an Artists’ Café with us soon, a great opportunity for artists in the area, and we will be hosting an interactive exhibition called ‘Sound’ as part of this year’s Open House festival in August.

I am also involved as a curator in ‘ForM’, the open-air exhibition in Bangor Castle Walled garden organised by the Ards and North Down Borough Council. I will be exhibiting in the garden as part of this open submission exhibition in June along with around 20 other artists. Boom will also have a presence in the garden, setting up a pop-up studio as a base for artists to create site-specific work.

The recent amalgamation of local councils creating the new Ards and North Down Borough Council is also quite exciting from an artist’s point of view. Ards district has the very active Arts Centre at its heart, which sadly North Down lacks, and a well-established programme of events. Coming up in August is Creative Penninsula, an arts and crafts event that has been running for 14 years, encompassing the entire peninsula and now including North Down. It hosts exhibitions, open studios, workshops and more. I will be exhibiting work at Mount Stewart estate as part of this and my studio will be open to visitors along with the rest of Boom!.

It is an exciting time to be an artist working in North Down and Ards, with so many new and interesting projects shaking things up a bit – with a boom!

Jo Hatty johatty.com

The new borough of Ards and North Down stretches from Portaferry north, taking in the whole Ards Peninsula and finishing just a few miles east of Belfast in Holywood. There are a large number of visual artists working in the area and the Creative Peninsula festival, which take place 31 July – 8 August, will showcase this wide ranging artistic talent. Artists will open up their studios to the public for visits and tours. There will be exhibitions in Ards Arts Centre, North Down Museum and Mount Stewart, as well as demonstrations, workshops and creative cafes.

The visual arts are hugely supported through Ards Arts Centre, the former town hall at Conway Square, Newtownards. The Arts Centre offers the public the opportunity to participate in the visual arts with a range of visual art classes as well as a busy exhibition programme. The Sunburst and Georgian Galleries have displayed exhibitions ranging from Henri Matisse’s ‘Drawing with Scissors’ to Andrea Spencer’s ‘Fragile and Fugitive States of Being’.

The real shift over the last few years has been communication across the sector, which coincided with the formation of Firsty?, a Facebook networking group which, for a time, met twice a month. Suddenly artists were really communicating with each other and this sparked off many side projects. Many evenings were spent with like-minded people meeting to talk about life and art, pass round sketchbooks and support each other. There was an air of creative exchange. The group (which still exists as an online entity) wasn’t bound by location restrictions and, although based in Bangor, welcomed artists from all over.

It was this surge in the visibility of artists and their activities that aided the development of Project 24, a regeneration project with an arts focus. Project 24 turned a derelict seafront site into a green space, which includes 12 artist studios, a community garden and an event space. It launched in April 2013, funded by the Department of Social Development and supported by what was then North Down Borough Council. It has successfully supported, nurtured and increased discussion about the arts within the wider community. Two years after this temporary project was first developed and two new artist studios / collectives have emerged from Project 24 artists: Studio E (Newtownards) and Boom! Collective (Bangor).

The Council also supports artists and arts organisations through the arts project grants and bursaries funding programme. In March Boom!

Collective delivered an arts project, supported by the Council through its Arts Project Grant programme, to deliver Wee Residencies, a full weekend of micro visual art residencies where artists across a wide range of disciplines – video, illustration, sculpture, painting – created new work over two-hour micro sessions. The residencies were open to the public to attend and visitors were treated to a live band and live art!

Seacourt Print Workshop, an artist print studio in Bangor, remains a leader in its field, and we are proud that we have it located on our doorstep.

Their international programme of exhibitions, workshops and resources are a huge support for local artists and nurture creativity.

Recent projects in the area have included a ‘craft bomb’ at Project 24 in May as part of Voluntary Arts Week. A group of local artists, arts students and crafts groups got together to take part in the project.

They produced vibrant, colourful, interesting work from textiles, which popped up overnight and grabbed the public’s attention.

‘ForM’ sculpture exhibition took place from 6 – 28 June in Bangor Castle Walled Garden at Castle Park, Bangor. This was the third sculpture exhibition but the first from an open submission and it attracted interest from across Ireland. The event gave artists an opportunity to exhibit in a completely different context and gives the visitor a unique experience of the garden. The exhibition showcased a beautiful range of work including Helen Hanse’s carved stone heads and Emma Jane Rushmore’s Hares.

In addition to supporting the talent that Ards and North Down have in area, we also celebrate the artists of the past. In September North Down Museum, Bangor will host an exhibition by Colin Middleton, who lived some of the happiest years of his life in the town. Many of these paintings and sketches are on loan from the Ulster Museum and this is the first time they will be publicly displayed.

This exhibition will open on Wednesday 9 September until Sunday 1 November.

Patricia Hamilton, Arts Officer, Ards / N. Down. ardsandnorthdown.gov.uk ardsarts.com, project24ni.com northdownmuseum.com, seacourt-ni.org.uk

Work by Helen Hanse on show at the ForM sculpture exhibition

Craig Jefferson, artist based at Project 24

Work by Helen Hanse on show at the ForM sculpture exhibition (6 – 28 June), Bangor Castle Walled Garden, Castle Park, Bangor.

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

11

Creative Buzz

Intention & Material Limitation

Donall Billings, Electric Grass

Sharon Regan, Breathe (series)

Work by Sharon Regan

The borough of Ards and North Down is one of the most inspiring and supportive places to work as an artist in Northern Ireland. The Ards peninsula in particular continues to inspire the wealth of artists and creative folk who have made this place their home. Strangford Lough has an abundance of wildlife and a unique quality of light. This is celebrated every August with the Creative Peninsula event.

This year it will be even more exciting, as Ards Borough Council has joined forces with North Down Borough Council, so the event is set to be even bigger and better than in previous years.

The Creative Peninsula event showcases the work of artists and makers in the borough with several exhibitions, both indoors in the Georgian Gallery of Ards Arts Centre and outdoors against the stunning backdrop of the lake at Mount Stewart. Creative Peninsula offers the public a range of workshops and taster sessions, all very modestly priced. There really is something for people of all abilities to enjoy and hopefully feel inspired by. As well as taking part in the exhibitions and the Craft in the Square event I will be providing workshops.

The full programme of events will be released soon, so check out the details at ardsarts.com/blog/creative-peninsula.

Other events hosted by the council include the Open House festival in August, hand-picked music and arts in special places, Aspects Irish Literary Festival in August and the Ards International Guitar Festival in October. Project 24 on Bangor’s seafront is a vibrant, creative place to visit, where a range of artists and makers work from ‘pods’ on a converted piece of waste ground overlooking the marina. Project 24 has revitalised this previously run down area of Bangor.

From 6 – 28 June I am delighted to be working in partnership with Ards and North Down Council to present the third iteration of ‘ForM’, an outdoor sculpture exhibition set in the formal Victorian gardens of Bangor Castle Walled Garden. ‘ForM’ brings together 20 artists from all over Ireland and England, whose work ranges from the small and subtle pieces that need to be sought out to the more dramatic larger-scale works that celebrate art in the outdoors. Although the majority of the works are for sale, the public can enjoy them free of charge.

There is no admission charge to the garden or exhibition and the public can bring picnics, children and even dogs to sit down and enjoy the sculptures and the wonderful prize-winning garden. It really

will recharge and refresh your senses. This year we have a pop up studio within the garden during the run of the exhibition, where a variety of artists from Boom! Studios, Bangor will be creating work inspired by the garden.

I am currently enjoying the challenge of creating new work for ‘ForM’ and for Creative Peninsula.

I also have a solo exhibition coming up in August 2015 titled ‘Outside of Us’ as part of the Meet the Maker series for Ards Creates, in Ards Crafts, Craft and Design Centre, Newtownards.

It was a period of illness that changed the direction of my life and enabled me to work full time as an artist. I was accepted onto the Fine and Applied Art BA course at the University of Ulster, Belfast and I have never looked back. I thoroughly enjoy what I do, making sculptures of the animals I love and the people who fascinate me, conveying a glimpse of the personality and character of my subjects with an emphasis on surface texture. My previous career as a beauty / alternative therapist informed my figurative work and a lifelong passion for horses, dogs and other animals (all that grooming!) has meant that my hands are familiar with the contours of the body, feeling the muscles over the bones, so I sculpt from a memory of feel, almost stroking the clay into life. To create the surface texture of the horses I mix a little hay into the clay and lay it over the forms to suggest muscle and movement.

With so much work to create I count myself very fortunate to be able to have a studio in the National Trust estate of Castle Ward, Downpatrick. Set on the edge of Strangford Lough and with 800 acres of walled demesne to inspire me, it is a place that feeds the soul and recharges my creative batteries.

It’s also great to work amongst a community of artists and makers; there is a creative buzz, an energy that emanates from artists excited about their work and loving what they do. Castle Ward Art and Craft Studios are open studios where the public can see how the work is made and chat to the artists about their inspiration and making methods. The studios are open to the public Thursday – Sunday, Easter – September, 11am – 4.30pm.

Sharon Regan sharonreganart.co.uk facebook.com/sharonreganart facebook.com/CastleWardArtandCrafts castlewardartsandcrafts.com ardscreates.com ardsarts.com/blog/creative-peninsula aspectsfestival.com

Seacourt Print Workshop was established by Margaret Arthur and Jean Duncan at Seacourt Teachers’ Centre in Bangor, Co. Down in 1981. In exchange for educating teachers in the dark arts of printmaking the two artists were able to develop a facility that would support anyone with an interest in the graphic arts to create prints of the highest standard, an ethos that has endured to the present.

In 1989 the studio moved to the basement of Carnegie Library, Bangor as a Limited Company with charitable status. In 2006 Seacourt made another move to premises in Dunlop Industrial Units. In 2013 we moved again, this time to a larger unit within the same complex. Through funding from Ulster Garden Villages we were able to adapt this space to be universally accessible and to establish a gallery. With additional support from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) and Lloyds TSB we now have a dedicated participation suite ensuring that artists have uninterrupted access to equipment, while we also deliver an innovative programme of community engagement. Seacourt is core funded by ACNI and delivers its objectives through three overlapping strands: art, participation and research.

Seacourt offers access to the widest range of printmaking techniques in Ireland. There are three types of membership: ‘key-holder’ offers unlimited access for £300.00 per year whilst ‘non key-holder’ membership offers access Monday – Friday during office hours for £200.00 per year. Irregular membership allows access on a short-term basis with an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly fee. Each year artists benefit from workshops delivered by specialists and we actively seek opportunities to exhibit as a group. We work with non-arts organisations to introduce printmaking to new audiences and in the past few years these have included Armagh Planetarium, the Ulster Museum, the Ulster Hall and the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. This year we have partnered with Queens University Marine Lab to create work inspired by their research and ocean ecology. These projects challenge our artists to expand the range of source material they work with, the scale of their images and the manner in which printmaking is presented. Through our permanent, touring and programmed exhibitions, over 100,000 people viewed original prints during 2014 / 15.

Seacourt has sought to establish an international network that draws artists to Northern Ireland and offers members opportunities to travel.

Though our new gallery, overseen by artists Angela Darby and James Robert Moore, we are able to exhibit international artists alongside our members.

We sustain links in Washington DC, Arizona, New Zealand and Vienna. Cecilia Stephens and Jenna Kirkwood have travelled to Pyramid Atlantic in Washington DC to learn paper making and book arts skills whilst Alice Burns spent six weeks at Mark Graver’s Wharepuke Print Studio in New Zealand. This year, through an initiative with Creative Spark in Dundalk, we will be seeking to develop new partnerships across Europe. Our artist-in

Mary Ittner, Tangled up in Blue, cyanotype

-residence programme has been supported through multi-annual funding from North Down Borough Council and has enabled us to host artists from outside the UK and invite artists with specific skills to share these with our membership.

Since its inception participation has played a vital role in Seacourt’s activities. Over the years the programme has developed to include weekly, weekend and one-day classes. An A Level programme enables secondary school students to visit Seacourt’s facility for a day to produce intaglio prints facilitated by a professional artist. This programme is designed to support experimentation, idea generation and critical thinking. Over 20 schools now participate each year and the work produced has assisted pupils get places on university courses.

Community programmes have increased markedly over the past few years, particularly with health support organisations. We design our programmes to be as fail-safe as possible. They can provide awareness raising, personal development, group building or community celebration. Seacourt has been fortunate to have master printer Penny Brewill developing our participation programme. Through funding from the ACNI, continued through the Foyle Foundation she has devised print interventions designed to meet a range of abilities that successfully merge quality with accessibility. 2,220 people participated in the various elements of our Participation Programme during 2014/15.

Research into safer processes and innovative variations on traditional techniques has been ongoing for a number of years. Seacourt was the first studio in Ireland to adopt ferric chloride-based etching of copper and acrylic-based aquatint. We have also introduced copper sulphate-based etching for aluminium and zinc, waterless lithography, galvetch and computer-controlled engraving. Through its innovative programming Seacourt attempts to ensure printmaking remains a meaningful and vital option in the production of contemporary art.

In this regard we constantly strive to differentiate original print from reproductions. Our definition is as follows: “An original print is a term given to an artwork that has been conceived by the artist to be produced through a specific printmaking process usually chosen because of its inherent visual qualities. This differentiates the outcome from printed reproductions, which are basically illustrations of an already existing work of art. Original Prints emerge from a creative interplay between artistic intention and material limitation.” We encourage anyone with an interest in this interplay to come and make art at Seacourt.

Robert Peters, Director seacourt-ni.org.uk

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

Do Your Homework

Lee Boyd, Balanced, graphite

Lee Boyd, Office Politics, graphite

It’s an isolating practice being an artist. You are often removed from the viewer of your work, so it can be difficult to hear their thoughts upon seeing your work for the first time. You don’t seek this for validation or to have your ego stroked, but to fathom whether your ideas and your expression of them artistically have resonance with an audience.

The Internet has given artists a unique tool to communicate with each other both locally and globally. From around 2006 I started networking with other artists online for various projects around the world, mostly using Saatchi Online (now Saatchi Art), gaining more confidence in my own practice and developing more experience in the field of a being a professional artist and selling internationally.

At home in Bangor in 2010 I didn’t know any artists, but I wanted to have that same real-life network of individuals who could share experiences and knowledge. So I approached the local arts officer Patricia Hamilton and we had a conversation about other artists who had the same wishes.

Hamilton put a call out for a general meeting. From there a few of us got together and started sharing information and discussing possibilities about exhibitions we could run. This grew into the group Firsty?, mostly using Facebook to network with each other.

No one runs the group; it is a gathering of individuals sharing possibilities, experiences and knowledge. It’s effective in answering its members’ needs: ‘what you put in you get out’. The more we share and network, the more opportunities develop. Firsty? has grown to include artists from all over Ireland, North and South – 690 to date – and it’s free!

What’s interesting is that, because we are now a fairly large group, we are harder to ignore. The potential is there for various enterprises, businesses and councils to utilise a core of artists ready to answer their creative needs. And Firsty? artists are creating their own opportunities and events in support of each other rather than waiting for someone else to take the lead.

Project 24 has become for many artists in North Down and Ards a stepping-stone to see if the practice of being a professional artist is a real possibility for them. It’s incredibly difficult in the current economic climate to endeavour to make a living by getting paid for your art, but the project supplies

the studio space in which to showcase your work and your process to a viewing public.

It is not about supplying local art for local tourists. It’s the chance to develop how and what you do. I was there for two years. I couldn’t say the Pods studios supplied me with economic revenue from sales, but it pushed me to take my practice more seriously and look for vehicles that could supply me with a living as an artist.

To make this living you can’t wait for someone to knock at your door and ask if you’re selling art.

You have to work at promoting and creating possibilities, making connections outside of your social network, in order to seek out potential avenues for showcasing and selling your work.

On a purely economic basis, out of the 70,000 people in North Down, only a small percentage would be interested in buying art – and only a small percentage of that percentage would be interested in my “surreal portraiture depicting humanity as a menagerie of animals to create a narrative reflecting personal observations of society and people (manimal art)”. So, to make a living selling and showing my artwork I have to look outside of my area, and indeed country and continent. Why limit my audience?

You have to broaden the outlook of what, where and how you can show your art, not just wait for the traditional spaces and places to show it, but be selective in choosing where your art would best be seen. Build contacts and work on developing relationships with good proactive galleries. Do your research and homework. You are in charge of your art and you can’t wait for others to discover you.

That romantic notion is a fallacy and far removed from the reality of the lives of successful artists today. They work hard at creating and finding opportunities to showcase and sell their work as well as developing their professionalism in order to make a living as an artist.

So what’s it like to work in a town where there are so many other supportive and creative people?

It’s probably much the same as your town and city.

It’s possible that simply because we got together in large numbers people started noticing. Where you are doesn’t matter; it’s where you put your artwork that does.

Lee Boyd leeboydartist.com

July – August 2015

EXHIBITION

12

RDS Concert Hall, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 July 28 – 31 Free Admission August 5 – 9 Entry Fee Applies

www.rds.ie/arts Rewarding & Showcasing Excellence in Irish Craft & Visual Art

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

13

Conference

‘Co-Production: Enabling Design’ panel discussion at ‘Nimble Spaces, Ways to Live Together’

Security Play Shelter, discussion workshop led by Rhona Byrne and Ekaterina TiKhoniouk

Teddy Cruz presentation at ‘Nimble Spaces, Ways to Live Together’

Homes & Possibilities

tion of artists’ interventions in the housing system. Taking a couple of iconic projects as examples she questions the means and ends that the artists used. For example, the community bakery project in Anfield, set up by Jeanne Van Heeswijk for the Liverpool Biennial, raised questions on the suitability of biennials for community projects, due to their limited duration.

The early-afternoon workshops split the audience and the contributors into small groups, which provided a welcome opportunity to discuss the ideas presented.

It was encouraging to have Ann Phelan, TD for Wicklow and Minister of State for Rural Economic Development, participate in the workshops. It is to be hoped that some of what she heard on the day might make it into the government’s Construction 2020 plan, whose ambitions she took the opportuniy of presenting.

The event ended with a talk via Skype by Teddy Cruz from San Diego, titled Where is our collective imagination?. Working on the conflicted border between Tijuana and San Diego he pointed to the unprecedented urban development that has taken place across the world in recent years and its asymmetrical shadow, the slums. Looking at the differences on either side of the border, Cruz also drew attention to the lack of public participation in city planning in both places. Presenting the different urban projects he has been working on, Cruz insisted on the need to renew our civic imagination in Europe just as much as in the US or Mexico.

At the end of a day jam-packed with ideas and possibilities, two points stood out strongly for me: one was the need for more widespread participation in housing and urban planning development, as it affects all of us and should not be left to professionals alone. The other was to prioritise conversion over building. In his presentation, Gemeyal showed two photographs to illustrate the changes that 100 years had brought to Beirut. Dismissing the argument of growth population as the catch-all explanation, he pointed out that central Beirut could be transformed into a park tomorrow without creating a single case of homelessness. The desire for houses had transformed “individual dreams into a collective nightmare”.

There was a great mixed audience for the day and a relaxed atmosphere, perhaps helped by the accompanying aural punctuations of a Camphill Community, Callan member that gave the day its rhythm – a lovely lunch by Luncheonette gave it its flavour. Audience and contributors were invited to Callan on the following day for more focused discussions and workshops, giving them the chance to unpack some of the day’s propositions.

MICHAËLE CUTAYA REPORTS ON ‘NIMBLE SPACES, WAYS TO LIVE TOGETHER’, VISUAL, CARLOW (1 MAY).

‘Nimble Spaces, Ways to Live Together’, held at Visual, Carlow on 1 May, was a day-long conference of alternating talks, panels and workshops. The event brought together a wide range of practitioners to share different ways to think, design, build and inhabit our living spaces. The conference was a component of Nimble Spaces “an enabling design process” started in 2013 by independent curators Rosie Lynch and Hollie Kearns in Callan “that supports adults with a disability to work creatively with artists and architects through design collaborations and workshops”.1 The urgency of re-thinking our approach to housing was vividly exposed in Rory Hearne’s opening talk ‘What role for housing in a Republic?’ A lecturer in political and economic geography at Maynooth University, Hearne presented some of his research and findings on the housing crisis in Ireland. He stated that one cause for the lack of affordable housing has been the steady privatisation of public houses since the 1980s. He addressed such issues as rising rents, the lack of tenancy rights and high vacancy rates, as well as the looming wave of repossessions. He concluded that we needed to “move away from a housing system based on promoting finance-led owner occupation and speculative investment and implement policies that provide genuinely affordable, high quality, long term secure housing as a home”.2 The rest of the day was rich in suggestions about how to address these issues, with presentations from Germany, the UK, Lebanon, the US and Ireland. Three panels of architects, academics, developers, artists, community workers and users presented an exciting variety of projects and research. The first panel, ‘Coming Together: Economies and Ecologies’, was focused on affordability and sustainability with an emphasis on co-operation. Dougal Sheridan, lecturer in architecture at the University of Ulster, presented the Building Groups (Baugruppe) in Berlin, which have emerged over the last decade and now represents 10% of all new buildings. ‘Themed’ groups of Berliners come together over shared concerns (elderly people, families of children with disabilities etc.) to form a co-operative and hire an architect and a builder to custom-design blocks of apartments. These are usually built to Passivhaus standards, with shared facilities and costs that average 25% less than the market. These Baugruppe have become major players in the city’s housing system in just a few years. This building together was inspired by the multiple communes and squats that developed in Berlin in the 1960s and 1970s, many of them led by artists.

Dermot Sellars and Trish Brennan gave examples of co-operative housing and regeneration projects in Ireland and Aaron Koffman presented the developer’s view of affordable and sustainable housing in the US. Imad Gemeyal, an architect from Beirut, stole the show in challenging the building obsession of his compatriots. He recounted how

very early on in his career he had come to the paradoxical conclusion that building was not the answer. Taking into account the building proliferation in Lebanon – for various historical and psychological reasons – he opted for conversion and spatial flexibility. His architectural firm proposes to convert existing structures, making them more energy efficient but also more adaptable through the re-purposing of furniture that can be moved and used to different ends.

In the second panel, ‘Co-Production: Enabling Design’, the emphasis was on design and participation. Susanne Hoffman, an architect from Berlin, presented the work done by Die Baupiloten, an interdisciplinary practice that specialises in housing developed through participatory design strategies. Discussions and spatial games are used to engage the future inhabitants in designing their homes. Play was also at the heart of the work done by LiD Architecture with members of the Camphill Community, Callan for the Enabling Space Game. The games were designed to negotiate the different degrees of sharing / privacy that members enjoy in their daily activities, but also to imagine different ways of living.3 Je Ahn, from Studio Weave in London, talked about their approach to design and some of the research conducted on co-housing models. Ríonach Ní Néill, a choreographer from Galway whose practice focuses on collaboration with other art forms, discussed the ways in which creative movement and physical improvisation can help understanding architectural spaces in different ways and how they have been used to design buildings. She also presented the work she did in Callan with the Camphill Community.

The third panel, ‘Co-Housing / New Neighbourhoods’, looked into case studies of alternative communities and housing initiatives. Particularly moving was the presentation by Tim Woodward on the challenges faced by the Stuarts Community Trust in England to become more inclusive to all involved. Dublin City Architect Ali Grehan discussed the need to reconcile Irish people with urban living as a more sustainable way of life than suburbia and presented imaginative possibilities for apartment buildings. David Philip, a founding member of FEASTA (Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability and of Sustainable Projects Ireland, Ltd), presented the eco-village project in Cloughjordan (County Tipperary) where they introduce levels of flexibility between private and shared use of commodities and spaces.

The part artists have played in social housing is somewhat ambivalent: they have initiated many alternative forms of living, from the Berlin communes to eco-villages and have been an inspiration for others. But they have also led the way in the gentrification of many areas with disastrous social consequences. In her talk The Housing Crisis and Art: Developing Solidarity or Producing Capital Assets? Andrea Phillips, professor of Fine Arts in Goldsmith, focused on the political func-

Michaële Cutaya is a writer and researcher on art living in County Galway.

Notes 1. For further details of Nimble Spaces see nimblespaces.org and Hollie Kearns and Rosie Lynch, ‘The Future of Place’, VAN, March – April 2015, p.23 2. The Housing crisis: some radical solutions for the coming Budget, Irish Examiner, 8 and 28 October 2014 3. Documentation of the Enabling Space Game is available at on the Nimble Spaces website

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

VAI AcTIVIT TIVITy

“When you’re emerging there’s loads of spaces, but now it’s about inroads to the next step up.”

“What do I want from the art world?

I want everything.

I want everything ‘they got’.”

“Go out and vote.”

“For me it’s not so much about the medium, it’s always about the idea. I’d love to exhibit photophoto graphs and paintings side by side somewhere next year. But, we will see.”

“The Art World is both open and closed and is annoying + exhilarating.”

“VAI is great, and I wish every country would have one. It’s a gem. Whenever you call them it feels like a Mom and Pop shop.”

“(11.33am: Someone spoke into the Robot’s ear) Hey Robot, I would really appreciate it. I am kind of fed up that there seems to be such an emphasis on community outreach, rather than the artwork itself. Maybe we should have more faith in the art itself rather than thinking of ways it can solve society’s problems.”

“What people really want is audience, people to really appreciate and understand what they’re doing.”

“Validation.”

“I’m often on selection committees and I have found that the number and quality of submissions is disappointing, considering the vast numbers of excellent artists there are in the country. I’ve been in the position to encourage corporate sponsors to engage artists in public commissions and often the outcomes are disappointing. So we need to research to find out what is scaring off the artists from engaging and from applying. Why are they not applying? …Answers might include, cVs Vs and no experience in public art. Does there need to be an interim body, or an advisor in VAI who could talk to people about wording their commission?

(The commissioning body goes through somesome one like VAI.) A forum where artists say what’s putting them off? If it happens, for example, to be nepotism, let’s expose it and kill it if it exists.”

“I want to be in on the INSIDE of the art world.”

20:20 Vision Glenn HolMAn Hol AnD AnDy yP PARSonS oF FloATInG WoRlD WeRe coMMISSIoneD By VISuAl ARTISTS IRelA AnD AS PART oF VAI’S 20:20 VISIon InITIATIVe, To T GATHeR ARTISTS’ THouGHTS on WHAT THey WAnT FRoM M THe ART WoRlD. THeSe PAGeS oFFeR A coMPenDIuM oF ReSPonSeS GATHeReD AT VAI’S GeT ToGeeTHeR 2015, HelD AT IMMA on 15 MA Ay 2015.

The Visual Arts sector is in a permanent state of change and evolution.

The artists described their deployment of a ‘robot’ in the project

As part of our 2015 work programme, Visual Artists Ireland have

as “serving the purpose of creating a neutral place for artists to place

created the first long term vision document dedicated to individual

their ideas. The comedic element helped to elicit more frank and open

artists. The programme will be made up of information and insight

contributions. We thought of it something akin to Golem, a hard-to-

gathering from artists and peer groups.

define entity that will nonetheless work tirelessly for its creators”.

The first engagement was part of Get Together 2015 with a

Visual and verbal opinions and comments were transcribed

commissioned art work, The Robot Robot, by Glenn Holman and Andy

as accurately as possible by Holman and Parsons in ‘real time’ – as

Parsons of Floating World. Holman and Parsons set up a desk with a

images, texts, collages and general observations – which have been

robot built with a handmade aesthetic and asked participants at Get

brought together in and artist’s book available for download at:

Together: what do you want from the art world?

floatingworldbooks.com and visualartists.ie.

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

15

VAI AcTIVITy

“What’s its name?

Er? Not Sure. What Do you think?

Depends... Is it optimistic?

Ansell... It’s called Ansell!”

As a Northern Irish artist, we’re very cut off, there’s that invisible boundary. So, for example, the North / South gallery touring programme doesn’t seem to be working. There’s a critical problem, you can’t get network reviewed in ROI. So we’re making big strides – but so much more co-operation is needed.

“I want to be KING OF ART WORLD. I want my own crown.

I want to rule my own kingdom.

I want a pony – an art pony.

There’s NO democracy in art you know.”

Let me explain, I think artists should be paid as much as the administrators. Huge amounts of staff, instead of paying artists? Arts offices could be integrated into the arts centres. It would make it all more accessible and it would work better.

Things get stagnant if the same people are sitting in an office for more than seven years. People who administer the arts world have all these nice things and a pension, while artist don’t. It’s just so obvious that the bureaucracy of it all is stifling.

“Money.

Yeah, money.

It’s a recurring theme isn’t it?

Yeah, but people don’t seem to want to talk about it.

As if it doesn’t matter.

It does though!

Yeah, and if you think about the labour that goes into things...

I know.”

16

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

Career Development

Suzanne Mooney, Tokyo Summit A, 2012 – 2013

Suzanne Mooney, Come Away, O’…, installation view, Aesthetica Art Prize exhibition, York St Mary’s

Suzanne Mooney, Come Away, O’… and Tokyo Summit A, installation view, Aesthetica Art Prize

Balance & Momentum

search student followed by three years on a doctoral degree course.

I spent the greater part of my first year and a half in Japan studying Japanese. What I learned was only the tip of the iceberg, as the level of language skill required to function as a professional in any field takes time to acquire, but it was enough for me to articulate my ideas well enough to pass the interview for Tama Art University’s doctoral degree course in 2011. Just weeks after the 11 March disaster, I officially transferred to start my PhD. After my career had gained a little momentum in Ireland, I was worried about leaving to start again in another country – and rightly so. It takes time to integrate with the art scene of any city or country.

There are many foreign artists, at least within Asia, who stick within English-speaking communities, have some exhibitions, but then find it difficult to sustain or develop their careers beyond this relatively small community. Graduating through or working in a local art university or arts organisation is a good way to overcome this issue. Since graduating in March 2014, I have been teaching and translating at an art university and am currently an artist-in-residence for one year in a Yokohama arts initiative in Koganecho. Koganecho Area Management Center is a not-for-profit organisation working with the local community and artists to develop a strong sense of community in an area with a complicated and problematic history.

Last year I entered some of my doctoral artworks, Come Away, O… (2013) and Tokyo Summit A (2012 – 2013) into the Aesthetica Art Prize.

I do not apply for many competitions, but I knew the magazine and I felt that the competition suited my aesthetic sense and approach to art making. I was delighted to hear that I had been selected for the shortlist of 8 artists, out of a total of 3,500 applicants. By chance, I was traveling to speak at the Association of Asia Studies conference in Chicago just days after the opening reception, and I was able to schedule a stopover in the UK to attend the event. It was a great feeling to be there when the winners were announced and I was awarded the student award of £1,000, editorial coverage in Aesthetica magazine, art books and art supplies. My work was also selected for the cover of the accompanying Aesthetica Art Prize anthology, Future Now. I look forward to seeing what opportunities might come my way as a result. I have already received some additional press exposure and have been re-establishing connections in Ireland and Europe.

I feel like I am gaining that momentum again, and will continue to pursue funding to support my practice, exhibiting in Japan and abroad. The additional work I am doing now does not feel so much like ‘subsidising’ my arts practice, although I do think occasionally about the appeal of long days in the studio with no other commitments and distractions. On the other hand, finding a balance between art making, academic research, curriculum development and engagement with art students who will be artists in the near future is something I would not like to give up any time soon.

Suzanne Mooney

SUZANNE MOONEY, WINNER OF THE 2015 AESTHETICA ART PRIZE, DISCUSSES HER ART CAREER. I’ve always thought of being an artist as a ‘no-choice career’. If there were anything else that could give me the same kind of satisfaction as art making, I would probably be doing that instead.

After secondary school, I decided not to apply for any colleges or universities through the CAO system. Instead, I started a PLC course in art at Stillorgan Senior College. I explored many different mediums, met some inspirational instructors and made my first sales: some drawings at our end-of-year exhibition. The following year, I did apply to some degree programmes. After much deliberation, I chose to study fine art at IADT. I initially intended to study ceramics, but in the end I majored in painting, with some minor studies in printmaking and digital media. In my fourth year, an add-on degree year, I switched medium to photography. I went on to train in multimedia production through a FÁS initiative, graduate from the NCAD MA in Fine Art: Virtual Realities (now Art in the Digital World) and eventually to re-enter education several years later in Japan. This shifting from medium to medium has continued throughout my practice, and the medium and concept of each work are intrinsically linked.

I favour showing in non-conventional gallery spaces. I enjoy the process of responding to the space, considering how the work will be read within each location, context and physical space. Two recent exhibitions in which I’ve participated have been in a re-purposed factory in Japan and a church in York that is now a contemporary gallery space. My next solo exhibition will be in a constructed shipping container (a little smaller than the real thing) within a hair salon in central Tokyo. This upcoming exhibition at the Container Gallery will be a new site-specific work, which will turn the entire space into a light box that the viewer can enter.

Japan, like many other countries, has a large number of rental galleries. I don’t believe this system adds anything to the conversation of the arts. With a non-curated space, there is no guarantee of the quality and integrity of the exhibition; or a connection between your exhibition and those that follow; or a dialogue with other artists. Whereas, exhibiting in a space that shows artists with similar concerns to yours – who are people from your ‘art world’ – means that the connections and conversations that occur from exhibition to exhibition can lift your work beyond an individual arts practice into a wider communication.

In Ireland, my studios of choice were mostly artist-run spaces or collectives. There is a wonderful creative energy and culture of sharing experiences and ideas in new start-up collectives. Yet, as many newer spaces do not receive additional funding or support, the cost per square metre can be expensive compared to established studios.

Another means of getting access to suitable workspace is artist residencies. One major advantage of working in a studio in another country is that this kind of venture fits within the criteria for funding awards that a local studio would be ineligible for. Many of the larger residencies will provide funding, while some will provide only the working and living space. Be wary of the kinds of residencies that offer a studio at the price of local rents, unless perhaps they are offering some remarkable support, or specialised facilities.

Over the last 10 years I have successfully received funding from the Arts Council, including a Visual Arts Bursary, and Travel and Training Awards, in addition to Culture Ireland funding and other smaller awards. This has allowed me great freedom to pursue a wide range of projects. More recently, I have discovered that competitions can also be an additional, if unreliable, source of funding. However, as with any of these funding options, it is important to consider the amount of time it will take to write the application and how likely it is that you will be successful. When it comes to public funders, such as the Arts Council, it is always worth contacting them directly before starting your application to make sure that your project fits their specific criteria.

Between graduating from the MA course and leaving for Japan, I was self-employed, with artists’ tax exemption status. During this time my income came both from arts funding and commissions and from design work. For most artists, particularly those in the early and mid-career stages, subsidising your income through work outside of your arts practice is a fact of life. I chose freelance design as it gave me the most flexibility with regards to working hours and location.

This occupation also allowed me to schedule non-working periods, when I was particularly busy with a project or exhibition, or spending a long time abroad. I also did a little teaching and tutoring. Part of my reason for returning to university was because I did not yet have the academic experience to be seriously considered for a permanent university position. I had developed a strong desire to write and, as research is consistently a part of my arts practice, I chose to combine the two and pursue a further academic qualification, with the end goal of finding a suitable position, either as a lecturer or researcher, in an art university.

In 2009, I moved to Japan through a Japanese government scholarship programme, with the goal of graduating with a PhD. I thought long and hard about this decision and even visited the country four times to be sure that it was the right place for me. In retrospect, I’m glad that I didn’t comprehend the scale of the challenge I would face.

I studied for five years in Japan: two years as a postgraduate re-

suzannemooney.com

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

17

Profile

Alan Magee, Gapfill: More Beauty More Happiness, December 2013, Old Schoolhouse, Drogheda

Vanessa Donoso López, A Painful Excess of Pleasure, 2014, King House, courtesy of the artist

Dialogues & Mediations PARTICIPANTS DISCUSS THE BENEFITS TO ARTISTS OF THE ARTS COUNCIL CURATOR-IN RESIDENCE SCHEME. Since 2012 the Arts Council’s Curator in Residence Scheme has supported curators and multi-disciplinary venues across Ireland to develop innovative ways to engage local audiences. The scheme, worth up to €20, 000 per project, enables curators to devise yearlong programmes, working in partnership with venues and local authorities. As Claire Doyle, Head of Visual Arts at the Arts Council, explains, the scheme provides “independent / freelance curators with support to develop a programme that benefits their practice, within an environment where they would gain practical supports through a venue – not only a gallery space but also admin support, facilities and equipment to programme within or outside of that space”.

Although the initiative is focused on benefits to curators, institutions and audiences, there are obvious advantages for artists, in that the scheme provides high-quality exhibition opportunities managed to best practice standards. Commenting on these broader benefits, Claire Doyle notes how the influence of an independent curator in multi-disciplinary venues benefits venues in terms of “expertise and understanding of programming contemporary art” as well as through “the legacy left behind from their encounter with an experienced curator”.

‘I won’t say I will see you tomorrow’, Aoife Tunney’s curator-in-residence project (22 April – 31 October 2013), was carried out in partnership with Eilis Lavelle at the Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Wicklow County Council, the Philosophy and Architecture departments at UCD and the Austrian Embassy. The project considered the writings and life of Ludwig Wittgenstein, featuring on and off site showings of work by Irish artists Karl Burke, Clodagh Emoe, Joe Noonan Ganley, James O’hAodha and Mark Swords, alongside contributions by Austrian architect Markus Bogensberger, Norwegian artist Olav Christopher Jensen and Austrian artist Bernhard Fuchs. The project’s various manifestations included a reading group, film screenings, artworks, performances, events and music presented in the Mermaid Arts Centre and Redcross Forest.

One of the key conclusions Tunney drew from her project was that “the building of an audience from the very start of a project is very important – with information, but also with some social interaction – as it encourages participation”. Outlining her working relationship with artists Tunney stated: “I worked closely with the artists throughout our research group activities – their artworks were an outcome of close curatorial and artist discussions. I feel that the artists benefited from an open and interesting project background.”

For her 2013 residency Mary Cremin worked out of Block T, Dublin, collaborating on projects with The Joinery, Dublin to deliver shows at Roscommon Arts Centre and Boyle House, Roscommon. Cremin described her programme as being concerned with “experimentation and cross-disciplinary explorations,” showing works that were “in the process of coming into being – so that there was an element of risk, which made for dynamic and challenging exhibitions”.

Cremin presented work by Eleanor Duffin, Wayne Daily, Aoibheann Greenan, Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty, Gillian Lawler, Shane Murphy, Caroline Le Mehaute, Clodagh Emoe, Patrick Hough and Jane Fogarty. Cremin saw her residency as offering the artists she worked with “an opportunity to experiment with new work”. She continued: “The artists could approach the gallery as a studio / site of creativity – they had freedom to develop new ideas, but also to work and collaborate with the curator in the area of exhibition making”.

Nexus Arts carried out their 2013 residency with Droichead Arts Centre and Louth County Council. The first of their projects was a largescale site-specific artwork by renowned Italian artist Erica Il Cane, on

the outer walls of the Droichead Arts Centre, accompanied by a solo exhibition of prints and a sculpture made on site during the Drogheda Arts Festival. In partnership with Highlanes Gallery, Nexus presented ‘GapFill: More Beauty, More Happiness’, Alan Magee’s installation in the Old Schoolhouse, Drogheda. On 14 December 2013 they presented ‘Insight – Insound’, a screening of audio-visual art at Barlow House, Drogheda.

Nexus felt that, due to the support of the scheme, they “were taken more seriously by the art world in general”. They stated: “Our activities, projects and programmes received wider support and in turn were able to offer great opportunities for artists – paying a proper fees, supplying materials etc. We were able to encourage artists and they were able to think bigger and better as a result”.

In 2013 Declan Sheehan curated ‘R-M222: Contemporary Artists of the Donegal Diaspora’ at the Regional Cultural Centre (RCC), Letterkenny (8 July – 21 September 2013). R-M222 is Y-chromosome associated with people whose roots lie in the counties of Northwest Ireland, Ulster and the Scottish Lowlands. The exhibition presented the work of leading Irish and international contemporary artists of the first, second, third and fourth generation Donegal Diaspora, including Turner Prize winner Susan Philipz, Turner nominees Liam Gillick and George Shaw, together with Frances Hegarty, Vivienne Dick and Padraig Timoney. The show also featured a specially-commissioned process room project by Rachael Flynn reflecting on emigration from Donegal to Scotland and from Ireland to Scotland.

Outlining some of the benefits to artists, Sheehan noted how, for Vivienne Dick in particular, “it was of major significance,” continuing: “It was her first exhibition in Donegal and established that there was an appreciation of her career in her home county. For the participating artists abroad, it connected them to their Irish heritage, a theme which the artists confirmed that they’d return to in their practices”.

Para Institution, Megs Morley’s 2014 residency project, sought to “contribute to a networked approach to the long-term development of contemporary art practices in Galway”. It was carried out in partnership with Galway City Council, Galway Arts Centre, the Huston School of Film and Digital Media, NUI Galway, the Centre of Creative Arts and Media, GMIT, the Community Knowledge Initiative, NUIG, 126 Gallery, Adapt, Eva International, Engage Art Studios, An Taibhdhearc, Galway Film Centre and Plastik Film Festival. Para Institution featured focus groups and mentoring opportunities for artists and audiences alike, alongside talks and reading groups. Besides high profile events featuring Bassam el Baroni and Claire Bishop, major conference and seminar events included ‘Territory, Encounter and Negotiation – A Critical conversation’, the 126 Footfall Conference and ‘Thinking Through Institutions’. Para Institution also formed part of the Galway strand of the Plastik Artists’ Moving Image and Film Festival. The project’s website (parainstitution.ie) was developed as an archive and discussion tool.

Morley commented: “In the absence of a contemporary art institution in Galway, there are differing and even contested notions of what this might represent. I developed a multifaceted programme of research, dialogical and pedagogical events and strategies, screenings, symposia etc. I received very positive feedback from artists who felt that such forums and opportunities in the visual arts were absent in the city.”

David Upton is currently working on a partnership between the Mermaid County Wicklow Arts Centre and the Courthouse Arts Centre, Tinahely, supported by the County Wicklow Arts Office. Upton’s project, which explores “moments of collectivity and what residue of them remains in the communities collective memory”, includes a com-

Adrian Williams, WATERING HOLE, 2013, Städelmuseum, Frankfurt, photo by Vita Spiess and Daniel Kohl

prehensive audience engagement plan, aiming to establish a local network as well as working with Adrian Williams and Elisabeth S. Clark, artists based in Frankfurt and Paris respectively. In September Williams and Clark will take up a short residency in the Courthouse Arts Centre, followed by an exhibition of new work in the Mermaid Arts Centre.

Upton said: “This award has enabled me to invite and support the artists to produce new work specifically for the project. Through the project’s accompanying creative gatherings I aim to build a sustainable forum for artists working resiliently in a rural context”.

Annette Maloney is currently delivering ‘Endurance / Resilience’, a programme developed for Source Arts Centre, Thurles, Co. Tipperary, examining “the links between sport and human effort in contemporary art”. It encompasses exhibitions, residencies, talks and events, including tie-ins with the Bealtaine Festival. Participating artists include Dan Shipsides, Róisín Lewis and Debbie Guinnane. The programme is being developed in partnership with Tipperary County Council, North Tipperary Sports Partnership and South Tipperary Sports Partnership. A number of organisations have come on board through support in kind.

Maloney, commenting on the wider benefits for artists, noted: “It’s early days, but even after a few months we’ve also achieved some quiet, background developments that will form part of the legacy of the curatorial residency. These include embarking on a refurbishment of the gallery space, which really improves the conditions in which artists can show their work. We’re also developing a handbook in order to maintain the space better and a new submission policy for forthcoming shows.”

Eilís Lavelle is Curator in Residence 2015 with Donegal County Council, the Regional Cultural Centre (RCC), and Glebe House and Gallery. Lavelle’s programme is in its early stages. Its first iteration was ‘For the Hills’, an exhibition of work by Orla Mc Hardy at the RCC (21 March – 25 April), featuring a selection recent works: HD digital projections, 2D animations embedded into objects, found objects, and sculptural and sound installations. The work made for this show has was funded by a Film Project Award from the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Lavelle is also devising a showing of McHardy’s work at Glebe House Gallery. Another strand of activity sees Lavelle joining forces with Rebecca Strain to instigate a creative networking group at the RCC, which will offer a forum for artists in Donegal, professional development and future collaborations.

Linda Shevlin was awarded two consecutive Curator in Residence awards for programmes in 2014 and 2015, working in Roscommon.

Shevlin’s current programme incorporates projects with Roscommon Arts Centre, Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Lough Key Forest Park, King House, Boyle and the Irish Famine Museum at Strokestown Park. The artists that Shevlin is working with include Rosie Lynch and Hollie Kearns (Commonage / Nimble Spaces), Christine Mackey, Maria McKinney and Deirdre O’Mahony.

Shevlin describes how she prefers “taking a more nomadic approach – projects, events and exhibitions will unfold throughout the county”.

Shevlin’s projects stem from research centred on the production and dissemination of work in rural contexts: “How artists make and present work, the support mechanisms that enable its production and also its migration beyond the environs in which it was created”.

In terms of the benefits to artists from of the Arts Council’s Curator in Residence scheme, in Shevlin’s view, “artists are being provided with a dedicated curator in a space where ordinarily one would not be available, giving them a main point of contact, an advisor and facilitator”.

She also emphasises that “there’s a huge personal challenge for artists exhibiting in a rural art centres; they need to really consider their audience and how their work is mediated”.

Jason Oakley, Publications Manager, Visual Artists Ireland.

Notes All comments / quotes drawn from email correspondence / conversations with the writer. TheArts Council Curator in Residence Scheme recipients are: 2012, Mary Cremin, Aoife Tunney, Nexus Arts, Declan Sheehan; 2013, Megs Morley, Linda Shevlin; 2014, Eilis Lavelle, Linda Shevlin, Annette Moloney and David Upton.

18

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

Art in Public

Insider Witness FIONA WHELAN OUTLINES THE MOTIVATIONS AND THINKING BEHIND ‘TEN: TERRITORY, ENCOUNTER & NEGOTIATION’, A CRITICAL MEMOIR’WRITTEN BY THE ARTIST ABOUT HER EXPERIENCE OF COLLABORATIVE ART PRACTICE.

Fiona Whelan, TEN: Territory, Encounter & Negotiation, 2014

The Artist’s Experience I recently wrote and published a critical memoir, TEN: Territory, Encounter & Negotiation, in an attempt to counteract the absence of written material from artists working collaboratively. This publication presents an artist’s personal and subjective insight into a socially engaged practice. Written a decade after I first positioned my practice in the inner-city village of Rialto, Dublin, TEN tells the story of my growth as an artist in that context. It aims to reveal the multiple layers of a collaborative process that often remain hidden and are misunderstood. Through writing, I explored the complex working relationships, the methods of engagement, creative processes and analyses. I wanted to make sense of the complexity of my durational art practice, which has operated across sectors, and to create a new type of learning tool for the field of socially engaged art and related disciplines. The book intends to position my experience and thought process as the primary artist involved in a collaborative practice, at the centre of critical discourse related to this field.

I first took up a residency in Studio 468 in 2004 where I began working with Rialto Youth Project, a community organisation embedded within the local context from which I was exposed to a community’s life, its people and its politics. My position as artist allowed the practice to remain led by ideas, to be contingent, to change direction as the work required and to be sustained in one context for such duration. This publication focuses largely on a four-year project exploring power and policing, which included the events The Day in Question, at IMMA (2009), and Policing Dialogues at The LAB (2010). This work trespassed into other conceptual and disciplinary territories, the practice operating at the intersection of collaborative art, youth work, critical pedagogy and activism. While it was richer for its trans-disciplinary knowledge and form, engaging critically with such a practice and drawing out learning was not an easy task. Identifying the time boundaries within which to critique work that has accumulated over years is complex, in addition to the multiple participants, collaborators and audiences engaged and the range of dialogical events that took place in both art and non-art spaces.

Memoir as Critical Writing Critiquing durational collaborative practice is a complex task. In many recent publications, flaws in researching and writing about socially engaged art practice has been highlighted (O’Neill and Doherty 2011, Bishop 2012). In 2013, critic and writer Grant Kester described to a Dublin audience a potential crisis occurring for contemporary art criticism, fuelled by the growth of collaborative and dialogical practice. Recognising a gap in the type of writing that existed, I began to consider the possibilities of articulating my experience, offering a witness account to the processes behind the work we produced collectively in Rialto. In this I was thinking of artist Ailbhe Murphy’s proposed critical framework for collaborative artists, presented in her keynote address at the Create, Artist in Community Scheme’s 10-year gathering.1 Ailbhe proposed four levels of criticality for artists working collaboratively. Firstly she called for the phenomenology of the artist – the lived inter-disciplinary nature of the everyday practice – to be registered beyond private subjective experience so that it can enter the critical domain. Secondly, she argued for an exploration of the group process, where diverse identities meet and negotiate in order to produce work. In addition, an interrogation of the micro-political economy of practice would be required to include the matrix of inter-organisational supports, each of which has their own ideological commitments. Finally one would need to examine the macro-political economy, which highlights the political and economic forces that, with varying degrees of visibility, come to bear on the work.2 I was committed to producing a publication rooted in the phenomenology of the artist but I was aware of risks attached to writing subjectively about one’s own work. This concern is not unique to the arts. Writing in the 1990s anthropologist Ruth Behar described her frustration with the cold process that was expected of her profession.

She was interested in the subjectivity of the observer but detailed the risks attached to being too personal when writing. Such a practice was frowned upon in most scholarly fields; the writer was required to be distant, objective and abstract. Practices in anthropology have

moved on since then and I found myself inspired by Behar and others’ subjective voices. Using notebooks, emails, photographs and records of meetings, much like an ethnographer’s ‘field notes’, I re-visited and re-presented my practice as a critical memoir. I recognised my writing not as the ‘truth’ revealed, but as a partial perspective on a shared process. I approached it as an act of representation, adding new reflections to older field notes and commissioning new drawings to re-present undocumented moments. In her foreword for the book, Áine O’Brien, Co-Director of Counterpoints Arts, writes that a reader of the book becomes like philosopher Jacques Ranciere’s ‘emancipated spectator’, entrusted to render his / her ‘own translation and ongoing rendition’ of the story I had told.

New Learning The memoir form is often associated with older writers reflecting upon a career or a life. My decision to use this form was not intended to signal the end of this collaboration or to put forward a fixed or final position on the knowledge produced. While remaining aware that my reflections on this practice may change in the future, I recognise a value in telling the story while my practice is still positioned in Rialto.

The production of the book becomes like any other public moment in this praxis, which considers reflection, analysis and action part of an ongoing cycle. The book is rooted in the artist’s experience and aims to use that experience to reveal the multiple layers of the practice and the trans-disciplinary knowledge that was produced collectively. The subsequent promotion events further highlighted the complex cross-sectoral matrix of the practice and the broader economies of practice in which it operates. New learning from the book’s production, distribution and reception now feed back into current work.

TEN was launched at NCAD, Dublin bringing together activists, youth workers, artists and educators in an inter-disciplinary seminar.

A series of presentations from wide ranging professionals external to the process highlighted some of the macro-political economy of the field of practice, including the charity model of social justice operating in Ireland and the state of youth work in a time of austerity. These were followed by a public performative reading of an extract of the book – staged by myself, the youth project manager, a youth worker and a former youth collaborator – bringing the focus back to the micro-level of collaboration within the organisation and the group.

A subsequent launch in Galway intersected a further discipline as curator Megan Johnston’s experience of ‘slow curating’ engaged in conversation with the practice.3 More recent presentations with PS2‚ Belfast and Maynooth University have involved other lenses being put on the work, the complexities of collaboration in the former, the politics of voice and listening in the latter.4 As I continue to position and re-position my art practice in an uncertain space at the intersection of a range of diverse knowledge and disciplines, the book continues to be received, reviewed and discussed in a range of diverse contexts. Writing the book has been an informative experience and process in itself. I welcome the new learning that will take place as TEN encounters each new public, each of whom will render their own unique translations. I look forward to developing this learning process over the next decade, wherever that will take me.

Fiona Whelan is an artist and Joint Course Coordinator of the MA Socially Engaged Art at the School of Education, NCAD. ‘TEN: Territory, Encounter & Negotiation’ is available to purchase at fionawhelan.com and select bookstores.

Notes 1. Create, Artist in the Community 10-year gathering, IMMA, 27 November 2012 2. See vagabondreviews.org/present.htm 3. The Dublin launch of TEN at NCAD was organised by Fiona Whelan and Rialto Youth Project. Galway launch of TEN was hosted by Para-Institution in partnership with the Community Knowledge Initiative, NUI Galway and GMIT CCAM. Audio / video documentation of presentations from Dublin and Galway launches available at fionawhelan.com/event 4. The Belfast event was part of a UK wide series ‘ARTWORKS Conversation’ and the presentation in Maynooth University was part of the second ‘Irish Narrative Inquiry’ conference, both March 2015 Bibliography Ruth Behar, The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart, Beacon Press,1996 Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, Verso, 2012 Grant Kester, Collaborative Art and the limits of Criticism, Create News, May 2013 Aine O’ Brien, foreword to TEN: Territory, Encounter & Negotiation, Dublin 2014 Paul O’Neill and Claire Doherty, Locating the Producers: Durational Approaches to Public Art, Valiz, 2011 Jacques Rancière, The Emancipated Spectator, Verso, 2004

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

Critique Supplement Edition 20: July – August 2015

‘Primary Resource #2: Basic Space A--AA–AA–A’ , installation view, photo by Liliane Puthod

David Lunney, Untitled, photo by Liliane Puthod

‘Primary Resource #2: Basic Space A--AA–AA–A’ , installation view, photo by Liliane Puthod

‘Primary Resource #2: Basic Space A--AA–AA–A’ (Stéphane Béna Hanly, Simon Cummins, Jane Fogarty, Ann Maria Healy, David Lunney, Oisín O’Brien, Liliane Puthod, Eoghan Ryan, Daniel Tuomey, David Upton, Tanad Williams, Lee Welch) 15 – 31 May 126, Galway ‘Primary Resource’ is a series of exhibitions at 126, Galway, arising out of Footfall, a national research project devised by the gallery to study small arts organisations in Ireland. The hieroglyphically titled ‘A--AA--AA—A’, a show devised by Basic Space, Dublin, was second in the series.

The exhibition blurb described how the studio artists present provisional works in progress, displayed on trestle tables. Some of the works would be reinserted back into the artists’ processes when the show ends. This declaration offered an enigmatic dilemma to the viewer. Some of the works on display were not finished – but we don’t know which ones. It seemed there was an implicit intention to both corrupt established methods of exhibition and to trouble the viewer’s expectation of the resolution and conceptual integrity of works displayed. Accordingly, while some of the objects and images resting on the elegant bespoke trestles were compelling, the whole seemed more significant than its parts.

Lee Welch showed When we meet again, it won’t be me, a stately and humorous assembly of ostensibly-improvised elements: plywood cut-outs, red draping fabric and a broken-hearted saucer all arranged primly on a diminutive trolley. Ann Maria Healy’s In the on, a slab of birch ply hovering over the edge of a table-top, framed an inscrutable film still of performers in a bucolic landscape. Tanad Williams created Understanding, a parabolic, arched, mild-steel ‘U’, licked with a birch ply skin that functions as a trestle a-frame. It was sumptuous and perfectly fabricated.

Stéphane Béna Hanly’s Morceau de conversation comprised three mantlepiece-ornament-sized figures, similtaneously ironic and surreal. The softly -powdered clay added a sense of impermanence and impending disintegration.

David Lunney’s Untitled was propped upright on the centre table neatly dissecting its corner.

The surfaces of his plywood panel were painted with acrylic and overlaid with various strings and threads in an extrapolation on Mark Garry’s fragile, ethereal filament installations. Where Lunney’s differs from Garry’s is in dressing a solid with thread lines in order to delineate its mass. The work revived and contemporised the resonances of a material culture historically produced by women.

Jane Fogarty’s 04.15, a partially-completed painting (oil on board) was shown flat on the table, which afforded a solicitous view of the subtle tonal shifts on the amorphous forms she describes. Her modus operandi, whereby final outcomes are not the main consideration, most fittingly related to the provisional character of the show. She also exhibited Sculptural prototype #1, a playful, prismatic paper-maché tube placed under the corner of a table, like a secreted buttress.

David Upton’s work was a performative intervention that took place during the run of the exhibition, where he engaged local fantasy table-top gamers to use the exhibition as the landscape for a game.

Materials for retrograde filling by Eoghan Ryan took the form of a series of chirographic poster works elaborating the disconcerting phenomena of ‘retrograde ejaculation’ as a broad metaphor for the process of art making.

Stéphane Béna Hanly, Morceau de Conversation, photo by Liliane Puthod

Simon Cummins’s Pica.Magpie was a neat assemblage of vaguely derelict objects, the intriguing centerpiece of which was a de-potted plant standing on a clammy bed of Vaseline, terminating any sense of future growth.

Daniel Tuomey presented the first selection from BUILDINGS + MEN, a series of transitional drawings all made by the artist in a hungover condition with ‘residual blood alcohol’ listed as one of the materials incorporated into the work. These pieces reveal the gloomy cynicism and horrors of the post-euphoric state.

Monoplinthic by Oísín O’Brien explored a sculptural dilemma as he seeks to translate the negative space between the legs of a ubiquitous plastic garden chair into a form generated from layers of A4 paper. He also cut out the equivalent form from the plywood trestle top to describe an alternative version.

Consolidating the show was Liliane Puthod’s beisik speis Numero Uno, an eclectic publication (edition of 100) with bold graphics and exquisitecorpse style text and image contributions from the members of Basic Space.

“A collection of polyamorous works” is how Basic Space director Daniel Twomey described the show to me. Polyamory being the practice, state or ability of having more than one intimate loving relationship at the same time, with full knowledge and consent of all parties involved. It is a situation more aspirational than easily achievable for most and the selection of works in this exhibition registers this predicament.

‘A--AA--AA—A’ functions as an ideological model of the principles of Basic Space’s mission and goals, and as such it becomes a meta-narrative of how the collective works. It performs the workings of the group itself and reflects both its strengths and tensions. Áine Phillips makes live performance art and video in Ireland and internationally. She is involved in artist-led projects and curates live art events in Ireland. ainephillips.com

July – August 2015

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet Critique Supplement

‘Magenta Honey’ Gabhann Dunne The LAB Gallery, Dublin Dublin 1 May – 13 June 2015

‘I will go there, take me home’ Adrian Ghenie, Pieter Hugo, Olaf Brzeski Curated by Gregory McCartney 8 May – 26 July 2015, The MAC, Belfast

Gabhann Dunne, Floraborus, installation view, The LAB, Dublin

Gabhann has been painting since the 1990s and is an artist for whom the alchemy involved in manifesting an entity from paint appears effortless. He also demonstrates an easy aptitude for drawing.

The compression of these abilities into effective visual shorthand appears to have coincided with his MFA at NCAD, from which he graduated in 2011.

This latest exhibition includes work done in response to the milieu of Dublin’s North Bull Island.

The only city-based UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve, it came into being as a consequence of a man-made intervention in the form of early-nineteenth-century engineering works.

The impact of our species on the planet is not always so fortuitous and, unsurprisingly, the environment emerges as a central theme. The exhibition’s cryptic title reflects the well-documented plight of the bee as a matter of major ecological concern, and emerged from Dunne’s research, which revealed bizarre incidences where artificial sugars from anti-freeze and confectionary casings are used in the making of honey. In a recent interview on RTE Radio 1’s Arena, he relayed how these dubious honey products are produced in vividly-coloured “greens and blues and violets”.

Having encountered some of the featured paintings online, their most surprising quality in situ proves to be their diminutive scale. The exception to this is Floraborus, which was conceived for The Cube, a seven-metre-tall glazed space on The LAB’s ground floor. A multi-part piece exploring the theme of water, which is vital prerequisite for a living planet, its main component is an oil painting in tondo form, suggesting water projected over a blue sky. This work references a project that aims to relocate supplies from the Shannon to reservoirs that will serve Dublin consumers. It is surrounded by a wreath of flowers – or, more accurately, endangered and invasive plant species – painted directly onto the wall and extending, in ripple-like flourishes, up its full height. This device suggests transience and was inspired by Italian murals seen on trips abroad.

A small companion piece features a figure in the act of drinking a glass of water, painted in a pleasing mix of thin, streaky paint juxtaposed with juicier passages and traces of pencil.

The remaining works on unframed boards of in-the-main horizontal orientation are arranged individually or in groups along the three walls of the first-floor mezzanine gallery. This is a complex space with varying ceiling heights and other potential visual distractions, but the scale of the exhibits has the effect of inviting the viewer to partake of

intimate scrutiny, which is in keeping with the artist’s belief that painting is primarily about looking.

The best examples testify to the efficacy of Dunne’s annotated style and deliver strong imagery comprising simple forms on minimally textured but nonetheless sumptuous backgrounds. Their array of beautiful blues and greens, some with magenta under paint, camouflage the darker subject matter.

Morrigan’s Pearl spotlights the endangered freshwater pearl mussel, a bivalve mollusc with an incredibly long lifespan and important ecological role. But its central subject is marginally overworked in relation to the nuanced grey background, which alone conveys almost enough. The makers of the aforementioned honey also appear, struck in mid-air by arrows in Sebastian’s Bee, an art-historical reference to the oft-painted martyred saint, or as a treasured miniature in Golden, with its lapis-lazulieffect background and gold-leafed circular mount.

One particular grouping suggests a narrative turn. Comprising four separate boards, The Bull’s Hares references the threat to Bull Island’s population of hares, and emphasises their essential role in its ecology. The first is suggestive of a primordial ancestor, a simple form encapsulating an innate propensity for movement, while the second features the fully evolved animal running at full pelt and the third a generic hare in freefall, its footing on the planet compromised by human activity. The final piece is the most unsettling due to its potential for prophecy, and depicts a startled animal with shredded ears and alarming, post-apocalyptic eyes.

Other works evoke the cosmos. In Alpha Beta Proxima, A Rodent’s Hope, purples, blacks, pinks and yellows swirl and shimmer, due to the careful manipulation of the medium to deliver surface variation. In contrast, Durragh features a close-up of the artist’s son’s face, perhaps indicating his concerns as a parent about the world his children will inherit. It is difficult to portray a young child’s features without courting sentimentality, but Dunne just about gets away with it. Any reservations are brushed aside by the humour of a tiny patterned bolster positioned to break the fall of the painted deer in Dee’s Pillow, and the hopeful golden glow of the abstract Hi Susan.

Bringing together a diverse mix of subjects and approaches, all loosely wedded to the Bull-Islandinspired environmental banner, ‘Magenta Honey’ is a quietly thoughtful and essentially painterly showing that’s well deserving of close looking.

Susan Campbell is a PhD candidate in History of Art at Trinity College Dublin.

‘I will go there, take me home’ marks the second installment of the MAC’s guest curator programme, which offers independent curators the opportunity to develop exhibitions in the MAC’s three impressive gallery spaces. This year’s recipient is Gregory McCartney, a Derry-based curator who has devised a rich and multi-faceted exhibition which forces audiences to consider violence, failure, destruction and – quite bleakly – “the end of things … [from the] end of personal and social empires … [to the] failure of philosophies; the failure of systems; [and] the failure of people”.

The exhibition includes major works by three artists of international acclaim – Adrian Ghenie (Romania), Pieter Hugo (South Africa) and Olaf Brzeski (Poland) – none of whom have exhibited before in Ireland. Despite their geographical separation, each artist is no stranger to violence and all of their works are sobering, visceral and thought provoking, albeit in varying ways. While no works here are rooted in or directly reference Northern Ireland’s contentious political history, the presentation of these works in Belfast nonetheless enables the country’s own troubles to bubble under the surface of the exhibition.

Beginning in the MAC’s most impressive and largest exhibition space, the work of Adrian Ghenie is meticulously presented, featuring a range of both large and intimately-scaled gestural paintings and collages which confidently dominate the walls of the gallery. The abstract works depict aerial warfare and scenes of destruction, while blurred portraits of featureless faces simultaneously provide and deny a human presence. Largely reflecting the traumatic history of dictatorship in his native Romania, the works are multi-layered both physically and conceptually, also referencing news media, state archives and cinema.

Work by Pieter Hugo on show at ‘ I will go there take me home’

Similarly confident in its ability to fully command the MAC’s smaller Sunken Gallery, Olaf Brzeski’s single work in the exhibition, Dream – Spontaneous Combustion (2008), is a more quiet, contemplative piece. A black cloud of billowing smoke has been masterfully sculpted in soot and resin, marking the spot of spontaneous combustion, where only a pair of ashen feet remain. This is the site of a terrifying, tragic occurrence, but we are only witness to its aftermath, deathly silent and still, peaceful yet haunting.

Pieter Hugo’s large-scale photographs arguably pack the exhibition’s strongest punch, replacing the relative subtlety and quiet of the works by Ghenie and Brzeski with pieces a little more high-impact and unapologetic in their depiction of violence and destruction. Hugo’s work engages with both documentary and art traditions, focusing on African communities post-apartheid, depicting real people in terrifyingly hostile environments who meet and confront the viewer’s gaze. A room dedicated to a selection of works from Hugo’s The Hyena and Other Men series is particularly arresting. While these images are perhaps already familiar to audiences (they were even recently appropriated in a Beyoncé music video), their dominant scale and positioning in the triangular gallery space makes for a threatening, almost claustrophobic experience, as audiences are flanked on all sides by the hard stares of these men and their muzzled beasts.

A potential problem with the exhibition is that it perhaps reads more like three solo exhibitions under an umbrella theme than a group exhibition in which the works are more obviously juxtaposed against one another. To a large extent, the curatorial decision to use a separate gallery for each of the three artists has been dictated by the layout of the MAC, but the lack of a seamless transition between the spaces is unfortunate and prevents cohesion. The works on display are highly provocative, almost brutal in their impact, but as one navigates through a bustling café and concrete stairwells between the galleries, the exhibition ultimately feels a little disjointed, its flow interrupted by the building’s architecture, which denies a fully immersive experience.

One of the beauties of curating group exhibitions is the opportunity to forge relationships between different artists, exhibiting their work in new contexts alongside works with which they have never been shown. ‘I will go there, take me home’ is a little static in this regard, as the three separate spaces do not allow for a visual interplay between works which could potentially have provided a more unique visitor experience.

Nonetheless, McCartney has undeniably delivered one of the highlights of the MAC’s recent exhibition programme, demonstrating sophisticated vision and originality. His choice to exhibit the work of these three artists in Northern Ireland for the first time is certainly very welcome, and this is a refreshing and culturally important exhibition for the city.

Whilst presenting works made in various locations around the world, the exhibition is still highly relevant in a Northern Irish context, providing new perspectives on post-conflict and troubled societies, and possesses a provocative charge certain to prompt fruitful conversation and debate.

Ben Crothers is a writer and curator based in Belfast.

Work by Olaf Brezski on show at ‘ I will go there take me home’

atticusandalgernon.com

July – August 2015

Daniel Chester ‘The Land is Ours’, Paul Roy ‘ Re:Collect’ Gary Robinson ‘Conversations in a Crooked Circle’ Luan Gallery, Athlone, Co. Westmeath 2 May – 26 June 2015 ‘Women artists’ have fought long and hard to have gender specification removed, so to hear the exhibitors at the Luan Gallery in Athlone being described as ‘three male artists’ was strange. Strange, but relevant. The unifying element among these visual artists is that they are all male, from the Midlands and mid-career. On the other hand, at first glance at least, there is no common theme to their subject matter, while their work demonstrates a wide range of media, supports and techniques.

Daniel Chester’s ‘The Land is Ours’ is a series of 13 pieces, oil on aluminium. This is an unusual support to use, and one which prompts the question: what does this choice bring to the experience for the viewer? Certainly the smoothness of the surface allows for fine line, and here Chester shows great mastery. The subject matter is the local landscape, but this is presented in a less-than-fully representational way – these are not botanical recordings.

In Lake Side Sapling, for example, Chester extracts the tree from its environment, the better to render the fine detail, while the monochromatic palette evokes atmosphere and places the subject matter in a specific moment. This specificity of Chester’s work is underlined in other, subtle ways: the inclusion of a pylon or a telegraph wire and titles such as Wishing Tree, give a sense of time and place, and gently encourage the viewer to reflect on what we mean precisely when we speak of landscape.

In ‘Re:Collect’, Paul Roy has gathered 20 pieces worked in acrylic, ink and collage. Most contain images of human figures, mainly children, which appear to be taken from photographs of some time ago – the 1950s or 60s perhaps? But these are no sepiatoned tugs on the heartstrings. While there is an element of nostalgia in the subject matter and in the rough, chalk-like brushstrokes, this is dramatically attenuated by the palette Roy uses: strong primary colours and a disconcerting amount of pink. Pink is a difficult colour to use effectively. Roy manages to make it simultaneously evocative and disturbing, a constant feature of his pieces. Are they an exploration of innocence, or of innocence lost? And whose innocence is he examining? Is it reasonable to be a little discomfited by a man presenting children in such an ambiguous manner, or is that a sign that we as a society have lost our innocence? ‘Re:Collect’ places the viewer on the edge of a story in a manner that is quietly but powerfully disconcerting.

Gary Robinson’s ‘Conversations in a Crooked Circle’ consists of five paintings and an installa-

tion comprising mounds of wooden sticks woven together on either side of a small gap, on the floor of which is placed a quotation from Michel Foucault. Viewers are invited to write on small luggage tags and then to affix these to the sticks, thereby contributing to the conversation. Though dramatic and carefully constructed, this piece feels a little contrived, and there is contradiction in the fact that though the invitation is to step into the gap, the text placed on the floor inhibits this.

The paintings are striking and visually appealing; Robinson’s palette is strong, bright, eyecatching, and his technique exudes confidence.

But the use of text in visual work risks dividing the audience. Do the words add to the viewer’s understanding of the piece, or do they constrict it? Do the textual elements underpin the subject matter of the exhibition or do they undermine it, given that ‘conversation’ suggests the spoken rather than the written word? Robinson’s work is bold, but not yet fully reconciled.

These three shows all stand alone, but they have been carefully curated, not just individually, but as a group. Each has been placed in the space best suited to it. ‘The Land is Ours’ faces the river Shannon in a nod to the themes of locality and nature. The somewhat ominous tones of ‘Re:Collect’ are well contained with the darker space of the New Gallery, while the exuberance of ‘Conversations in a Crooked Circle’ finds a natural home in the light of the Library Gallery.

This group of exhibitions introduces the viewer to visual artists who are equally but differently competent, confident and curious – who are from the Midlands, mid-career and male. These facts become more interesting when put in the context of the gallery programme, where the next exhibition displays the work of three female crafters from outside the locality. This counterbalancing between local, national and international, between art and design, between the easily accessible and the challenging, is an integral element of the Luan ethos.

‘The Land is Ours’, ‘Re:Collect’ and ‘Conversations in a Crooked Circle’ are each worth a visit in their own right. But so too is the Luan Gallery, with its informative and friendly staff, innovative building and imaginative programming. Call in there soon.

Daniel Chester, Fir Tree, 2014 , oil on aluminium, 300 x 300mm

Paul Roy, The Sun Girl, 2015, acrylic, ink and collage on board

Gary Robinson, Conversations in a Crooked Circle, photo by E. Krysztofiak

Gary Robinson, Conversations in a Crooked Circle, photo by E. Krysztofiak

Mary Catherine Nolan is a Dublin-based artist with a background in linguistics.

Kathy Prendergast ‘OR’ Crawford Art Gallery, Cork 10 April – 13 June 2015 The elegant first floor landing and Gibson Galleries at the Crawford have been emptied of their fine paintings and ‘objets d’art’ to accommodate Kathy Prendergast’s exhibition ‘OR’, which also extends into the adjoining modern gallery.

At the centre of the landing, Prendergast’s After All (2015) is an intervention in the Gibson Cabinet, made specially to hold collectables donated by the eponymous patron of the gallery. A single white antique plate is retained on a mirrored shelf at one end, with a crescent moon outlined in blue. At the other end, four exquisite watercolours by the artist, Planets (2015), are laid two-by-two, depicting varied circular shapes against a dark background.

The wide central shelves of the cabinet initially appear empty until random circular outlines of the removed objects come into focus, highlighted by layers of ash dust of varying thickness. The efKathy Prendergast, Questions, Questions, 2014 – 2015

Kathy Prendergast, Eclipse, 2014 – 2015

Kathy Prendergast, The World in 12 Pieces, 2014 – 2015

fect is of a sealed airless universe, and a positive / negative pattern of doubt is literally raised as to the relevance of the removed objects. Two atmospheric moonscape paintings from the permanent collection have also been hung on the landing.

In Gibson Gallery I, a high-ceilinged rectangular room, Eclipse (2014 – 15) dominates the space. 27 standard desk globes of varying sizes are arranged on a thick rectangular table on two trestles. The globes and table are painted in matt black. The title of the work infers a closing off of light and, by extension, of knowledge of the world. On the facing side wall, The World in 12 Pieces (2014 – 15) is a symmetrical arrangement of 12 silver metal frames for the Carte Generale du Monde, fueilles 1 – 12. The 12 world maps have been removed to reveal the painted wall behind; the frames retaining only the white mounts with titles of the continents and mapping references.

In these works, Prendergast has extended her usual cartographic manipulation to a complete erasure of reference, giving greater emphasis to form over content. There is an underlying doubt about the usefulness and notions of certainty around

maps and mapping. The third work in this room, Linz / Wein (2014), features an atlas of Europe laid face up in a wall-mounted glass case, its two opened pages depicting part of Austria inked in black with its many settlements picked out in white, like a shimmering constellation.

The spherical motif reappears in Gibson Gallery II, a high square space containing two works.

In the centre a small plinth supports I (2014). Eight empty glass domes of the kind used to cover taxidermy specimens are placed neatly one inside the other, reducing in size each time. This simple piece conveys very effectively the impression of receding orbits in empty space.

A continuous low-level whirring sound draws us to look upwards – no title (2015), consists of a continuous line of 100 cream battery-powered clocks placed high around the four walls. The clock faces have been replaced by blank plastic discs painted to match the wall, the absent mechanisms reinforcing a sense of measureless time.

The final work, Questions, Questions (2014 – 2015), occupies the cavernous modern gallery.

Salvaged strips of wood, stained black, are placed tightly together to form a narrow, irregularlyedged walkway, which is raised slightly and laid at an angle across the centre of the space. Above the pathway for its full length, multiple sheets of tracing paper are suspended in pairs from tension wires, containing text outlined on black strips. The two angled side walls of the gallery are painted dark grey, anchoring this work very effectively in a space that could otherwise have overwhelmed it.

Multiple questions and statements are posed on the sheets of paper – researched by the artist or provided by friends at her request. Giving voice to the themes raised in the other rooms, they include: “What is creativity?”; “How did we arrive at this place? “; “Do we know more than we used to?”; “What is the future of history?” and “If humanity’s great moral strides were, not long before, impossible to believe, the trick question is: what’s next?”. One especially pertinent quandry reads “In a disenchanted, twenty-first-century world, how can we re-find a sense of amazement, wonder and awe at the mystery of our own and the Universe’s existence?”. This question underlines one of the central concerns of the exhibition, namely the need to step back from our known certainties of the world and our acquired senses of knowledge and control in order to rediscover a sense of real-time and rootedness in place.

In this setting, the floating pathway leads to associations with ancient roadways uncovered from bogs, raising questions as to who travelled along it and what their worldly concerns were. The questions posed along Prendergast’s pathway take on a timeless resonance in this setting, providing a strong metaphor for the exhibition as a whole. With minimal intervention in simple materials and elegantly curated by Ingrid Swenson, this exhibition reminds us of the limitations of our universal knowledge to address the most basic human issues.

Colm Desmond is a Dublin-based artist who has also written reviews for Enclave Review and Recirca.com.

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

23

Career Development

It’s Never Too Late GEORGE ROBB OUTLINES HIS CAREER DEVELOPMENT, FOCUSING ON HIS RECENT SHIFT TO BECOMING A FULL-TIME ARTIST.

George Robb, Proud

I am a photographer based in Creative Exchange Artist Studios in East Belfast. My work is best described as social documentation, and explores issues around culture of one kind or another. I also use my own life experiences as a starting point for most projects, bringing a reality to any social comments my work makes. Photography has an ability to capture a moment in time. It is immediate and lets us observe a reality of familiarity, yet still allows the viewer to add their own narrative and perspective. When composing my images I aim to capture and reflect on the subject that I am confronted with, whether that’s a landscape, person or place. Although I have been working and exhibiting in the field for over 20 years in numerous group exhibitions and projects, it is only recently that I have become a full-time artist. Taking this step will lead to many challenges but also, hopefully, many more opportunities.

I have always had a passion for photography and my first camera was a Zenith E that I received as a present. I basically took images of people I knew and places that I visited, more for fun than anything else. I joined a camera club in Newtownards that was good for me at the time as it gave me a bit of training in the use of light and composition, as well as presenting my work in a professional arena. My work back then was black and white, and I printed it all myself. But my passion was growing and I wanted to know more. I decided to progress my artistic career and get some qualifications, attending night classes in the Belfast Institute of Higher and Further Education, where I was taught by the renowned photographer Paul Seawright. These classes opened my eyes to the world of contemporary photography and how I could be part of it.

In 1996, I was invited to join Photoworks North that was set up in order to promote excellence in photography in Northern Ireland.

We were a group of photographers united in our frustration at the limited provision for photography within the gallery and education sectors, and the lack of a network for Northern Irish photographers.

Photoworks North is now better known as Source, the renowned photographic journal. Although I only stayed with them a couple of years it provided another level of professionalism to my work.

Shortly after, I started working for Quick Snaps in Belfast city as their official photographer. At the same time I became the photographer for the Engine Room Gallery that was based in East Belfast. I started documenting artists’ work and their practices, and eventually start-

George Robb, My Olympics

ed to exhibit my own work in group exhibitions. The Engine Room Gallery was managed by the East Belfast Artist Collective, of which I became a member and served on the Board of Directors for a five-year period. This provided me with an insight into of the management of an organisation and gave me quite a few exhibition opportunities, allowing me to network with artists, collaborate on joint projects and become more involved with projects in and around Belfast and the North.

I was invited to join Creative Exchange Artist Collective in 2003, when it was based on the Castlereagh Road, Belfast. Although I was a member and took part in many exhibitions, I did not have a dedicated studio space until they moved into their new premises in Portview Trade Centre in 2013. I am now working from the Creative Exchange Digital Hub that caters for artists working in lens-based practice. The collective not only have studio provision, but over the years they have delivered a wide and varied annual arts programme, including oneoff projects: ‘Transart’ placed art on Belfast buses (2006); ‘Body’ was a response to art and disability, which was exhibited in University of Ulster Gallery (2008 / 2009); and the Grasses project with the Belfast Festival at Queen’s (2004), an international exchange project between artists from Kentucky and Northern Ireland. My work was also selected for ‘Seven’ exhibition, which took place in Gallery 24, Berlin (2005).

For the past five years I have exhibited in the Creative Exchange annual Art in the Eastside Billboard project, which has given me the chance to see my work produced on a significant scale. As a self-funded artist, I would not have been able to afford the expense of such a project on my own, but working as part of a studio collective has given me, and a host of other artists both Irish and international, the opportunity to see their images produced on a grand scale. Every year the work is installed the sheer scale of the event excites me.

The billboard project has also allowed me to present my project ‘Union’. This work stems from my life and experiences of living in in East Belfast since the age of six. A large part of my upbringing was associated with going to see ‘the bands’: the Loyal Orange Order demonstrations, eleventh night bonfires and the 1 July Somme Commemoration parade on the Beersbridge Road. The Orange culture is seen to be unionist, loyalist and anti-Catholic. With the recent flag protests and civil unrest in Northern Ireland, I feel it has become even more politicised. However, for me, and many like me, growing up with this

culture was fun, celebratory and something to look forward to. I am in a mixed marriage, with half my family Catholic, but this does not stop me tapping my feet and recalling the happy memories in an innocent, not ‘anti’ anything way.

My starting point for the ‘Union’ project was recollecting those days as a child, capturing the anticipation you experience when waiting for the band to arrive / play. I also consciously shot the imagery from a child’s viewpoint, trying to capture the events from an alternative perspective. The work also explores the wider issues of band culture in the Northern Ireland and the ‘wait to see’ approach of how parades and bands may change with cultural and political shifts. Positioning the work on a billboard where the parade passes gave it deeper meaning.

In recent years I have had two solo exhibitions; the first was ‘My Olympics’. When I was offered the opportunity to work at the London 2012 Olympics I was delighted to be part of the experience and spent five weeks driving athletes to and from the Olympic village to the Olympic stadium. Again, I used this opportunity to view ‘the games’ from a different angle, concentrating on the effect they had on London life and ignoring the sporting element completely.

My second solo exhibition was ‘Townships’ inspired by my frequent visits to townships in South Africa over the past 10 years. I developed a strong relationship with both the people and culture, investigating the social changes and cultural shifts. Within this work I wanted to share the journey of changing values. This work was selected as part of the Belfast Exposed ‘Documenting Change’ exhibition. As part of this event I also received advice and support from the photographer Christopher Barr. Peer review is something that I think artists are often afraid of, but I always seek it out when I can, from a development and critical point of view.

Recently my work has been selected for several international shows in Europe and Los Angeles and I continue to work at a national level as well. This to me has reinforced my decision to become a full time artist and embrace the twists and turns of the artist’s life. It has also made me realise that it is never too late to do exactly what you want to do.

George Robb georgerobb.org

24

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

VAI ACTIVITY

Lily Power and Jason Oakley presenting at ‘PR and Media Skills’, April 2015, Fingal Arts

‘Presenting and Caring for your Work’,Alan Raggett, October 2014, Roscommon Arts Office

Responsive Synergies VAI STAFF, PARTNERS AND PARTICIPANTS PROFILE THE ORGANISATION’S ONGOING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORK WITH PARTNER ORGANISATIONS. Continuing professional development is key part of the Visual Artists Ireland remit. During the organisation’s early years, working under the name the Sculptors’ Society of Ireland, this often took the form of symposia, which offered experiential opportunities for technical skill development, creating work with peers and the exchange of intergenerational skills. In 2003 the organisation’s name change reflected VAI’s representation of artists working in all visual art forms, aligned with an expansion of its advocacy, information provision and professional development activities.

Historically, Visual Artists Ireland has always worked with partners – examples would include the National Sculpture Factory in Cork, Dublin City Council Arts Office and Belfast Exposed in Northern Ireland. As the organisation has grown and changed so too have the number and nature of its partnerships. VAI now work with a significant number of local authorities and also with regional venues. Local authority partners are especially well placed to assist in delivering training at a local level, as it is in their remit to support artists.

VAI’s Professional Development Programme aims to address skills, knowledge development and peer critique for artists in a responsive way. Over the last 12 years or so, VAI has delivered workshops and talks with partner organisations, aimed at addressing the business needs of artists working professionally. The programmes have always had distinct strands which address practical skills like ‘Writing about Your Work’, ‘Developing Creative Proposals’ and niche areas of artistic practice such as ‘Public Art Practice’ or ‘Working Within a Gallery Context’. Peer critiques, in addition, support creative and critical development of an artist’s practice.

VAI’s Professional Development Officer Monica Flynn has worked with VAI since 2004, when she assisted the then director Toby Dennett with the organisation’s training and development activities. After undertaking an MA in Visual Arts Practices at IADT in 2008, Flynn was appointed to her current role. In addition to practising as an artist, Flynn’s background includes 14 years in cultural management and experience in adult art education.

Often partners approach VAI to deliver programmes in relation to local artists’ needs, from which a collaborative approach emerges.

Sometimes an event we’ve run in one location will spark attention elsewhere. As Flynn puts it: “For me, being on the ground at events is important, in order to see what works and to chat with partners and artists about what is working, what is relevant and how we can continue to support each other’s work. Often ideas and developments emerge through these vital conversations”.

Since his appointment in April 2014, VAI’s Northern Ireland Manager Rob Hilken has been consolidating and developing partnerships in Northern Ireland as well as delivering a series of events that provide networking opportunities, skills development, personalised mentoring and support to artists each month in locations across the region.

In addition, as Hilken notes: “Monthly Helpdesks at the Digital Arts Studios in Belfast allow artists to get personalised support and advice from a range of industry professionals including experts in tax and accountancy, funding, marketing and networking, intellectual property, writing and other career critical skills”.

Prior to joining VAI, Hilken worked as both an arts administrator

and curator at Catalyst Arts in Belfast, and continues to work with R-Space Gallery in Lisburn. Hilken is an artist, maintaining a multidisciplinary practice that includes sculpture, video and participatory events. His career background also includes web design, Internet marketing, events management and small business consultancy.

Another new VAI partnership initiative in Northern Ireland is Belfast Open Studios, which offers a platform for all of the studio groups across the city to open their doors to the public, curators and gallerists, as well as schools, colleges and various community and special-interest groups. The inaugural event (22 – 26 October 2015) saw over 2000 visitors and 55 curators attend the 14 artists’ studios, which host over 175 artists across the city. Partners in Northern Ireland include: Belfast Exposed, Digital Arts Studios, Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown, Golden Thread Gallery, Arts & Business NI. VAI also partners with arts officers in Belfast, Coleraine, Down and Armagh.

VAI has always had representation at Fingal County Council Arts Office’s annual professional development day ‘What Next?’. Outlining how the partnership with VAI began, Sarah O’Neill, Deputy Arts Officer for Fingal County Council, explained: “I wanted to explore the possibility of mentorship programmes and following on from conversations with both Noel Kelly and Monica Flynn of VAI it was clear that we had common objectives, so it made sense to partner on the delivery of a professional development programme”.

VAI and the Fingal Arts Office delivered their first collaborative event last October, titled ‘Towards Sustainability (mapping your practice)’. ‘PR and Media Skills’ followed in April 2015 and forthcoming events for 2015 include: ‘Visual Arts Fingal – Peer Curation and Soup Supper’, with an invited curator; ‘Licensing Your Visual Work for Artists and Illustrators’, Positioning and Networking Your Practice’.

As O’Neill notes: “There is great synergy between Fingal Arts and VAI in working to support professional artists in their practice. Our working partnership with VAI clearly fits within the development of our activities and strategy, and our guiding principles. In Fingal Arts we believe that professional artists play a central role in the establishment of a vibrant cultural environment. We want to encourage and foster opportunities for artists of all disciplines to live, work and develop their arts practices in Fingal. I believe that the professional development training with VAI also provides a framework for dialogue, debate and exchange between professional artists”.

Dr Pippa Little, Assistant Arts Officer at Limerick City and County Council, situates their work with VAI in line with their care and investment in for the “visual arts ecology in Limerick” and in line with the strategies of the Limerick City of Culture: Visual Arts Legacy Project, which is focused on “realising the full potential of a visual art community in Limerick”. As Little puts it: “Training supports increase the expertise of artists and practitioners in Limerick to engage with national and international opportunities, and to operate effectively as a part of a vibrant arts and cultural sector”.

Local authorities in Limerick have been delivering training for visual artists in partnership with VAI since around 2007. A new training programme began in summer 2014, with Limerick Arts Office working in partnership with the Limerick City of Culture: Visual Arts Legacy project, VAI and Clare and Tipperary Arts Office to deliver a more

VAI Artists Café, Claregalway, 5 Februay 2015

comprehensive training programme to visual artists in the region.

In 2014 VAI began working with Roscommon Arts Office and the artists’ group Roscommon Artists Forum (RVAF) as part of a partnership emerging from Linda Shevlin’s curatorial residency. Shevlin noted: “I saw the potential for partnering with VAI in devising, tailoring and developing a programme of workshops that would suit the specific needs of artists based in the county. We took a very pragmatic approach to the workshops we developed, concentrating specifically on: visual artists’ training; writing proposals; approaching galleries and curators; working in slack spaces etc. In terms of the benefits of this training, the Roscommon Arts Office did report a significant improvement in the standard of applications from local artists for the annual bursary funding in 2014, which is very encouraging”.

Joanne Laws, speaking for RVAF, stated: “VAI’s ‘mobile’ professional development programme has allowed our members to avail of comprehensive and up-to-date mentorship and training, while helping them to situate their own practice within nationally-relevant conversations”.

VAI commenced a partnership with the arts offices of Galway County and Galway City in 2014. Thus far, the partnership has jointly hosted: a visit to Galway by London-based curator and gallery director Bea de Souza during the TULCA Festival of Visual Art (November 2014; a VAI Café / Show & Tell networking event in Claregalway (February 2015) and ‘Towards Sustainability – Mapping your Practice’, a two-day workshop led by Patricia Clyne-Kelly, with contributions from the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland and artist Geraldine O’Reilly (March 2015).

Commenting on the VAI Café, Ramona Burke, Arts Office Assistant at Galway County Council, noted: “Artists, particularly those in rural areas, can sometimes feel a little isolated or outside the main hub of things. The Show & Tell section was very informal, informative and fun, creating a sense of collectivity and gave a great insight into the work that other artists in County Galway are making and how they are progressing their careers”. Burke also added: “VAI’s professional development programme fits very well with Galway County Council Art Office aims and activities strategies as we strive to support Galway artists in the development of their careers. The Arts Office takes a partnership approach to work and enjoys working with other agencies to implement a comprehensive and cohesive approach to sustainable cultural development in County Galway. VAI have a great relationship with visual artists and are up-to-date with the changing needs and requirements of artists practicing in Ireland today.

At a time when funding resources have diminished, Visual Artists Ireland is conscious that partnerships have become particularly relevant. Within a pool of limited resources, partnerships ensure the ongoing viability of commitments to support visual artists. To this end VAI’s work with other organisations aims to create the necessary synergies to result in ongoing sustainable partnerships throughout the country. As Linda Shevlin, commenting on her partnership work with VAI noted: “Roscommon Arts Office, like many others, has suffered significant funding cuts, meaning that the provision of sustainable support for local visual artists has been difficult. However, the partnership with VAI has helped the Arts Office and the Roscommon Arts Centre to consolidate resources and reach artists who ordinarily wouldn’t have known about the supports available to them through the local authority and their regional arts centre”.

Jason Oakley, Publications Manager, Visual Artists Ireland.

Note All quotations and comments from VAI Professional Development partners are drawn from email conversations with the writer.

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

25

PROFILE

Consciously Experimental DECLAN SHEEHAN introduces THE SOCIAL STUDIOS AND GALLERY, DERRY.

The Social Studios and Gallery, 35 Shipquay Street, Derry

For the visual arts community, Derry’s year as UK City of Culture in 2013 was a feverish jamboree of generating pop-up galleries, undertaking individual local commissions or large-scale public art commissions, participating in arts and outreach projects, bringing the Turner Prize to town and much, much more. It was a year that really accelerated ambition and aspiration for the city’s artists, curators, galleries, communities and audiences. But, during the year, there were serious doubts raised about whether or not the whole City of Culture process would result in any expansion of the city’s capacity and infrastructure, which would be necessary in order to deliver an enhanced level of visual arts projects across a longer period.

When it was selected in 2013 Derry still had no art college, municipal gallery or large-scale studio provision. It was in this context that the Holywell Trust, a community development and peace building group within Derry and its cross-border hinterland, decided to research what kind of project could generate a more sustainable impact on the city than a 12-month City of Culture award. They saw the potential in commissioning a project in which the processes of social innovation would work in partnership with arts practice in the city.

One of the first questions at this point is usually: What do you mean by ‘social innovation? While social innovation is related to the more well-known arena of social enterprise, the social enterprise process follows more of a business model, generating business enterprises that put people and community first, ahead of private or personal gain, while operating in a commercially viable and sustainable way.

In contrast, while social innovation can be a tool to create new or better jobs, it has at its core a process of providing creative and innovative solutions to pressing social challenges. One of the UK’s leading groups in the field, the Young Foundation, describe the social innovation process as: “… developing novel solutions to social problems that are more effective, efficient, sustainable or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals”.

It seems important to stress at this point that there are no real new ideas. For example, any research on whether visual artists have previously played a role in trying to generate ‘novel solutions to social problems’ in a small city like Derry will dig up an account in the Guardian on the many elements close to ‘social innovation’ in the 1974 visit by Joseph Beuys to Ireland, which he spent “discussing politics with old people on the streets of Derry in his long fur coat”. It continues: “[on] a tour of rural Ireland, in which Beuys lectures with blackboard illustra-

tions proposing to set up a ‘permanent conference’ to get every faction talking … [he] founded a fishing tackle cooperative in Derry, a video and photography workshop in Belfast, and almost completed a deal with the EEC to set up a Free University for Europe permanently in Dublin”.1 It is essential that the above background discussion is the context against which we can begin to talk about the Social Studios and Gallery, a new project developed in 2014 by myself, acting as one of Holywell Trust’s social innovators, in partnership with artists George Doherty, Philip McFadden, Kirstin McLaughlin and Mhairi Sutherland.2 While as a team we’re keen that the Social Studios and Gallery will bring something new and complementary to the current arts infrastructure in Derry, we also recognise that we’re part of a local, national and international tradition and community of arts practitioners that supports positive social change.

Our aim is that the Social Studios and Gallery will generate opportunities for artists in Derry by promoting artists’ engagement with the ideas, resources and partners within the social enterprise and social innovation sector. Practically, the project does this by providing artists’ studios and gallery facilities in order to develop, exhibit and showcase artists’ work in the city, and to develop support for sustainable careers in the visual arts. Like any project within a social innovation process, the Social Studios and Gallery is very consciously an experimental and iterative project, open to new approaches, ready to fail, learn and adapt, and also very consciously a project that is open to partnerships, shared learning and shared resources.

Like the best studio projects, we aim to do more than simply provide artists with physical space. We hope that our artists’ studios can be social spaces in which artists can engage with each other and their communities, exchanging ideas, tools, materials, contacts, networks, techniques, plans and proposals. As part of the consciously experimental and iterative processes behind the Social Studios and Gallery project, we embrace an open studio ethos across the whole of our studio projects, not with just one open studio weekend annually, but with studios that are permanently open to the public.

The studios are highly visible, located in a 1,900-square-foot shop space over a ground floor and basement, with floor to ceiling window frontage onto a busy city-centre street adjacent to Derry’s historic walls. The site was provided as a Social Enterprise Hub by Enterprise North West, who were fantastically open to partnering with the Holywell Trust’s Social Innovators project in providing the stra-

tegic start-up support for us to set up as an independent company in 2014. The studio artists, George Doherty, Philip McFadden and Mhairi Sutherland, have committed their time as project participants in lieu of paying studio rent. There will be a rota in place keep the gallery and studios open to the public five days a week. We’re only able to function this way in this prototype period due to the generous support and great partnership we have in place with Enterprise North West.

We provide access to opportunities in continuing professional development and training for our studio artists – to date through partnerships with groups in the city Bluebell Arts and Derry Print Workshop – but we also aim to connect artists to the broader arena of projects in social enterprise and social innovation. One of the most dynamic partnerships we have developed is with the Bebeedebee and Bbeyond performance groups, who schedule regular monthly performance events at the Social Studios and Gallery, as well as other occasional live events and fundraisers for performance artists from the city and beyond. Our exhibition projects in partnership with heritage group Friends of the Derry Walls and literature group the JC3 Joyce Cary project both connect to our aim of generating links with social enterprises as well as generating a forum for discussion about relevant social issues such as contested Anglo-Irish identities, territories and heritages. Likewise, our partnership events with the Bebeedebee and Bbeyond performance groups have provided practical fundraising opportunities for local performance groups preparing to tour to Edinburgh, as well as generating new audiences and new conversations about art in the city by providing one of the most high visibility and high footfall locations in the city.

We have undertaken several other partnership events to date including: using our high-visibility location to profile local designermakers nominated for the City of Derry Craft Awards; a ‘Mix-Tape’ exhibition project featuring local artists exploring exchanges of works and influence; drama from Ulster University; regular meetings by art and cultural-geography group, Loci; workshops with locals schools and groups for young people and future exhibition projects with our local third-level college. We’ve had our first international studio residency with Canadian artist Tracy Peters, who will also have an exhibition onsite in June. This is another partnership, with the old Void Gallery studio project in Derry, which in turn has generated some great partnership workshops and new networks with the recent Remote Photo Festival in Donegal and Derry.

The Social Studios and Gallery, still only six-months young, is about to enter its next phase, as the Holywell Trust’s Social Innovators programme, which helped establish the project and has funded some administrative support, finishes up in May 2015. The core team will however remain in place: myself (curator Declan Sheehan) and artists George Doherty, Philip McFadden, Kirstin McLaughlin and Mhairi Sutherland. Like any project, we’ll be looking at how to generate income.

To date we’ve had no income at all from funders who specifically support the arts; we hope in the medium term future to access funds from that sector, but to use the funds in a new way to connect art practice to the social innovation and social enterprise sectors. We’ll also be looking at: ways to expand our small studio group; further ways to develop temporary studio residencies onsite; a first annual open exhibition and a new website that will function not just as our online profile but also as a resource connecting art practice to social innovation and to groups working for positive social change. If you have any advice, proposals or ideas for collaborative projects, now is the perfect time to contact us – or just call in to chat to us in Derry.

As Social Innovator for the Visual Arts at Holywell Trust, Declan Sheehan is a founder of the Social Studios and Gallery. As an independent curator he is currently working on projects for the Nerve Centre, Void, Artlink and RCC. He has been curator of other projects such as ‘Portrait of a City’ for UK City of Culture, and the Moore Street Lending Library for Fire Station Artists’ Studios. He was Director at Artlink and Context Gallery and has worked as a film producer and project co-ordinator for arts projects in Ireland both sides of the border. In 2013 he was awarded an Arts Council Curatorial Residency.

Notes 1. theguardian.com/culture/1999/jul/19/artsfeatures2 2. The Social Studios and Gallery, 35 Shipquay Street, Derry BT48 Dl Facebook: TheSocialStudiosAndGallery Twitter: @socialstudiogal thesocialstudiosandgallery@gmail.com Website: due summer 2015

26

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

HOW IS IT MADE? technique do all the talking. I don’t have a straight forward answer as to why I do so much repousse. I love the process, including the tools (I use a 37-year-old German hammer) and the subtlety of low relief sculpture.

The etched work began when I wanted to get more drawing into the metal. I never had the patience for printmaking. I always wanted to leave the copper sheet in the ferric for longer. Then I realised I could do that in my own studio.

Jane Murtagh, Midnight Garden

Jane Murtagh, Allium

Jane Murtagh, Ballyalla Lake

Making Metal Sing DAVID LILBURN INTERVIEWS JANE MURTAGH ABOUT ‘A JOURNEY WITH METAL: CONTEMPORARY WORK’, HER EXHIBITION AT GLOR, ENNIS (3 – 30 APRIL).

David Lilburn: What is your attraction and fascination with metal as a material and when did it begin?

Jane Murtagh: The journey began when I was about 12 years old in Dublin. My father had an antique shop in Dawson Street and his love was Georgian silver. I was dispatched to collect the repairs from silversmithing workshops like Allwright & Marshall’s, where the beech benches were long and worn, full of containers of repousse and chasing tools, highly polished stakes and hammers. There was an engraver in a very old building off Georges street, three floors up; there was one light bulb, windows blacked out with brown paper, a radio with a coat hanger aerial and a crotchety old geezer behind the counter peering down at me. Never a smile! Fabulous.

Then there was Miss Zolkie who had a shop on Grafton Street where she re- strung pearls. She sat on a high stool behind the counter stringing pearls and chain smoking all day. These people fascinated me; their world was far more interesting than mine or school.

I loved growing up in Dublin, the moody slate greyness of it all, jet black iron railings around the squares, the municipal and national galleries, the forged gold in the National Museum and the Chester Beatty.

At least once a month I skipped school and did a grand tour of the lot.

I studied fine art at Dun Laoghaire College of Art & Design from 1975 – 1979 and thought I would be a painter, but the moment I set foot into the metalwork room and smelt the metal and dust, that was it. The sculptor Niall O’Neill was my tutor. He got me to forge my own repousse tools, showed me how to make pitch and dragged me around to visit artists who were working in metal. One of these was John Behan and I think Edward Delaney was the other; they hadn’t a bean between them and looked like they survived on fags and tea. Niall was a very generous tutor, sharing knowledge with his infectious enthusiasm and wit. So too was Des Taaffe from the Dublin Silver Company.

They are still there for me and I am very grateful having that support.

DL: One of the striking qualities running through the work is the variety and quality of colour of the metal. Could you elaborate on the patination processes you use?

JM: Drawing and music have inspired and driven my experimentation with patination. A few years ago I attended a ‘drawing with music’ course in Central St Martins, London. It was very exciting for me, matching mark making with sound and colour. When working

through patinas I listen to early music, the Hilliard Ensemble, Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett. For years I did the basic brown patina with potassium sulphide, submerging the copper or bronze in a bath of the solution. Then I went to West Dean College in Sussex where there was an intensive course in patination. I came away from that with about 40 test pieces. Most sculptors will have the patination bible, The Colouring, Bronzing and Patination of Metals by Hughes and Rowe, but there’s no comparison to being shown by and experimenting alongside an expert. I treat the chemical like paint, stippling and building up layers aiming for a translucent effect.

Two works in the exhibition had new patination worked on them: The winter box garden and The lacemaker’s garden. With these two pieces I used wood shavings from fruit trees and oak sawdust. The shavings are soaked in the chemical and then the shavings are layered on top of the metal, covered and left for up to three weeks. I check it every day and maybe adjust the mix. It’s a learning curve and with the quality of copper and bronze changing over the past two years this means adjustments to the patination recipes have had to be made. Introducing the gold leaf in tiny amounts is relatively new for me; it can make the metal sing.

DL: You are a member of the Irish Artist Blacksmiths Association and, if I’m right, one of the only female members?

JM: I joined the Irish Artist Blacksmiths Association five years ago because I like spending time with makers. I am not the only female, there’s Gunvor Anhoj, a very skilled creative smith working out of Russborough House forge. I am on the board of this association because, like the other board members, I want to keep these skills alive and try to bring a contemporary sensibility to the craft.

DL: You use many traditional, in some cases ancient, techniques, but you also stress that in your work you are striving to develop a visual language that expresses a personal and contemporary sensibility. Could you explain what is involved in that quest and explain some of the different qualities of the metals and techniques you use?

JM: Yes, repousse is a very ancient technique. It was used for creating highly decorative metal work during the Bronze Age and in the Far East. I am interested in keeping my shapes simple. I try not to let the

DL: You mentioned to me once that you came across a collection of estate maps covering the area where you now live. Did these influence your work in any way?

JM: Around 2012 I began to look closer to home for a story to get my teeth into. I live in the countryside on a farm. The Shannon boarders the land; long thin deep drains cut through the fields draining off the water like jet black charcoal lines on paper. There are estate maps from the 1800s on the farm and they inspired me make the estuary series works.

DL: There are references to Limerick lace, in particular to Florence Vere O’Brien of the Limerick Lace School, in some of the titles of the pieces. What is your interest here?

JM: Running alongside this new etched work were stories about a relative of my husband called Florence Vere O’Brien. In the 1840s Florence set up an embroidery school in Ballyalla, Co. Clare and went on to run the Limerick School of Lace. Florence kept a diary every day, which at present is being transcribed by her granddaughter Veronica Rowe.

Her drawings for the embroidery are all wild flowers from her garden and the Burren. She employed local girls, taught them a skill that gave them financial independence and read to them with a pet robin on her shoulder. Anyhow, I needed to find my own way into that story, so I began writing a short story about Florence’s daughter Flora. I wrote a story about her walking around the gardens at night and lying on the damp grass imagining gold threads floating out the front door of the house towards Ballyalla Lake. The titles of the works, Gold Threads, Gold Seeds and Ballyalla Lake, connect to that. For me, art exists as a reminder. I need beauty and hope; it’s too hard to get through the day otherwise.

DL: You exhibit regularly in the Sculpture in Context exhibition in the Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin. You also are familiar with the library and archives there. What is your relationship with the gardens and how important is it to your work?

JM: My relationship with the Botanic Gardens goes back to my art school days when the late Donal O’Sullivan got us out there for drawing sessions. The Turner glass house reminds me of the great British metalworking and engineering tradition. A gardener in the glass house let me up to the gantry to draw, which I did many times during my four years in college. I suppose I was attracted to the big architectural plants and always imagined them in metal. Discovering the botanical lace in the archives was pretty exciting. These include actual jackets made from mallow fibres and a parasol made from nastursum fibres.

The delicate intricate workmanship in the making is remarkable.

DL: Are there any contemporary artists that you think influence your work?

JM: In art college I loved Matisse’s bronze back sculptures, his pared down drawings full of joy and light. I also liked Egon Schieile, Giacometti bronzes, Barry Cooke’s Borneo paintings. Today I get inspired by Alice Maher’s massive charcoal drawings, Dorothy Cross’s film work.

The American blacksmith Tom Joyce came to the international forge in up in Monaghan in 2011 and gave a fantastic talk on his work. His sculpture and blacksmithing is powerful – massive and delicate at the same time. It would inspire me to work in steel in the future. There are times I see bluey brushed steel in Charles Tyrrell’s paintings. The paintings by John Shinnors sing; he puts beauty into old galvanised sheet. Pat Scott’s embossed prints with gold leaf and a museum in Warsaw clad internally with brushed patinated steel are firmly imprinted in my mind at the moment.

David Lilburn is an artist and printmaker. He is a member of Limerick Printmakers, an associate member of Cork Printmakers and a Trustee of the National Self-Portrait Collection. Together with artist and writer Jim Savage, he runs Occasional Press, which publishes art-based books. He lives in Limerick. davidlilburn.ie A graduate in Fine Art from Dun Laoghaire College of Art, 1979, Jane Murtagh specialised in metalwork and drawing. She works with non ferrous metals, forging and etching the metal creating 2D relief works.

27

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

How is it made?

If You Shout, No One Listens KARLA BLACK TALKS TO VAI ABOUT HER SITE-SPECIFIC SCULPTURES, NOW ON SHOW AT THE IRISH MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (1 MAY – 26 JULY 2015). sculptures that then solidifies itself into an idea about, or an overall attitude towards, problem solving. Known rules and techniques are intentionally not learned or adhered to. Instead, more haphazard, individual methods are found. This can be seen in the sculptures as evidence of touch or something close to performative gesture, or as stubbornness or will: allowing my own individual unconscious desires and preferences to lead the way into making my own mistakes and therefore learning to find my own way through the world. I tend to think of the materials as something that I can’t help but use, something that comes out of desire, out of the unconscious. I can obviously choose to let myself go along with that, or not. I choose to go along with it because I think that I, and everyone else, should be allowed to do what they want to do.

One of the things I think about the most is how Klein tells us that anybody’s first experience of the physical world is another person’s body: the mother’s body. I like to think about how that experience then extends, quite soon afterwards, to the horizontal: to the ground.

Since a lot of the work that I make is on the floor, and is often only a very slight covering on the floor, it has a clear similarity or relationship to early childhood play, to that short stage of early childhood messy play, which is usually carried out with formless materials (milk, for example) directly on the floor.

Karla Black, Likeness, 2015, polythene, powder paint, plaster powder, thread, 180 x 150 x 110cm, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, photo by Denis Mortell

Karla Black, Prospects, 2015, plaster, cellophane, Sellotape, pencil, lip liner, eyeliner pencil, green concealer, spray paint, soil, 235 x 200 x 1860cm, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, photo by Denis Mortell

Jason Oakley: You’re well known for your use of unconventional, colourful and decorative materials in your sculpture, including cosmetics, craft and decorative materials. What were some of your initial motivations of working in this way?

Karla Black: I made a decision early on to make sure I do what I want to do, and to use the materials and the colours that I want to use. I love powders, pastes, oils, creams and gels. I work out of a desire for materials and colours. At one particular moment I might want to see a very large amount of powder in a certain colour, so I’ll lay that out so that I can see it.

When I’m making a work, even a large work in a gallery space, it’s just like someone making a painting in their studio. What’s different is that, because the materials and structures in the finished work are often retarded in states of potential – in that they remain structurally and materially abstract, or raw or somewhat unformed – people can see the trace of my hand or my body, or the energy of a gesture still within them.

rate further on some of the ideas that underpin your practice?

KB: The sculptures are rooted in psychoanalysis, particularly Kleinian psychoanalysis. There is a link, for me, between theories about the violent and sexual underpinnings of both individual mental mess, as in neuroses and psychosis, and the formlessness of specific points in art history, i.e. German and Abstract Expressionism, Viennese Actionism, Land Art, Anti-form and feminist performance.

Recently I have taken formless materials through a process of tentative repression. Essentially, my work is made from mess or formless matter (that which is in a ‘pre-object’ type state) and from waste or used materials (that which is left ‘post-object’), as well as from straightforward art shop supplies. None of the work is totally formless, since there is obvious aesthetic intent. The finished things are almost objects, or only just objects. While nearly being performances, installations or paintings, the works actually retain a large amount of the autonomy of modernist sculpture.

I first and foremost want to prioritise material experience over language as a way of learning and understanding the world. Whereas Freudian psychoanalysis, which I am also fascinated by, is based in language – a talking cure that holds the father as the central figure for meaning – Melanie Klein was one of the first analysts to work with children: babies and children who were pre-speech. She invented a series of very simple wooden ‘toys’ and, through those, was able to analyse the meaning of a patient’s direct relationship with the physical, material world. By inventing her ‘play technique’ she also put the mother at the centre as a figure for meaning.

What I see as the ‘quietness’ of my work also comes from this psychoanalytic position, in that it should be listening work, in order for there to be room in it to accommodate the people who look at it.

While it has emotion held within it, perhaps as its primary core, and is political, it does not shout that out. Loudness is not a position from which to initiate a proper argument or discussion. If you shout no one listens, so it’s always better to begin from a position of quietness, while hopefully at the same time being able to hold onto the true views, decisions, emotions and meanings that have naturally occurred within the work.

I am interested, primarily, in the individual unconscious. There is often a physical struggle involved in arriving at the structure of my

JO: What has appealed to you about making work for IMMA? KB: The best word I can think of to describe the reasons why I decide to make a particular work for a particular space is ‘practical’. The practical realities of the room or space offered to me determine what sculpture it would be possible to make there. I respond to a site in a very physical way. All I’m thinking about is what shape it is, where the door is – because that determines how people will first see the work – how much light there is and whether there is daylight or artificial light.

The corridor I am showing in at IMMA is long and thin and the work is long and thin; the rooms are small and square and so the works are small and centralised. The materials for this show are chosen because of the amount of daylight that is available. Cellophane does very well in sunshine and in bright artificial light, or a mixture of both, because sunshine makes it sparkle, and polythene does well in controlled, soft daylight, which allows it to appear soft, papery and powdery. The processes used to develop the sculpture are physical, experimental and very hands-on.

JO: You’ve described your work as physical explorations into thinking, feeling, communicating and relating. Could you elabo-

JO: The IMMA brochure text notes how you chose you materials for tactile / aesthetic appeal, rather than cultural associations, but are you ever concerned with the possible associations viewers might bring to your choice of materials?

KB: No. People can think whatever they want to think. It doesn’t matter to me. My intentions are formal, so when I’m asked about my intentions I explain that. But I know that the work has a life of its own and that people come to it with their own experiences and connotations.

JO: You worked with assistants while installing the work at IMMA, but also spent time alone working and reworking each piece to get the specific quality and aesthetic you require. How important is this ‘alone time’ in developing the work? And is a sense of your hand being involved in the work, and ideas around making, important to you?

KB: Yes, very important. There are sculptures that I make out of materials and processes that I have used many times before and so the outcome will be fairly predictable. If I’m starting something entirely new then I will know less about what it might become. The materials used and the limits of the surrounding conditions affect all of the work, so I can never totally control it. I could never conceive of a work in a diagram or a drawing or a maquette and then scale it up and make it how I had imagined it. That’s not possible because of the kind of materials I use and the sort of forms that I favour. I let go of a certain amount of control in order to let the material take over as much as is advantageous to the aesthetics of the outcome.

Karla Black (b. 1972 Alexandria, Scotland) lives and works in Glasgow. She attended the Glasgow School of Art (1995 – 2000 and 2002 – 2004), completing BA (Hons), MPhil (Art in Organisational Contexts) and MFA degrees. In 2011, Black represented Scotland at the 54th Venice Biennale and was nominated for the Turner Prize. Black has recently made solo exhibitions at institutions including: Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover, Germany (2014); Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA, and Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands (both 2013); Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX, USA; Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany and Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (all 2012); Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg, Germany (2010); Modern Art Oxford; Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany and Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland (2009), among others. Her works are held within many prestigious collections worldwide including: the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; The Hammer Museum, LA; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich; and Tate Gallery, London.

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

Art in public

Self Encounters HELEN O’DONOGHUE INTERVIEWS BERNIE MASTERSON ABOUT HER WORK IN PRISON EDUCATION.

HO’D: Besides focusing on the men’s needs, what about your own interests as an artist?

BM: For years I’ve kept my own needs as an artist separate. But a change has happened, unwittingly, in recent years. I took time out to care for my mother in her later years. This led to a collaborative project between my mother and I called ‘Drawing on the Body’, presented by Tallaght Community Arts and shown in Rua Red in April 2010. It was a very emotional experience. When I returned full time to education, new work evolved into the exhibition ‘Invocation’ (Rua Red, 14 November – 20 December 2014), a personal response to years of hearing about institutional abuse from my students. This was essential, both for my students and myself, facilitating a personal assimilating process that was essential to my wellbeing. So, in answer to your question, sometimes both the students and I are intertwined in a creative process.

Training Unit DC D1, Landing Mountjoy, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 60cm

Helen O’Donoghue: What’s your take on the role of the arts in the Irish Prison Services Prison Education programmes? 1 Bernie Masterson: Of all the aspects of prison education, the arts give the prisoner a direct and intimate opportunity for self-encounter. By learning skills associated with the arts, prisoners experience aspects of their own potential as creative persons. Coming from an environment that may have encouraged them to be hostile, they find themselves in the very localised environment of the prison art class, which allows them to be creative. When they work on a painting, a poem, or a piece of drama or music, they create a world for themselves. It is a world that can reflect back an image of themselves that only they can see, a world over which they have control.

HO’D: How did you become interested in prison education?

BM: It was accidental, a case of applying for one job but getting another. At college in the Limerick School of Art and Design I became friendly with a social worker who was working in the South Hill Neighbourhood Youth Project, Limerick. I started volunteering two evenings a week. The young people participated in a cross section of activities including art and sport. Just being there and interacting with young people gave me a huge insight into dealing with disadvantaged kids and seeing how they responded to arts and crafts education. After college I came to Dublin to interview for a teaching post in Coláiste Dhulaigh, with the Principal John Burke. On reading my references he recommended me to the prison service, saying: “I know exactly where you would make a difference”.

HO’D: And that was in the prison service? Tell me more …

BM: Yes. At that time formal prison education had been in existence for about five years. An interview was set up with Vincent Salmon (the co-coordinator of prison education) and on the strength of this I began part time in the Training Unit Prison in the evenings and also teaching part time in James’ Street, CBS, Dublin 8 (a second-level school). This was tougher than the prison in terms of engaging the young people, many of whose fathers were in my classes in the prison.

In 1986 I was made permanent. I know it is a long time ago but it doesn’t feel that way. The work is as invigorating now as it was then.

I think this is because of the flexibility that it allows me. I can work with new technologies and devise course content that is not curriculum driven.

HO’D: What do you do in the art classes in prison education?

BM: We cover a variety of work: personal projects; works for exhibition, both in-house and nationally; exam work, i.e., Junior / Leaving Cert and, more recently, a selection of FETAC modules. These are particularly good for prisoners, as the personal portfolio style of teaching and learning is transportable from one prison to another. So, for example, Level 4 in Drawing can be moved from one prison to another.

It is based on a practical portfolio along with worksheets to address literacy. In the 1980s illiteracy was a major problem but this is not the case today. I see more prisoners who present with dyslexia now than illiteracy.

HO’D: Can you talk about the importance of arts and culture to the men?

pation is elective. Students come with a willingness to learn. And the classes are small (due to prison rules), comprising no more than eight individuals. This enhances the learning for the students and facilitates a bond, creating a safe place – sometimes facilitating personal disclosures.

Training Unit AM, Inner Child, oil on canvas, 73 x 73 cm

Bernie Masterson, State of Grace, installation from ‘Invocation’

BM: In the 1980s there was a poverty of culture; the students had no access to, or experience of, theatre, galleries etc., so I set about organising an Arts Week in June of 1986. That year I brought in exhibitions from the Arts Council, a ballet, plays and bands. They were very informative and enjoyable for the guys, and they could tick the box for their own personal experience. This was a part of their education that was not being addressed and socially it is as important as the academic side.

Soon other prisons supported the concept and to this day every year in June there is an Arts or Health Day. They are hugely informative days.

HO’D: Are you the longest serving art teacher in the Irish prison service?

BM: I am not sure, but I’d say so, and I am still as enthusiastic as I was when I began. I would have moved on if I wasn’t still passionate. There are constant discoveries that create momentum and education is always changing, with new technologies opening up new pathways to learning.

HO’D: What is important to you in your role as art teacher?

BM: It is important to be passionate about your subject and to have empathy with the men. Every student I meet is different from the one before; his or her needs are different. My job is to work with individuals and tailor the project for each person. In prison boredom sets in, concentration levels are low, so I have to build up (their) concentration. The best way to do this is to personalise the project and invariably what works is a portrait or a portrait of a friend / loved one. They can learn the basics of colour, tone etc. through that process – you facilitate them to meditate on their lives.

HO’D: Do you regard yourself as an artist or as an art teacher?

BM: I see myself as both: as facilitator and artist. I wear different hats as needs be. Most artists do some sort of teaching hours alongside their own work in order to make a living. I feel that students benefit from the fact that I am a practicing artist bringing my own creativity to the workplace.

HO’D: In the training unit and the art department that you run, is it optional that men come to you?

BM: Yes, totally. There is nothing mandatory about education. Partici-

HO’D: Are there any other exhibitions that have been especially significant for you?

BM: The 2004 ‘Lifelines’ exhibition held at the Office of Public Works, Dublin. Over the years we’d put on in-house annual exhibitions. The broadcaster John Bowman opened the show. I remember one participant’s mother said to Bowman: “This is the first time in his life that I am proud of him”.

HO’D: Are you free to innovate in your teaching?

BM: To an extent. More recently, there have been restrictions. Governments and rules change; each Minister for Justice brings in their own agenda and priorities. There was a lot of concern about mobile phones, so strict laws were laid down in relation to phones, cameras and recorders.

An interesting recent project was ‘Stories by Dads’, based on a UK initiative. The project is about fathers reading to their children. We did a survey to see if many men were read to as children – very few had been. Then we asked how many read to their children and very few did. In conjunction with the English teachers we based a programme on Dirty Bertie by David Roberts, the winner of best children’s book in 2011. We videoed the men reading the story, then edited and authored each recording to DVD, put the child’s name onto the disc, and when the children came on a visit, the fathers presented the children with a gift of the story book and their own personalised DVD. It’s a way to help parents maintain meaningful contact with their children and to promote the development of learning.

HO’D: How important is your own professional development?

BM: As an artist / educator it’s important to learn new methodologies, which are crucial to the continued development of the art educational programme in the Training Unit and indeed my own practice. It is also important that prison art education is not left behind and keeps abreast of mainstream contemporary practices.

HO’D: Are you working on any new projects at the moment?

BM: Currently I am studying for an MFA in Art in the Digital World in NCAD and enjoying it immensely. It’s nice being a student again and being immersed in cross collaborations and new methodologies that benefit both my students and me. I am also researching a project with a working title of Private Altars, which explores the subject matter of prisoner, object, memory and place.

Helen O’Donoghue is Senior Curator: Head of Education and Community at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Bernie Masterson is a Dublin based artist. Masterson’s works are in many collections both at home and abroad. berniemasterson.com Note 1. Prison Education is a partnership between the Irish Prison Service and a range of other educational agencies from the community, particularly local educational training boards (formally VEC’s), third level colleges and the Arts Council. There is a school in every prison that provides a programme of adult education. Prisoners can study with the Open University too but with funding restrictions there is less access to this level of education. The aims of the Prison Education Service are to provide a broad and flexible programme of adult education to meet the needs of prisoners by helping them to cope with their sentences, to achieve personal development, to prepare for life after release and to promote lifelong learning.

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

29

Art in public

Installing Dublin Ships, photo by Zak Milofsky

Cliona Harmey, Dublin Ships, installed February 2015, North Wall Quay, Dublin, photo by Ros Kavanagh

Circulation & Exchange CLIONA HARMEY OUTLINES her project ‘DUBLIN SHIPS’, made FOR DUBLIN’S DOCKLANDS. Installed during February this year, Dublin Ships is a temporary public artwork commissioned by Dublin City Council as part of the Dublin City Public Art Programme. The project was a response to an open call for public art under the theme ‘interaction and the city’.

Dublin Ships was one of a series of commissions initiated by Dublin City Council Public Art Office under the Per Cent for Art scheme, with funding from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.

My initial proposal was shortlisted and recommended for a research and development period with an award of €5,000. The research and development contract was drawn up in discussion with Public Art Manager Ruairí Ó Cuív. It listed all the elements that needed clarification and required additional research. As the projected costs of the commission were over the maximum limit in the call for proposals, it was also necessary for us to source some external funding for the commission.

At the time of submitting the original proposal, I had a clear idea of the general format of the work. It was to be a generative systems-based work, which displayed the name of the most recent ship in and out of Dublin Port in real time on a pair of screens in a public space. I had suggested a few different locations but not one definite site. The work itself grew out of a much smaller work, Dublin Port, which used the timetable from the Dublin Port Company website and was as part of the exhibition ‘Unbuilding’ at Mermaid, Bray (23 August –17 October 2010), curated by Cliodhna Shaffrey, Rosie Lynch and Eilis Lavelle.

For Dublin Ships we used a technology called Automatic Identification Signal (AIS) to receive real-time information from ships at sea.

Onsite, the work comprises two custom LED screens, attached to the obsolete Scherzer Bridge at North Wall Quay. Also housed onsite is a networked computer and signage controller. Information is fed to the screens via an antenna, which receive signals from ships almost as far as Holyhead and Scotland in order to get their International Maritime Organisation identification (IMO) number. The IMO numbers are then exchanged with AIS database marinetraffic.com, which provides the ship’s name. All this happens in a few seconds. The technology is commonly used by hobbyists and the marinetraffic.com website receives data feeds from volunteers all around the world.

In exchange for our data, marinetraffic.com kindly agreed to allow us access to their data at no cost. In terms of testing the technology, I got some help and advice from Dan Cussen at TOG hacker space (tog. ie) who showed me how to set up an antenna and how to begin receiving data.

When considering a site for the work, it was important that it was in a location with a direct connection to Dublin Port and with a high footfall and passing traffic so that viewers would see it over a prolonged period. We also needed permissions and access to infrastructural elements like power. At the end of the research and development period, I submitted a detailed report to Dublin City Council’s Public Art Advisory Group with a view to the project progressing to development and completion. Luckily the advisory group approved the project and the next phase began.

Working on a project like this was made a lot easier by the types of supports offered to me via Dublin City Council’s Art’s Office – particularly Ruairí Ó Cuív and his then assistant artist Niamh O’Doherty. Ó Cuív set up valuable meetings and helped communications with Dublin City Council officials (Roads and Traffic, Heritage, Waste Water). He also brokered meetings and essential partnerships with Dublin Port Company and Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA), both of whom were very open and provided additional types of support. The Dublin Port Company part-funded the project and DDDA gave us support in kind by allowing the use of their property, the Scherzer Bridge, and access to an electricity supply.

As an artist who works mostly in a gallery context, I was quite daunted by the idea of public art, and had never really had an idea for a piece to be shown in a public context before. Whilst the initial research and development study was helpful, most of the real learning happened in the more concrete production and installation phase. I spent a good bit of time ringing, checking and emailing. There was a lot of administrative and organisational work.

The main thing I learned in the process was not to put things off: just do it now and just keep calling people until you get the information and details you need. A really good part of the project was working with other people: the creativity, valuable problem-solving skills and suggestions of the signage contractor, the electrician, the programmer, and the traffic management companies and hoist operators were really the best bits. Working on infrastructural elements like the power also had an element of industrial archaeology about it, finding out who owned which power box etc.

The work was installed a week ahead of the launch, overnight on a very cold night in February. For the first week we had no mediating signage – so I hope that it may have been a bit of a mystery for commuters! In terms of reception of the work, I’ve received many anecdotal accounts of people who enjoy seeing the work on their commute or as they cross the city. A really nice surprise has been the popularity of

the Twitter feed, an automated mirror of the text content of the signs.

There has been quite an active and growing following with regular favourites and retweets.

We built an information site – dublinships.ie – that explains the background and the technologies, and includes a number of texts, including one by Eamonn O Reilly, CEO of the Dublin Port Company, in which he writes about how the visual connection of port to city has diminished over time. He mentions how at the time of James Joyce, about 100 years ago, the port had a closer connection to the city. Yet he states that the port is a very important connection to the city both practically and imaginatively. Francis Halsall wrote a text that relates the work to the ubiquitous systems of circulation and exchange in which we’re enmeshed 1.

In terms of media coverage, Luke Clancy’s Culture File recorded a programme with us on the night of the install.2 Gemma Tipton also visited the port and wrote a full-page article for the Irish Times, who also did a video feature.3 Belfast-based online magazine Collected published a comprehensive article by Sara O’Brien.4 The commission has also been reported in press outside of the cultural / art press, such as Business and Leadership,5 sailing and boating magazine Afloat and shipping trade magazine Trade Winds.

We ran a small engagement programme in local schools devised

by Liz Coman in the Arts Office with Martina Galvin, Katy Fitzpatrick and Aislinn O’Donnell. Katy and Aislinn opened the engagement project with a discussion around philosophy and different forms of art.

The children talked about their conceptions of art and how it might also be an instruction, an activity or an upside-down chair. The children’s response to the Dublin Ships project was very positive; many had already seen it and were aware of it. As part of the engagement programme the children got a chance to visit the port and control room.

One group was very excited to see the large cruise ship Caribbean Princess up close as she arrived and docked. The children processed this experience in the classroom through drawing and discussion, elements of which we hope to use to form a small online publication, which can be used by other schools.

Technology-based works have their own particularities and need specific maintenance and care. I check this work periodically – remotely via an online interface and also via an opportunely-placed DCC traffic camera. Like most systems it’s had a few small hiccups along the way but has largely been stable and working to plan 24 hours a day. Professional programmer Ruadhan O’Donoghue, who is based in Berlin, did the programming work for the whole project and most of our communication was done online via email.

Managing a budget of this size and staying on track time wise were some of the challenges I faced. I’m glad to say things balanced budget wise, though I was definitely glad of the percentage contingency we included as I think there are often unforeseen costs. So far it has been a very positive experience and a kind of thrill to temporarily leave the space of the gallery.

Cliona Harmey clionaharmey.info dublinships.ie Notes 1. Francis Halsall, Systems at Sea: on Cliona Harmey, dublinships.ie/about/in-context 2. Luke Clancy, Culture File, Lyric FM, broadcast in February 2015, https://soundcloud.com/soundsdoable/dublin-ships 3. Gemma Tipton, The shipping news: Dublin is reacquainted with its docks, Irish Times, February 2015 4. Sara O’Brien, http://wearecollected.com/articles/cliona-harmey-dublin-ships, May 2015 5.www.businessandleadership.com/marketing/item/49472-new-public-art-installation, February 2015

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

Profile

Local & National ELAINE CRONIN INTRODUCES AN TÁIN ARTS CENTRE, A MULTI-PURPOSE ARTS SPACE IN DUNDALK.

Orla Barry, Birdmoon

Brian Hegarty, boy with apple

An Táin Arts Centre is a new multi-purpose arts space for Dundalk, Co. Louth. Supported by Louth County Council and located in the former Táin Theatre at the Town Hall, the centre houses a 358-seat main theatre, a 55-seat studio theatre and a visual arts space, the Basement Gallery.

Established as an independent organisation in 2014, An Táin Arts Centre has been working to become a community-focused point of access to arts and culture for the people of North Louth. The staff at An Táin Arts Centre are grounded in community and collaborative practices in performance and visual arts contexts, and this ethos is reflected in our programming, which encompasses theatre, film, music and visual arts from local, national and international practitioners.

Dundalk has a thriving visual arts presence,

Culture Night celebrations.

The first instalment of our Emerging Artist series followed, with Aoife Ward’s ‘Becoming’, a selection of new works in paint, mixed media and video. The second offering in the season was a joint exhibition by NCAD students Eimear Murphy and Eileen O’Sullivan exploring ideas of belonging and the everyday entitled ‘In Search of Place’.

In February, we hosted the Irish launch of Drogheda-based artist Brian Hegarty’s ‘I’ll be your Mirror (The Album Sleeve Project)’. First shown in the Cartridge Gallery in Lapua, Finland, this mixed media exploration of vinyl nostalgia has new works added each time it is shown, with the final version of the project to culminate in the Ashford Gallery in 2016.

This summer, the Basement Gallery has played host to two independent arts collectives in the area: Dundalk Photographic Society and North Louth Artists. Our current exhibition, ‘Otherworldy’, is a collection of new work in mixed media by Orla Barry. Orla graduated from Dublin Institute of Technology in 2007 and is based in Bridge Street Studios, Dundalk. Her practice explores symbolism through nature and animals, and she works primarily in acrylic paint, paper and canvas. ‘Otherworldy’ continues until 15 August.

One of An Táin Arts Centre’s key ambitions is to develop the Emerging Artist series and establish a summer residency programme and bursary. The programme will be open to recent graduates and artists at the start of their career looking to establish a collaborative practice in a community setting. The resident artist will be provided with a studio space adjoining the Basement Gallery, administrative and outreach support, a materials and living bursary and the opportunity to exhibit during and at the end of the residency. Full application details will be announced in early 2016.

An Táin Arts Centre aims to be a place for the community to celebrate creativity and enjoy the best of local and national art. While it continues to be a tumultuous time for the arts in Ireland, we are striving to make this space work and our doors (and inboxes) are always open for conversation.

Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis and artists are invited to email proposals to Managing Director Paul Hayes at paul@antain.ie.

Ciaran O’Sullivan, So Early, So Tired, 2014, oil on canvas 3.5ft x 4ft

with regular arts events taking place in Creative Spark, Bridge Street Studios and Louth County Museum, among others. At An Táin Arts Centre we hope to complement the programming work of these organisations and provide additional opportunities and support for artists in the North East.

Over the past year, we have had the pleasure of working with a range of artists. Last August, painter Ciaran O’Sullivan’s collection of figurative work, ‘Double Back’, re-launched the Basement Gallery as a working arts space. Alongside this, installation work by residents of Saint John of God North East services at St Mary’s, Drumcar – guided by environmental artist Pamela Whitaker – was exhibited in the studio space, forming the centrepiece of our

Elaine Cronin, Assistant Manager, An Táin Arts Centre. elaine@antain.ie antain.ie facebook.com/antainarts @antainarts

July – August 2015

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

31

Conference

Irish Invasion ROB HILKEN REPORTS ON THE ‘DEVELOPING CREATIVE PRACTICE ACROSS BORDERS’ SYMPOSIUM.

Michelle Boyle, Today Something Happened, 2014

‘Developing Creative Practice Across Borders’ facilitated 33 Irelandbased artists participating in residencies across 6 host organisations, spanning the European continent from Ireland in the West to Estonia 2800km away in the East.1 The project was part the EU Leonardo da Vinci Lifelong Learning Programme, funded by Léargas with Cavan County Council Arts Office and Social Inclusion Unit as the lead partners. Trans-art, the Cavan-based curatorial collective, hosted a symposium in May to reflect on the project and offer the participating artists a chance to share their experiences and discuss the work they made.

A quick scan of the schedule for the day revealed that careful thought had been put into balancing the formal presentations of the day with a focus on the artists, giving them time to share and discuss their work in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Short presentations from Cavan Arts Office, Cavan Chamber of Commerce, Léargas / Erasmus+, Europass and Creative Europe Desk Ireland, as well as the handing out of Europass certificates to each of the 33 participating artists, all took place in the morning. Hearing from the funders and the lead partner organisation gave everyone present a rare chance to contemplate the amount of planning that a project of this scale requires, and the motivations of the arts office and funders for carrying it out. The rest of the day was devoted to the artists, the participating organisations and the work.

Joe Keenan, one third of Trans-art, was the MC and welcoming host for the day. Despite trans-art having achieved much over the past three years, this was clearly a landmark occasion for the artist-led organisation. Together with the Gonzo Theatre they have recently signed a two-year lease to turn the old Town Hall building in Cavan into a multipurpose arts venue, and this symposium was their first public event. As volunteer directors they will deliver a programme of theatre, dance and visual art exhibitions, as well as providing studios, support and resources to artists in the area. A flexible events space will host events such as this symposium, spoken word and music evenings.

The staff at Cavan County Council Arts Office were singled out for praise over their efforts as the lead partners that made this project happen, and also for the high level of support that artists and organisations in the county receive all year round. Eoin Doyle, Director of Services at the Cavan Arts Office, and Councillor Shane P. O’Reilly, as well as artists and partner organisations were unanimous in their vocal support of the work done by all of the Cavan Arts Office team.

We next heard from the funders. Elva Duggan from Léargas con-

gratulated everyone on the success of the project – one of 27 European projects funded that year – and explained that funding for community, education and youth programmes was still widely available through Erasmus+, administered in Ireland by Léargas. Andrina Wafer from Europass also spoke with passion about the importance of trans-European projects to individuals and the benefits of working and studying abroad, emphasising the richness of experience and challenges to the status quo that cultural exchanges can bring.

Audrey Keane from the Arts Council talked about the Creative Europe Desk and the many types of transnational projects that receive European support. Despite usually tailoring presentations such as this to organisations that might apply for funding, the presentation nevertheless provided a useful framework for the artists to reflect on their own experiences and the value of taking part in these projects.

Absolutely key to getting projects such as this off the ground is finding the right partner organisations with whom to work. While funding is available to make the projects happen, partners need to be in place before the application stage. This can pose significant challenges to starting the process of developing a trans-European project and often relies on building upon previous projects where relationships with partners have already been developed.

For this project much of the groundwork in developing relationships with the Estonian partners came from Irish artist Maria Kerin.

Kerin has been developing a collaborative trans-European practice over several years and uses social choreographies that merge domestic and public spaces to create experiences and happenings that reflect the shared values of the participants.

Lunch involved a welcome relocation to the main hall, where the theatre space had been transformed into a banquet for the 40 or so people attending the event. The generous spread of delicious salads and a lunchtime glass of wine created a relaxed and intimate environment where people could rekindle friendships that began whilst on residency, discuss each other’s experiences of the project and reflect on how their own practice has developed. Many artists described how the residency opportunity re-energised their practice and they returned to their studios in Ireland with new ideas and confidence, planning to seek out new residencies in future.

Like many of the artists spending time at the Trykimuuseum in Tartu, Michelle Boyle found inspiration in the unfamiliarity of the location and used this opportunity to challenge herself with new ma-

terials and new ways of working. The premises, recently occupied by the Print and Paper Museum contained the abandoned remains of the building’s previous life as a Soviet-era factory. Boyle worked directly with the contents of the space in order to create a haunting, site-specific body of work entitled ‘Today Something Happened’. Boyle repurposed found photographs, sheet music and wooden millinery heads, using these raw materials for creating paintings, assemblages and sculpture that gave a fictionalised narrative of local history.

Many of the artists used found materials in their work – printing onto found papers including local newspapers, abandoned factory timecards, magazines and other photographs. The work epitomised the success of this project where collaboration and cultural exchange became central to the artist’s work. The organisations allowed the artists to examine their own culture and national history while recognising that its future as an integrated country of Europe will rely on cultural partnerships such as this artistic exchange. For Estonia, these cultural exchanges and ties with Europe are vital as Russia’s influence looms ever larger in the wake of the annexation of Crimea in Ukraine.

After lunch we began our journey through the artistic output of the project participants. Heather Brett read from her new work Witness and Cathaoirleach Shane P. O’Reilly read poetry by Kay Carmichael and Carena Cosgrove. The artists that participated in the residency at Arvon Creative Writing Centre talked about how their experiences had given them new challenges and confidence in their work. As well as being supported by tutors who were professional and published writers in their own right the residencies allowed the artists the time and space to develop new bodies of work that were then presented throughout the afternoon.

Trans-art curated the visual arts work into two gallery exhibitions, the first in the space that will become the permanent gallery of the Town Hall and the second at 61 College Street, the council-owned building that has been the base of operations and gallery space for trans-art for the past three years.

After viewing the video works and sculpture in the Town Hall Gallery, we set off for 61 College Street on a walking tour of Cavan, taking in several street performances along the way. Trans-art have curated two Cavan-wide visual arts festivals and, with impromptu street performances being such a seemingly regular occurrence in the town, locals didn’t bat an eyelid when Ita Madden and Bee Smith read from their poetry in the ‘Little Venice’ area. Ray Fitzsimons wrote and performed a new skit at the Lifeforce Mill, alongside Kim McCafferty and Alan D’Arcy. Through musical farce it told the story of their time at New College Lanarkshire, where a change in college staff and an untimely merger of institutions resulted in a challenging experience.

Arriving at 61 College Street, we relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the exhibition. There was writing, sculpture, painting, music, video works and prints on show. The diversity of work stood out; every partner organisation had supported the artists to experiment within their own disciplines. Alan D’Arcy (resident at Tartu Centre for Creative Industries, Estonia) presented his collaboration with a local traditional folk musician as an installation that included a desk housing objects to browse while listening to the music. Sue Morris had sought out the letterpress at Trykimuuseum and showed a small selection of the large body of work that she produced and will be exhibiting in full later this year at the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry.

Lemmit Kaplinski, director of the Print and Paper Museum, Tartu, gave the final presentation of the day, in which he expressed his heartfelt gratitude for having been a part of the project: “This collaboration is a vindication of our acquired skills and know-how in the challenging jungle of managing a private cultural institution in the twenty-first century. Our name has the word museum in it, but since our founding, we have been involved with artistic exchanges and co-operation on an international level. It is also our hope that the successful outcome of the current project will lay down a framework for two-way exchanges in the future.” Kaplinski further described his organisation as having a new-found confidence after the ‘Irish invasion’ departed and was reassured that they have something important to offer both locals and visiting guests alike.

Rob Hilken, VAI Northern Ireland Manager.

1. The participating organisations were: Cavan Arts Office, Ireland; Trykimuuseum, Print and Paper Museum, Tartu; the Tartu Centre for Creative Industries; MoKS, Mooste, nr Tartu, Estonia; Féile an Phobail, Belfast; Coatbridge College (now New College Lanarkshire), Glasgow and Arvon Creative Writing Centre, Lumb Bank, West Yorkshire

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

Art in public

Collective Imagining DENIS ROCHE DISCUSSES ‘PANCHAEA: IN SEARCH OF AN EQUAL UTOPIA AND A WILLING SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF’, A SOCIALLY ENGAGED PROJECT MADE IN COLLABORATION WITH BRIAN MAGUIRE, EMMA FINUCANE AND PEOPLE USING THE MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES IN CO. CARLOW (2011 – 2013).

Denis Roche, ‘Panchaea: In Search Of An Equal Utopia’ , Visual Centre For Contemporary Art (2 April – 24 May 2013)

In 2011 I was commissioned by Carlow Arts Office to make a largescale, socially-engaged art work with people using Carlow Local Authority’s mental health services. The commission’s aim was to bring a hither-to invisible group into relief in the community, so that they could enjoy the citizenship and participation that others take for granted. The commission was supported by an Arts Council Project Award.

In some ways the project developed out of another work of mine, Open Window / A Clinically Useful Artwork?, where I engaged with a group of patients in an isolation ward at the National Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, St James Hospital, Dublin.1 The concerns of these patients centred on being isolated within the architecture that had been developed to support their treatment. They experienced isolation and trauma as a result of this architecture, an unfortunate but tolerated by-product of a system that only focused on the physical aspects of their disease.

Isolation connected these two projects. I am interested in how human relationships are transformed when they are systematised, particularly in the area of care. What happens when care goes from the one-to-one to the one-to-many, and when it is administered within specific architectural environments? Care can become pathologised, resulting in relationships that serve the system first and the person second. A hospital is an example of architecture that encapsulates a system of caring and modulates the behaviour of the people who inhabit it.

When I began the project, I engaged in a series of conversations with a number of consultant psychiatrists in order to identify the most relevant themes around which to make the work. Stigma and social isolation became the focus. We talked about the loss of identity experienced by people with mental health difficulties, and the attendant grieving for frustrated life expectations. It was pointed out to me that a diagnosis of a mental health difficulty in your early twenties can mean forty years of living on the outskirts of the community, with effectively nothing to do. One consultant psychiatrist described to me the physical shock to the body wrought by psychotic episodes as akin to a car crash. Researchers now think that people can develop posttraumatic stress-disorder as a result of psychosis.

I used the motif of a journey to a mythical island utopia to frame the project, which came to be titled Panchaea: In Search of an Equal Utopia and a Willing Suspension of Disbelief. Panchaea is a mythical island first mentioned by ancient Greek philosopher Euhemerus in the late fourth century. He described it as home to a utopian society made up of a number of different ethnic tribes. As a group, we were trying to reach new territory. The project’s concern with utopias was also inspired by the town of Geel in Belgium, which is associated with St Dymphna, the patron saint of mental health. And while we were inspired by geographic locations, there was also concern about creating new utopian states of minds and societal attitudes.

Dymphna had travelled to Geel, pursued by her father, who had lost his mind from grief. He cut off her head when she refused to marry him, just outside Geel. Subsequently the shrine became a place of pilgrimage for people with mental health difficulties. When the numbers attending the shrine became too big, the townspeople took in the pilgrims, beginning a tradition of fostering that still continues today.

It reached its height in the 1930s, when over 3,000 people were accommodated in this way. Geel’s utopia arose out of a practical need to house people, but went on to contribute to a lasting and progressive societal attitude towards caring for citizens with mental health difficulties. The idea of an equal utopia, one that was available for all, became central to the making of the project in Carlow.

There were three phases to Panchaea: In Search of an Equal Utopia and a Willing Suspension of Disbelief. In the first phase, Emma Finucane worked with people who were attending a weekly clinic in Leighlinbridge (July 2011 – November 2012). She explored themes of location and identity. In this way we mapped the territory. In the second phase, Brian Maguire took over an old ward in St. Dymphna’s Psychiatric Hospital and turned it into a painting studio. He explored the ‘inner landscape’ of collaborators who came to paint each week. This is the way we got to know who we were collaborating with (March – November 2012).

In the third phase of the project we built a boat in the Studio Gallery of the Visual Centre for Contemporary Art in Carlow (1 February – 21 April 2013). For three months we worked alongside master boat builders in a gallery that was open to the public, to make the vessel that

would take us to our mythical island, Panchaea: the equal utopia. All boundaries were blurred during this time. Everyone worked together to deliver the project in full sight of the wider community. The group felt elevated being on display. Collaborators were patients, clients and citizens, and this status was fluid depending on their physical location at any given time. Collaborators were patients in the morning while they attended the clinic and then walked across the road to the gallery to become collaborators in a public artwork. Photographs could not be taken in the morning but were allowed in the afternoon.

At the end of this period, we brought all the elements together in the form of an exhibition in the Link and Studio Galleries in the Visual Centre for Contemporary Art (26 April – 24 May 2013).2 In a ceremony at the opening of the exhibition, the group carried the boat out of the gallery and launched it on the pond in the grounds of the arts centre.

In this final and public act of display, collaborators, community members and artists were revealed together in a new equality. The artwork became a public statement about quality of life for people living with a mental illness in our country. A publication documenting and discussing the project was launched this year by Minister Kathleen Lynch (22 April 2015).3 In making work collaboratively, there’s always a tension between the uses of art and the needs of the community. Add in a clinical context and issues of value also come to the fore, when permissions and explanations are required. For this project value, use and need became salient themes in themselves. The collaborators’ own opinions about their needs and questions about how they were valued hit home in terms of them asking ‘what use am I?’. Collaborators spoke about the importance of feeling that they were needed to help achieve a goal, as members of a team and in delivering the project. The collaborators also spoke of the value of coming together as a group with an identity for the first time. By the end of the project, this was an identity they were willing to share with the wider community in a public way.

My role as an artist in this project was to enable a particular community, increase their visibility, create genuine engagements and build trust among the partners and participants. There was a long process of negotiation, which took place over almost two years before the project proper began. This involved meeting with collaborators, HSE hospital management, consultant psychiatrists, care workers and local authority members. There was a constant dialogue with the commissioners, in particular Sinead Dowling, Carlow Arts Officer, who demonstrated a rare level of trust and confidence in the process. There were over 100 people from right across the community who contributed to making the project succeed and embracing change.

If I ask myself what is significant about placing an artist in these contexts, and what the artist can do to make the work, I think the answers lie in the potential to suggest a collective imagining outside of the existing systems in which the artist’s project is being made. In essence, there is a new territory that can be ‘struck-out’ for.

In working this way, the artist is in a sense suggesting that there is something around the corner that you can’t see yet. You just need to head out in some kind of direction. And once the artist happens upon that something, it is then their job to figure out how to get everyone there. There are always ethical questions in relation to taking on the responsibility of trying to make change happen for and with your collaborators, especially when you are mostly dealing with organisations that are resistant to this change. The answer we arrived at for ‘Panchaea: In Search of an Equal Utopia and a Willing Suspension of Disbelief’ was to make a boat to get us to a place that didn’t exist. It was the only material thing we could do.

Denis Roche studied at NCAD where he received an MA in Fine Art and Goldsmiths College, London where he received an MSc in Cognitive Computing. He makes socially engaged art that has its basis in the dialogical and the relational. Roche’s work has been presented at MoMA, IMMA, the Smithsonian Institute and the National Naval Medical Hospital, USA. Notes 1. Further information vivartes.ie 2. Further information visualcarlow.ie/exhibitions 3.Online publication http://issuu.com/panchaea/docs/panchaea_web/1

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

VAI REGIONAL representation

33 VAI Northern Ireland manager

Positioning & Location Technology Enthusiasts CATHERINE HARTY PROVIDES A ROUND UP OF RECENT ACTIVITY IN CORK.

‘Stitch in Time: the Fabric of Contemporary Life’, installation view

The Glucksman Gallery currently features two exhibitions focused on the use of textiles by artists: ‘The Knitting Map: Art, Controversy and Community 2005 – 2015’ and ‘Stitch in Time: the Fabric of Contemporary Life’ (3 April – 5 July 2015).

‘The Knitting Map: Art, Controversy and Community 2005 – 2015’ primarily comprises an enormous textile installation. The work incorporates abstracted representations of footage captured by five CCTV cameras of pedestrians and traffic moving through Cork City. This is combined with information collected on weather patterns. This data was translated into patterns using digital technology. From these the map was produced by a 2000strong volunteer knitting army during the 2005 City of Culture to produce the map.1 The project, initiated by Jools Gilson and Richard Povall, has generated a great deal of debate.

Questions have been asked about the amount of funding it received. There was an expectation that somehow the money allocated to the project should be visible in the end result. To this day, the work still provokes some hostile reactions. It’s been described to me by individuals involved in the Cork art scene as an “ugly, old thing”.

The Knitting Map is the size of a tennis court, gathered in folds and hung from hooks in the ceiling. It spills down one wall and flows across the floor in ripples and waves. The map is composed of a patchwork of panels in muted colours and various textures. In the Glucksman showing of the piece the work is contextualised by framed copies of local newspaper stories on the project. These are predominantly descriptive and usually accompanied by photographs of the project coordinator Jools Gilson and the women involved in the knitting.

The Knitting Map raises some of the problems identified by Claire Bishop around the critical evaluation of artworks created under the rubric of relational aesthetics or collaborative practices.2 For Bishop, the key question is whether such works can be judged by the criteria of aesthetics or ethics.

Are we looking at such projects as documents or artworks? Do we judge the artists for their labour practices? How were the participants were treated – were they collaborators or were they patronised?

The Knitting Map offers neither answers nor clear directions in relation to such issues, but instead opens up a space for dialogue.

‘Stitch in Time: the Fabric of Contemporary Life’ features work by Anni Albers, Sarah Browne, Jeremy Deller, Sissi Farassat, Angela Fulcher, Grayson Perry, and Slavs and Tatars. One room is devoted to the work of Anni Albers. It is softly lit – its subdued ambiance a temple for the absorbed and serious reflection demanded by modernist work.

These are exceptionally tasteful pieces and appear entirely contemporary, from the long metallic wall hanging, one corner folded to reveal its reverse side,

to the ensemble of fabrics hanging from the ceiling.

There are nylons and laces, plastics and cottons, tight and loose weaves; some are transparent, others opaque or mutely coloured; some are geometrically patterned, swaying gently in the breeze created by the viewer’s movements. There are four large tapestries, three titled Orchestra wall hanging for AT&T building and one titled Floating wall hanging for AT &T building, all dating from 1984. Thinking about the original installation of these pieces prompts reflection on the spaces where large-scale artworks reside. This subdued collection speaks of money.

Both The Knitting Map and the work by Albers are large pieces that demand a certain space, which the Glucksman certainly provides. It is an awardwinning architectural building, a spectacle gallery (an essential ingredient for any aspiring city desiring a place on the map), a lure for capital and is most fittingly named after a Wall Street trader. Both artworks take their place in the debate concerning the inherent tension between the autonomy of art (its separation from instrumental reason) and its heteronomy (the pull of art into life).

Currently showing at the Camden Palace Hotel, a large community arts centre, are paintings by New York artist Peter Missing (7 – 20 May). Missing’s signature graffiti tag of a crossed-out, up-turned martini glass has been popping up all over the city. They have been chalked on pavements and on the back of the myriad posters currently giving visual form to the ideological battles taking place around issues of resources and rights. The symbol was initially conceived as a comment on the gentrification of the Lower East Side of New York by ‘yuppies’ in the 1980s – a signal that the party was over. It remains a potent and pertinent symbol.

The Camden Palace space opened in 2009 and proudly declares that it is volunteer-run and not in receipt of any public funding. The space was taken over by artists and renovated to provide studio and exhibition space, darkroom facilities, a theatre, a film screening room and rehearsal space. It attracts a diverse audience of people who might not necessarily attend other cultural spaces. Despite this, the organisers remain vulnerable as tenants and recently failed in their attempt to buy the building from NAMA, despite running a fundraising campaign.

The field of art provides a platform for discussion and debate on our current condition, but we also need physical spaces in which to reflect and produce. To quote Irit Rogoff: “You can’t have a position without a location.”3 Perhaps Borderlines of the Present, a project by Eve Olney and Fiona Woods being carried out in association with the National Sculpture Factory, can go some way to diagnosing the city’s symptoms of crisis and anxiety.4 Described as a ‘nomadic reading group’, the venture sets out to consider “the pressing question of how we live now, as we become more squeezed by the political-economic machine of Neoliberalism”. Events will take place monthly in different spaces around the city.

Catherine Harty is a Cork-based artist and a member of the Cork Artists’ Collective and the curatorial / directorial team of The Guesthouse.

Notes 1. The Knitting Map was one of the flagship projects of Cork’s year as European Capital of Culture in 2005. The work combined hand-knitting with motion-sensing technologies, and involved more than 2000 people 2. Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, Verso, 2012 3. Irit Rogoff, Cork Caucus: On Art, Possibility & Democracy, Shepard Steiner and Trevor Joyce (eds), National Sculpture Factory, 2006, p.11 4. http://borderlinesofthepr.wix.com/borderlines

ROB HILKEN CONSIDERS DIGITAL ART PRACTICES IN NORTHERN IRELAND.

Eegb, A Gestalt of Robots, Project Space, Golden Thread Gallery, photo by Jonathan Beer

There are four organisations across Northern Ireland dedicated to digital practices. Fablab have branches in Belfast (run by Ashton Community Trust) and in Derry-Londonderry (run by the Nerve Centre). There’s also Farset Labs and the Digital Arts Studios in Belfast. Fablab and Farset Labs cater to all kinds of technology enthusiasts, including artists. Digital Arts Studios (DAS) exclusively supports artists through a programme of residencies, workshops, equipment hire and exhibitions.

Robin Price is a Belfast-based artist who’s been receiving considerable attention for works such as This is not a table, an interactive ping-pong table first shown at the BBC event ‘Make it Digital NI’. Price often reimagines familiar objects and challenges expectations about what they might become after a digital intervention. He noted that “Both Farset and Fablab are brilliant resources for Belfast and digital artists,” continuing, “Fablab were invaluable to me while building my ping pong table, both in providing advice at the early stages and physically milling out prototypes and the final design. Farset Labs is a great place to meet knowledgeable people and learn about techniques and technologies – the final piece only came about in the form it did because of a conversation I had there very early on”.

It’s difficult to say what exactly a ‘digital practice’ is and nearly impossible to point to a scene in Northern Ireland, but it’s safe to say that digital technology has influenced sculpture, photography, painting, film making, interactive design, printmaking, sound, performance, collaborative and participatory arts. The rise of affordable hardware and open-source software has allowed artists to become ever more sophisticated and experimental in the use of technology.

The most recent group of DAS residents staged their showcase exhibition ‘Analogues’ at the Golden Thread Gallery (26 – 30 May). The show typified the range of disciplines worked in by the artists at DAS and what a misnomer the term ‘digital practice’ can be. Works included photography, found sculpture, video and community filmmaking, as well as a walking tour and an installation of autonomous drawing robots. Only Eegb (George Baldwin and Edmund Eva), makers of the robot, could be said to have a purely digital practice. Even then, their analogue output is as important as the digital methods employed.

One of the challenges for artists is how to make use of technology, rather than letting the technology become an end in itself. Open-source learning and online sharing through forums such as seeedstudio.com make it almost too easy to employ digital techniques to create interesting images, sculpture or installations. But the artists succeeding best

in their use of digital media are using it to question technology’s place in society and our relationship with it.

Jiann Hughes has been making digital art for six years, raising questions around the influence, control, objectivity and neutrality of technologies.

For her, art can subvert intended applications to explore the materials, structures and practices of our media ecologies. These themes also resonate with current PhD researcher and visual artist Laura O’Connor, whose work explores the representation of women on screen. O’Connor makes extensive use of digital production techniques, including live green-screen video capture, as well as using digital online distribution channels for her work, which mirrors the self-produced performances of ‘cam girls’ through the sharing of selfies and communication through her YouTube channel.

Eegb artists Baldwin and Eva recently graduated in drawing from Falmouth School of Art and have used their residency at DAS to further develop their machines. They have built on their previous work by writing custom behavioral algorithms that allow their flocking robots to become autonomous artists, devolving authorial control of the final output. The success of the work lies in the ambiguity of where the artistic creation lies. Is it the drawing, the robot or the algorithm that drives them?

Paul Moore, in his solo exhibition ‘Lorem Ipsum’ at Arts and Disability Forum Gallery, uses image glitching techniques on photographed selfportraits as a metaphor for describing and understanding his own dyslexia. Moore’s use of technology successfully illustrates how the corruption of information has a transformative effect on his life.

As with all exhibitions at the gallery, the artist becomes empowered rather than constrained by his disability. The digital manipulation techniques Moore uses have come from the open source movement but his understanding of how they may be used conceptually within his work demonstrates a highly effective use of the technology.

As if to underline the democratising effects of technology, Catalyst Arts hosted a one-night exhibition entitled ‘BYOB – Bring Your Own Beamer’ at the end of May. This was one event in a global series that was founded by Rafaël Rozendaal, and allowed artists to use their own projector to screen their work wherever they found space in the gallery. With no selection process, over 20 films were shown from artists at all stages of their careers. It became an exciting open platform for meeting likeminded others to discuss their work, share techniques and for some provided a chance to exhibit their work for the first time.

Rob Hilken, VAI Northern Ireland Manager.

34

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

Public Art ROUNDUP

Art in Public public art commissions, site-specific works, socially engaged practice and other forms of art outside the gallery.

TEAMWORK

Artist: Sara Cunningham-Bell Title: Teamwork Commissioner: Department of Culture and Leisure (DCAL) and Irish Rugby and Football Union (IRFU) Advertised: September 2014 (two-stage competition advertised nationally) Budget: €40,000 excluding VAT Commission type: Public sculpture Partners: Bell Architects Description: Sara Cunningham-Bell’s sculpture at Kingspan Stadium, Belfast features 16 figures, fashioned from plasma-cut, high-strength low alloy and stainless steel, representing those who play or participate in rugby in the province. Women’s, senior and mini rugby are all portrayed in the artwork, as well as volunteers at the stadium. It runs for 90 metres behind the premium stand at the ground.

The centerpiece stands at over six metres tall and depicts a line-out, a visual reminder of both the physical power of rugby and the trust that exists in the game between team-mates. The line-out and the players are lit up by LEDs recessed into the ground, which throw light and create strong 3D shadows.

The installation is designed to be a physically active piece and fans are encouraged to get up close and to engage with the artwork. Throughout the development of the artwork, Cunningham-Bell worked with local schools in interactive workshops to transfer her creative skills and knowledge.

NOT AFRAID OF RUINS Artist: John Black Title: Not Afraid of Ruins Commissiontype: Self-initiated project Sited /carried out: Ballycastle Shorefront, November 2014; Glenshance Forest Park, January 2015; Beuys Park, Belfast, April 2015 Description: Not afraid of Ruins was part of a continuation of works produced and displayed publically in various locations across Northern Ireland by visual artist John Black. The work was inspired by a newspaper interview during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s in which a Canadian war reporter for the Toronto Star quotes Buenaventura Durruti, a leading revolutionary figure who spearheaded an anarchist militia against Franco. As Durruti explained the intensity of the battle and the war ahead against fascism, the reporter interjected, saying that even if he won, they would be “sitting on

a pile of ruins”. Durruti replied: “We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a while. For, you must not forget, we also know how to build. It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and in America, and everywhere …

The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world, here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute”.

For the artist, the theme of destruction / reconstruction falls between the ongoing conversation in which he examines power dynamics, the language of communication and the effects of creating environments, primarily through installation, sculpture and performance. A strong recurrent theme in all his work is class, including issues surrounding the human condition, in which he seeks to challenge all relationships based on domination and submission, power and control.

THE MYLER FIELDS

Artist: James L. Hayes Title: The Myler Fields Location: Gort Mhaoilir Housing Estate, Athenry, Co. Galway Sited: 1 May 2014 – 12 April 2015 Commissioner: Galway Co. Council Arts Office Partners: Galway County Council Arts Office, Galway County Council Housing Unit, Clúid Housing Assocoation, Gort Mhaoilir Residents Committee, Athenry Music School, Athenry Community Hall, Athenry Castle, Galway Arts Centre Commission Type: Percent for Art Budget: €25,000 Description: The main focus of ‘The Myler Fields’ project was to make an artwork that centred on the residents or the community in Gort Mhaoilir housing estate in Athenry, Co. Galway. The work took the form of a performative and inclusive community choir comprising a diverse range of participants from all age groups. After numerous weeks of rehearsals the Gort Mhaoilir Residents’ Choir performed on an estate in the green area, which was recorded and edited into a short film.

The choir performed The Fields of Athenry, the song most synonymous with their home. The Gort

Mhaoilir Estate was recently built on fields that occupy the periphery of the historic medieval town of Athenry, making it the ideal place to probe the ambiguities of this song, which is associated with Irish identity and often presumed to be older than it is.

The idea of ‘Irishness’ within the context of multiculturalism was explored by engaging residents from diverse backgrounds who are intrinsically connected to the fictional site of the song. It was hoped that the sense of place strongly evoked by the song could be replicated by the residents in their coming together to perform as a choir, generating a sense of community within their new estate.

Younger members of the choir also created a small permanent sculpture trail composed of bronze / cast works: casts of the children’s hands, indexical drawings inscribed on wax plates and multiple casts of objects which the children donated and which act as tokens or traces of their time spent in the community of Gort Mhaoilir.

YOU ARE HERE

Artists: David Lilburn and Jan Fröhburg Title: You are here Commissioner: Galway County Council Date advertised: 2012 Date sited / carried out: to be launched Culture Night September 2015 Commission type: Per Cent for Art Budget: €51,000 Description: You are here is a site-integrated sculptural installation for Tuam by graphic artist David Lilburn in collaboration with architect Jan Frohburg (both from Limerick). The project takes the Tuam chair as its starting point. This historic type of chair is rooted in the rural origins of the town and ties into local craft tradition. Tuam is the only place where this particular type of chair is still made today and is a recognisable emblem for the town. Alongside the chair, the proposal engages existing fixtures in the Tuam townscape by installing small-scale sculptural objects and map-making.

Once completed, this project will comprise three components: the chairs, the map and the book.

Throughout Tuam a dozen or so small chair objects are installed in public locations where they can be seen but not necessarily reached.

The locations of the chair objects alongside key places in town are recorded in an artist’s map, which creates a sense of history and evokes Tuam as an ancient centre of Connacht and as a seat of power and learning.

MAGNIFICAT Artist: Marie Soffe Title: Magnificat Commissioner: Terenure College (Fr. David Weakliam) Completed: January 2015 Partners: Architectural Aluminium, Carey Glass International Description: Marie Soffe was commissioned to design an arched glass entrance and two windows for

a restored Marian grotto (dated early 1800s) in the grounds of Terenure College, Dublin. Soffe’s design incorporates text from the most ancient Christian prayer in honour of the Virgin Mary (the Magnificat), written in Latin using the Uncial alphabet. The calligraphy is slightly abstracted within the overall reticulate design, which provides privacy whilst also allowing sunlight to fall in pools on the ground within. Inside the room, this lattice effect affords views of the surrounding gardens through the clear segments of glass, while the vibrant colours cast a diffused light. The glass was digitally printed with ceramic inks by Carey Glass International (Nenagh) and installed by Architectural Aluminium. The artist’s intention was to create an immersive, contemporary space for reflection and prayer, inspired by Henri Matisse’s Vence Chapel and Mark Rothko’s statement that many are “desperately searching for pockets of silence where we can root and grow”.

CAVAN REDHILLS COMMISSIONS

Artist: Joanne Behan Title: The Village Green Commissioner: Redhills Building Peace through the Arts steering committee and funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Partners: Building Peace through the Arts (Redhills is a partnership between the steering committee, Cavan County Council & funders, ACNI) Sited: 19 June 2015 Description: The Village Green was commissioned to create “a public artwork of excellence which captures the convivial memories of the Redhills on the Green”. The sculpture is a bronze representation of a child running and playing with bunting at the annual carnival.

Artist: Tony Stallard Title: The Cootehill Harvester Commissioner: Cootehill Building Peace through the Arts steering committee and funded byACNI. Sited: 3 June 2015 Partners: Darley and St Michael’s National Schools; St Aidan’s Comprehensive School, YouthReach; The Cootehill Craft Circle, Cavan Traveller’s Movement; Drumlin House painting group; Cootehill Library; Leader, Breifne Integrated; Cavan County Council; the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Description: The commissioned work is a bronze sculpture representing a working harvester.

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

SuMMer / autuMN 2015 Fingal

kerry

deVelopiNg CreatiVe propoSalS with aNNette MoloNey Venue tbc. July, 2015 (date tbc). Places: 12 – 15. Cost: FREE to Fingal artists.

deVelopiNg CreatiVe propoSalS with aNNette MoloNey In partnership with Kerry County Council Art Office Venue tbc. Tuesday 22 September (10.30 – 17.00). Places: 12 – 15. Cost tbc.

ViSual artS FiNgal artiStS’ Soup Supper A professional networking and social event for visual artists based in Fingal November 2015 (date tbc). Places: 20 - 35. Cost: FREE to Fingal artists. poSitioNiNg & NetworkiNg your praCtiCe February 2016 (details tbc). Cost: FREE to Fingal artists.

Clare Child proteCtioN traiNiNg with toM keNt. In partnership with Clare County Council Arts Office Ennis SeSSioN 1: NyCi Child proteCtioN awareNeSS prograMMe t @County Museum, Arthur’s Row, EnFor artiStS with toM keNt nis, Co. Clare. Saturday 5 September (10.00 – 14.00). Places: 18 – 20.

Cost: ˆ 10/5 (VAI members).

SeSSioN 2: update oN New Child proteCtioN legiSlatioN & poliCy. @County Museum, Arthur’s Row, Ennis, Co.Clare. Saturday 12 September (10.00 – 12.00). Places: 18 – 20. Cost: ˆ 10/5 (VAI members).

dublin City MaNagiNg your FiNaNCeS For ViSual artiStS with gaby SMyth @Visual Artists Ireland, Dublin 2. Friday 2 October (10.30 – 15.30). Places: 12 – 15. Cost: ˆ 50/25 (VAI members).

SCulpture & iNStallatioN with haNNeS bruNNer @Visual Artists Ireland, Central Hotel Chambers, 7 – 9 Dame Lane, Dublin 2. Artist Talk : Tuesday 6 October (10.30 – 11.30). Places: 20 – 25 Cost: ˆ 5/FREE (VAI members). Peer Critique (11.30 – 16.30). Places: 6 Cost: ˆ 80/40 (VAI members). haNdliNg, traNSport aNd Storage oF your artworkS with MauriCe ward Venue tbc. Wednesday 21 October 2015 (10.30 – 16.30). Places: 18 – 20 . Cost: ˆ 30/15 (VAI members). doCuMeNtiNg your work with tiM durhaM @Visual Artists Ireland, Central Hotel Chambers, 7- 9 Dame Lane, Dublin 2. Thursday 5 Novmber (10.00 – 17.00). Places: 10. Cost: ˆ 60/30 (VAI members). digital iMage ForMattiNg baSiCS with tiM durhaM @ Visual Artists Ireland, Central Hotel Chambers, 7 – 9 Dame Lane, Dublin 2. Thursday 12 November (10.00 – 16.00). Places: 10. Cost: ˆ 60/30 (VAI members).

Visual Artist Ireland works in partnership with local authorities, visual arts venues and others, combining resources to support the professional development of visual artists at regional level.

Northern ireland

republic of ireland

liCeNSiNg your ViSual work For artiStS & illuStratorS – with illuStratorS, artiStS & legal SpeakerS In parternship with Fingal Arts, Illustrators Ireland and the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland October 2015 (date tbc). Places: 20 – 35. Cost: FREE to Fingal artists.

ViSual artiStS irelaNd operates a wide range of professional development training events throughout the year. The delivery of this programme is greatly supported by our relationship with local and international visual art professionals and partner organisations throughout the island of Ireland.

portlaoise deVelopiNg opportuNitieS For your work with geraldiNe o’reilly aNd a galleriSt In partnership with Dunamaise Arts Centre and Laois County Council Arts Office @Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise. Friday 25 September (10.30 – 17.00). Places: 15 – 18. Cost: ˆ 40/20.

Sligo ViSual artiStS’ CaFé @ the Model art, Sligo In partnership with The Model Saturday 3 October, 2015 (11.00 – 16.00). Places: 25 – 35. Cost: FREE.

donegal writiNg about your work with ÁiNe phillipS With the Donegal Artists’ Network @Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny. November 2015 (10.30 – 16.30). Places: 12 – 15. Cost: ˆ 60/30 (VAI Members).

galway / galway gaeltacht ViSual artiStS’ CaFé & Show aNd tell, Furbo In partnership with Galway County Council Arts Office and Udarás na Gaeltachta Gaillmhe @Furbo, Galway. Mid October 2015 (11.00 – 16.00). Places: 25 - 35. Cost: FREE to Galway artists. writiNg about your work with ÁiNe phillipS CollaboratioN & partNerShipS For iNdiVidual artiStS aNd artiSt-led groupS Both events held in partnership with Galway County Council and Galway City Council Arts Offices. Further details to be announced.

tipperary ViSual artiStS CaFé at daMer houSe gallery In partnership with Tipperary County Council @ Damer House, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary. Saturday 12 September (11.00 – 16.00) Cost: FREE. Join us at Damer House Gallery in September for a day of information, talks, Show & Tell and the opportunity to meet fellow artists working in the Tipperary region.

Bookings / information Monica Flynn Professional Development Officer, Visual Artists Ireland T: 01 672 9488 E: monica@visualartists.ie visualartists.ie/professional-developmentp/ VAI members receive preferential discount of 50% on fees for all VAI, Training and Professional Development events. Fees range from ˆ 5 – 40 for VAI Members.

Vai helpdeSkS @VAI Northern Ireland Office, Belfast 12 August, 9 September, 14 October Our regular monthly Helpdesks are a chance for you to book a one-toone appointment with an expert to get support and advice on a wide range of professional topics. iNtroduCiNg belFaSt gallerieS Thursday 6 August VAI invites you to attend this day event to find out more about the visual arts exhibition spaces in Belfast. During the day we will visit Golden Thread Gallery, The MAC, PSSquared, Platform Arts, Catalyst Arts and Belfast Exposed Photography Gallery. We will hear from the curators of the galleries and there will be an opportunity to find out more about any opportunities they may have to get involved or exhibit your work. We will be running a free bus from Dublin on the day. The bus (Premier Coaches) will be leaving Dublin at 8.45 from outside the Laughter Lounge on Eden Quay and will leave Belfast at 21:00, giving you an opportunity to enjoy Belfast’s Late Night Art and meet many of the artists working in the city. Lunch will also be provided at this free event. peer reView with haNNeS bruNNer @Millennium Court Arts Centre 8 October Hannes Brunner was born 1956 in Lucerne, Switzerland and lives in New York and Berlin. His art installations favor ephemeral materials and his contextual art projects combine different mediums, including social process from digital communication into real physical spaces.

His projects have been shown internationally. Look out for our open call for participants soon.

Belfast open studios Friday 23 and Saturday 24 October Belfast Open Studios is an open invitation to the public to come and see how artists work, to explore artistic methodologies and to have a glimpse into the creative processes that culminate in the artworks often shown in galleries, museums, art centres, artist-led spaces and various venues. 13 studios across the city are opening their doors in October for this unique free event.

Participating studios include: Flax Art Studios, QSS Bedford Street, Orchid Studios, Platform Arts, Array Studios, LOFT Studios, Belfast Print Workshop, Creative Exchange Artist Studios, Pollen Studios, Artists at the Mill (Conway Mill), Spectrum Artists’ Studios, Cathedral Studios and the MFA Studios at the University of Ulster. There will be a programme of artist talks to accompany the event and a chance to meet artists who choose not to work from a shared studio in an informal setting. The event is kindly supported by Suki Tea, who will be providing refreshments in all the venues.

Bookings / information Rob Hilken, Northern Ireland Manager, Visual Artists Ireland A: Digital Arts Studios, 38-42 Hill Street, Belfast, T1 2LB E: rob@visualartists-ni.org visualartists-ni.org

36

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

July – August 2015

opportunities

Opportunities conferences / lectures / talks

series of summer workshops. Mould Making Workshop, level 1, with Ciaran Patterson (7 – 8 Jul). Cost: 100. Mould Making Workshop, level 2, with Ciaran

THE HUNT MUSEUM

Patterson (22 – 23 Sept). Cost: €100. In-

The Hunt Museum, Limerick continues its Lunchtime Lecture series with ‘WWI Fine Art, Photography and Propaganda’ taken by Dr Niamh A O’Sullivan (12 Aug). Dr O’Sullivan is a lecturer at the University of Limerick and has research interests in the intersections between cultural, social and political history. The lecture directly relates to the Museum’s

troduction to Welding with John Carrick. Available dates: 14 – 15 Jul; 11 – 12 Aug; 15 – 16 Sep; 20 – 21 Oct; 10 – 11 Nov; 8 – 9 Dec. Cost: €250 Web firestation.ie/skills Email artadmin@firestation.ie Telephone

01 890 6237 Email

develop their artistic practice, providing

Park, Portrane. This year there will be a

artists with the time and resources to

focus on process, exploration and invi-

sarah.oneill@fingal.ie Web

think, research, reflect and engage with

tation to contribute to an archival case

their practice. The award is open to prac-

study in relation to the local area, people

fingal.ie

tising artists at all stages in their profes-

and the experience of this context. Ap-

sional careers working in music, visual

plicants must be available in flexible pe-

TRINITY CREATIVE

art, drama, literature and dance. To be

riods from Aug – Sept. A fee of €500 will

Trinity College have launched funding

eligible to apply, applicants must have

be provided for the week long period.

awards designed to support the creation

been born, have studied in or currently

Those wishing to avail of the residency

of new work and foster the development

reside in the Fingal administrative area.

must submit an expression of interest

of interdisciplinary projects that ideally

The funding is for projects and initia-

which outlines why they would like to

involve a collaboration with Trinity Col-

tives which will begin or have taken

undertake this residency and how it will

lege Dublin. The awards are open to non-

place 1 Jun – 31 Dec 2015.

Deadline

benefit their practice no longer than 500

17 July Web

phy in pdf format.

Deadline

fingalarts.ie Email

17 July Email caroline.cowley@fingal.ie Web

Trinity applicants and the focus is on interdisciplinary creative arts practices across forms including performance, visual art, music, film, design, new media,

words/A4 as well as a recent CV/biogra-

01 806 9010

animation and creative technologies.

Front’. All are welcome to attend this

STONE CARVING

be granted to support the development

sarah.oneill@fingal.ie Telephone

free lecture.

Email

The Leitrim Sculpture Centre hold a

of projects which will then be presented

01 890 6237

fingalarts.ie

education@huntmuseum.com Web

McKenna (28 – 30 Aug). Duration: three

context in Trinity in 2016.

Deadline

Shinnors Scholar 2015

opportunities ireland

huntmuseum.com

will be introduced to the principles of

12 July Web

City and County Council and Limerick School of Art and Design, Limerick In-

BLUEFIRE

tcd.ie/trinity-creative

stitute of Technology are calling for ap-

BlueFire is a social enterprise running

plications for the Shinnors Scholar 2015

arts and culture events across Dublin

ARTS COUNCIL BURSARY

MA in Curatorial Studios. Completed

city with a particular interest in cel-

The Arts Council provides Bursary

application forms should be returned

ebrating diversity and promoting inter-

Awards in order to assist individual art-

to Dr Peter Downey, Research Project

culturalism through the arts. The flag-

ists in the development of their art prac-

Management Officer, Graduate Studies

ship event is a free annual street festival

tice. The award emphasises the value

and Research Office Limerick Institute

that takes place in Smithfield square

will bring together artists, arts adminis-

and benefit to an artist’s development

of Technology, Moylish Park, Limerick,

on 19 Sept. BlueFire want to hear from

trators, curators, patrons, students and

that is derived from a focused period of

Ireland to include a cover letter, CV and

musicians, performers and artists who

engagement with their practice. Guide-

have exciting ideas about using the arts

lines for each award are published on

transcript of academic results.

Deadline

the website.

Deadline

10 July Web

have something to say about the current

16 July Web

gallery.limerick.ie Email

Dublin communities.

Email

artscouncil.ie/available-funding

graduatestudies@lit.ie

community@bluefiredublin.ie Web

summer exhibition ‘Father Browne’s First World War: Photographs from the

stone carving workshop with Jackie days. Places: eight. Cost: €230. Students stone carving and design, the identifica-

International Sculpture Centre The International Sculpture Centre will travel to Phoenix, Arizona for its first conference in the American Southwest.

Inspired by exploration in art and architecture in desert landscapes, the 25th International

Sculpture

Conference

sculpture enthusiasts for new discoveries in the field of sculpture. The ISC will

tion and uses of different stone and the use of hand tools. Each student will design and carve a simple form that they can take home with them. Suitable for beginners to intermediate.

Web leitrimsculpurecentre.ie VIBES AND SCRIBES An introduction to portraits with oil pastels course will take place in Vibes

hold its member’s only Little Sculpture

and Scribes – Wool, Fabric and Craft

Show at the 25th International Sculp-

Supplies Shop, Cork. These classes will

ture Conference. ISC Members inter-

focus on portraits from the initial draw-

ested in participating in Little Sculpture

ing stages to discovering portraits with

must sign up during early bird registra-

oil pastels. Classes will commence on

tion.

Web

Tues 14 Jul from 18.30 to 20.30 and will

sculpture.org/az2015 Email events@sculpture.org Telephone (609) 689 1051 302

cost €100 per five-week cycle.

Email declanom@gmail.com

funding / awards / bursaries

courses / workshops / training

GRADUATE AWARDS

CREATIVE SPARK

Award as part of Fuel, Block T’s visual

The Carborundum Workshop with John O’Connor takes places at Creative Spark, Dundalk, Co. Louth (8 Aug) Cost: €80. This is a collograph printmaking technique using carborundum, a gritty substance, to create areas of dark and light tones on an intaglio print. It is used alongside other printing processes to add texture to a print.

Web creativespark.ie Telephone 042 938 5720 Email hello@creativespark.ie FIRE STATION WORKSHOPS Fire Station Artists’ Studios begin their

Block T and Fingal County Council Arts Office have announced a Graduate arts programme dedicated to the support and professional development of recent graduates. As part of an ongoing commitment to professional artists Fingal County Council’s Arts Office are offering a one-year Graduate Studio Award in Block T with a solo exhibition in 2016. This residency will be offered to one graduate. The Fingal County Council Graduate Award is based on an open submission for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the class of 2015.

To apply for this award the graduate must live in, be originally from or have studied in Fingal.

Deadline 31 July Telephone

Up to four awards of up to €10,000 will

within an exhibition or performance Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick

ist programme includes the following

landscape and experience of various

bluefiredublin.ie

ARTS COUNCIL NI ACNI’s Support for the Individual Art-

to help communities come together or

residencies

schemes: General Arts Awards, Artists’

BUTLER GALLERY The Butler Gallery, Kilkenny is currently

Career Enhancement Scheme, Major

MAYO RESIDENCY

accepting applications for its 2016 / 17

Individual Awards, Artists’ Internation-

Mayo County Council invites submis-

programme. Further details and gallery

al Development Fund, Self-Arranged

sions for a residency working with the

Residencies and Travel Awards (this is a

Jackie Clarke Collection’s artefacts relat-

layout can be found on the website.

Deadline

rolling programme where applications

ing to the 1916 Easter Rising. The aim

must be received four weeks before in-

of this commission is to enable the art-

tended date of travel).

Deadline

ist time to develop new work, dedicate time to research and develop new ideas

submissions@butlergallery.com Web

16.00, 30 July

in response to the 1916 Easter Rising by

butlergallery.com

The International Programme for Or-

working with the Jackie Clarke Collec-

ganisations includes two schemes:

tion. This is approximately a six month

MART PROJECT SPACE

Professional Arts Abroad and Artists’

residency (Oct 2015 – Apr 2016). Resi-

MART Project Space are now seeking

International Development Fund (Or-

dency: €30,000 (to include all fees and

submissions for Project 3 taking place

ganisations) Deadline

related artwork costs). Site visit: 11.30,

in Sept and Oct 2015. This is an exciting opportunity that combines studio, resi-

16.00, 30 July

19 Jun. Deadline

The Sustainability Programme Deadline

13.00, 9 July Web

cultivate experimentation. In this pro-

16.00, 23 July

mayococo.ie

of artists will work together in a collab-

FINGAL ARTISTS’ SUPPORT

resort residency fingal

Fingal County Council announce the

Fingal Arts Office are seeking expres-

2015 Artists’ Support Scheme. The ob-

sions of interest from artists and cura-

jective of the scheme is to support indi-

tors to engage in a short term residency

mart.ie/project Email

vidual professional artists from Fingal to

opportunity at Lynders Mobile Home

katherine@mart.ie

31 July Email

dency and exhibition opportunities to gressive platform for new work, groups orative environment to realise a project, exhibition or series of events.

Web

Arts Council of Northern Ireland Developing the arts in Northern Ireland Culturefox.ie is the definitive online guide to Irish cultural events, giving you complete information about cultural activities both here and abroad.

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Image: Brendan Jamison, Green JCB bucket with holes. Arts Council Collection

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Agri_culture

NEW & recent WORK

A dual location residency project Maria McKINNEY

HELEN SHARP / SIMON CARMAN IN RESIDENCE AT Roscommon arts centre 22 JUNE - 24 JULY PAULINE O'CONNELL IN RESIDENCE AT leitrim sculpture centre, manorhamilton 22 JUNE - 24 JULY

KING HOUSE, BOYLE PREVIEW: 14 AUG continues until 26 Sept

CONTEXTS:02 BOYLE CIVIC ART COLLECTION KING HOUSE, BOYLE PREVIEW: 14 AUG continues until 26 Sept

AGRI_CULTURE X-SPUD TOURING EXHIBITIONs Deirdre O’Mahony LEITRIM SCULPTURE CENTRE PREVIEW: 25 JULY continues until 4 Aug

Irish Famine Museum, Strokestown continues until Sept 2015

ROSCOMMON ARTS CENTRE PREVIEW : 15 AUG continues until 31 Sept

for info go to: www.roscommonartscentre.ie www.leitrimsculpturecentre.ie

ROSCOMMON VISUAL ART PROGRAMME

VAI EQUIPMENT HIRE Visual Artists Ireland members can rent a range of equipment, including HD projectors and SLR cameras, at reduced rates.

Check the VAI website for listings and prices: visualartists.ie