The Visual Artists' News Sheet – March April 2024

Lismore Castle Arts

MarchMay 2024

Exhibitions across 3 locations: St

Each now, is the time, the space

Leonor Antunes, Alexandre da Cunha, Rhea Dillon, Veronica Ryan

Curated by Habda Rashid 23 March27 October 2024

Lismore Castle Aleana Egan Second-hand 23 March19 May 2024

St Carthage Hall

Carolina Aguirre remember member ember 23 March19 May 2024

The Mill

Lismore Castle Lismore Co

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

March – April 2024

On The Cover

Eimear Walshe, ROMANTIC IRELAND, 2023; photo © Faolán Carey, courtesy of the Venice Biennale.

First Pages

6. Roundup. Exhibitions and events from the past two months.

8. News. The latest developments in the arts sector.

Columns

9. Wee Windows. Cornelius Browne considers apertures and vantage points onto the past.

Greetings from the Countryside (Strong Emotions). Laura Fitzgerald presents an excerpt from her new artist’s book.

10. On Capacity. Catherine Hemelryk shares some thoughts on delivering meaningful programmes with limited resources. Surface Tactics. For the first in a series of columns, Lian Bell considers the implications of slow travel.

11. Access Toolkits: A Living Tradition. Iarlaith Ní Fheorais outlines her recently published Access Toolkit for Artworkers. Responding to Sound. Catherine Marshall discusses the work of KCAT Studio artist Diana Chambers.

Exhibition Profile

12. An Ciúnas. Sarah Long interviews Marianne Keating about her latest film and touring exhibition.

14. Rehearsals. Ella de Búrca reviews Yvonne McGuiness’s recent solo exhibition at Butler Gallery.

In Focus: Collectives

15. The Material Body. Mná Rógaire, Artist Collective. A Tapestry of Talents. Everything But The Kitchen Sink.

16. Mutual Care. Kirkos, Experimental Music Ensemble.

17. What Makes A Club? Temporary Pleasure, Rave Architecture Collective.

18. Liberatory Practices. Éireann and I, Collaborative Community Archive.

Not About Horses . The Glue Factory.

Critique

19. Olivia O’Dwyer, Author of My Days, 2023, oil on canvas.

20. Olivia O’Dwyer at Kevin Kavanagh

21. Christine Mackey at glór

22. Laura Buckley at Galway Arts Centre

23. Venus Patel at Crawford Art Gallery

24. Kate Cooper at Project Arts Centre

Organisation Profile

26. Social Permaculture. Joanne Laws interviews Viviana Checchia about her plans and aspirations as Director of Void Arts Centre in Derry.

Festival / Biennale

28. Romantic Ireland. Joanne Laws interviews Eimear Walshe and Sara Greavu about the forthcoming representation of Ireland at the Venice Biennale.

International

30. Memory Ware. Alan Phelan reviews Mike Kelley’s recent retrospective at The Bourse de Commerce Pinault Collection.

Project Profile

32. Freelands. Thomas Pool interviews the artists from the Freelands Artist Programme and The Freelands Studio Fellow.

Member Profile

35. Vanitas: New Old Paintings. Madeleine Shinnick reflects on the convergence of joy and sorrow in her painting practice. Colour Across the Continents . Shabnam Vasisht outlines the evolution of her practice to date.

Last Pages

36. VAI Lifelong Learning. Upcoming VAI helpdesks, cafés, and webinars.

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet:

Editor: Joanne Laws

Production/Design: Thomas Pool

News/Opportunities: Thomas Pool, Mary McGrath

Proofreading: Paul Dunne

Visual Artists Ireland:

CEO/Director: Noel Kelly

Office Manager: Grazyna Rzanek

Advocacy & Advice: Oona Hyland

Advocacy & Advice NI: Brian Kielt

Membership & Projects: Mary McGrath

Services Design & Delivery: Emer Ferran

News Provision: Thomas Pool

Publications: Joanne Laws

Accounts: Grazyna Rzanek

Board of Directors:

Michael Corrigan (Chair), Michael Fitzpatrick, Richard Forrest, Paul Moore, Mary-Ruth Walsh, Cliodhna Ní Anluain (Secretary), Ben Readman, Gaby Smyth, Gina O’Kelly, Maeve Jennings, Deirdre O’Mahony.

Republic of Ireland Office

Visual Artists Ireland

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2 Curved Street

Temple Bar, Dublin 2

T: +353 (0)1 672 9488

E: info@visualartists.ie

W: visualartists.ie

Northern Ireland Office

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Page 17

Wednesday

March-November 2024

Emily Waszak 28th March-13th April

Lee Welch 18th April-4th May

Namaco (Han Hogan & Donal Fullam) 9th-25th May

Karen Conway 6th-22nd June

Siobhán McGibbon 18th July-3rd August

Neva Elliott 12th-28th September

Luke van Gelderen 3rd-19th October

Conan McIvor 24th October-9th November

Elva Mulchrone | Brian Duggan

Dublin

Black Church Print Studio

Black Church Print Studio presented

‘Unlimiting the Edition’ from 12 to 30 January, curated by Ria Czerniak-LeBov, recipient of BCPS Emerging Curator Award 2024. Artists Ailbhe Barrett, Maya Brezing, Niamh Flanagan, Margot Galvin, Des Kenny, and Grace Ryan explored a diverse range of themes and contemporary phenomena, in an equally diverse range of traditional techniques including etching, screenprint, papermaking and carborundum.

blackchurchprint.ie

Kerlin Gallery

Kerlin Gallery presented ‘Them’, an exhibition of new painting, sculpture, and work on paper by Guggi, on display from 19 January to 24 February. Across paintings on canvas and paper, Guggi builds up fields of intense colour layered with the bold, curving outlines of simple vessels and smudgy, broken crosses. In the titular painting Them (2023), two linear forms ascend on the lefthand side of the picture plane – abstract and totem-like motifs that represent the artist’s late parents.

kerlingallery.com

Rua Red

‘A Good Night’s Sleep’ is a bold, colourful, immersive intervention created by artist Morag Myerscough with the community of Rua Red, on display from 1 December 2023 to 3 March 2024. Rua Red commissioned Morag to work with the Irish Refugee Council’s Youth Service, DoubleTake Studio, New Horizon HUB, and the Tallaght Ukrainian community to explore the multifaceted theme of ‘belonging’. Weaving together the diverse journeys and perspectives of all involved, Morag has designed a series of built enclosures that represent a safe, secure, and warm space.

ruared.ie

Douglas Hyde Gallery

The Douglas Hyde presents ‘Medici Lion’, a newly commissioned sculptural work and major solo exhibition by Irish-Parsee sculptor, Siobhán Hapaska, running until 10 March 2024. This is Hapaska’s first major solo presentation in an institution in Ireland. In this exhibition, Hapaska presents the figure of the lion to explore current crises, from the failures of democracy to ongoing conflict and wars, and the ever-present climate crisis. A persistent symbol of power, the lion has associations of justice, strength, courage, and military might.

thedouglashyde.ie

Belfast

RHA Ashford Gallery

John Graham’s exhibition ‘Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past’ runs at The RHA Ashford Gallery until 24 March. In Graham’s words: “A drawing, for me, should be free of artifice, straightforwardly self-revealing. It should also be, somehow, unknowable. I make systems of opposing lines, the horizontal cancelling the vertical and vice-versa. A simple dichotomy. There’s no obvious skill involved. And no metaphors, no deliberate associations. ”

rhagallery.ie

SO Fine Art

‘Crosses, Salt Lamps and Fires for a God

That Might Exist’ is the latest solo exhibition by Niall KJ Cullen. The work is installed in harmony with the decorative architecture of the SO Fine Art gallery space, originally a ballroom dating back to 1744. The salt lamps and alterations to the Georgian windows blend the work and the environment with a wash of warm, comforting light that one might associate with a meditation space, a church, or a relaxing domestic setting. On display 8 February to 5 March.

sofinearteditions.com

ACNI

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland presented a group exhibition from its permanent collection at 2 Royal Avenue in Belfast City Centre, bringing together the practices of Shiro Masuyama, Sally O’Dowd, Nina Oltarzewska, and Sinéad Bhreathnach-Cashell. The exhibition ran from 1 to 28 February and featured a selection of multidisciplinary and socially engaged works from the ACNI Collection, highlighting how the artists have used social intervention, materiality and performance in their practices.

artscouncil-ni.org

Catalyst Arts

‘Pond(er)’ was an exhibition exploring the gallery as a site for shared and intimate experiences, examining how an arts space can encourage communal experience and discourse through tactile and sonic interventions. This installation responded to the noted distance and oftentimes loneliness felt following a period of restricted human contact, and instead works to highlight the importance of togetherness, play and collective memory through soft installation and storytelling. ‘Pond(er)’ ran at Catalyst Arts from 1 February to 1 March.

catalystarts.org.uk

R-Space Gallery ‘Threads of Illusion: Dimensions of Space and Time’, by Dr Shelley James, runs at R-Space Gallery until 12 March. Dr James is a glass artist, an international expert on light and well-being, and Lecturer at the Royal College of Art. She is also a trained electrician. Her interdisciplinary practice creates immersive experiences that engage the public with scientific discoveries and their wider implications in fresh and memorable ways. Her clients include arts organisations, museums, global lighting, technology brands, healthcare and education trusts, universities, architects, and designers. rspacelisburn.com

Atypical Gallery

The group exhibition, ‘I Am?’, runs at Atypical Gallery until 15 March, presenting the work of artists Wendy Kelly, James Stewart, Stephen Gifford, Rene Boyd, Leah Batchelor, Lesley McClune, Kathryn Clarke, and Lisa Forsythe. The exhibition showcases each of the artists’ interpretations of “I am, I wonder, I see, I want, I pretend, I cry, I feel, I worry, I say, I try, I hope, and I dream.” Presented is a diverse range of materials and mediums, from drawing and painting to artworks with 3-dimensional elements.

universityofatypical.org

QSS Gallery

From 8 to 29 February, QSS hosted ‘Emergence VII’, a group show of selected artists from Belfast School of Art Degree Show 2023. A panel of four QSS studio holders (Alacoque Davey, Clare French, Gerry Devlin and Karl Hagan) and an independent curator (Francesca Biondi from Gallery 545) selected the participating artists. Now in its seventh, QSS’s annual ‘Emergence’ exhibition provides a valuable and professional platform for recent graduates at a transitional stage in their career.

queenstreetstudios.net

The MAC

Niamh McCann’s ‘someone decides, hawk or dove’ draws from territory borders, architecture, street names, flags, and ceremonies to convolute history and to allow for elucidated slippages and the emergence of complex, non-linear narratives. The title of the exhibition ‘someone decides, hawk or dove’ is a line from the poem Hairline Crack in Belfast poet Ciaran Carson’s 1989 collection, Belfast Confetti Hairline Crack is also the title of a film central to this exhibition, which comprises three acts with two musical interludes. The exhibition continues until 7 April 2024.

themaclive.com

[L-R]: Nina Oltarzewska, Les Réseaux C’est Super Cool 2021, mixed-media sculpture; image courtesy of the artist and Arts Council Northern Ireland; John Graham, Readymade X 2023, acrylic, acrylic ink, and pencil on paper, 24 x 30cm; image © and courtesy of the artist; Niall KJ Cullen, xxiii - 002 - 6x 5y, 2023, acrylic and lacquer on linen, 50 x 40 cm; image © and courtesy of the artist.

Regional & International

An Gailearaí

‘Cré: Believing Earth’ was a group exhibition which ran from 15 January to 23 February. The exhibition draws attention to human interaction with the Irish boglands, focusing on the folklore, mythology, traditions, and the materiality associated with the bogs of Uíbh Ráthach. For this collaborative project, Karen Hendy brought artists and performers to work together, often outside the comfort zone of their familiar work environments and teams – a process that sparked creative dialogue across disciplines.

angailearai.com

Garter Lane Arts Centre

‘Cloud Control’ by Jo Howard is on display at Garter Lane until 18 May. The title for this show was inspired by a recent conversation about the multiple layers of meaning ascribed to clouds. Old phrases like ‘on cloud nine’ or ‘head in the clouds’ take on new layers of meaning these days. Increasingly, we have our head in ‘the cloud’ by way of our devices. The artist is interested in how Big-Tech has hijacked a word so intrinsic to the human experience and turned it into a data centre.

garterlane.ie

Naas Library and Cultural Centre

Inspired by St Brigid’s Well in Liscannor, County Clare, artists Mary Fahy and Frances Bermingham Berrow presented their exhibition, ‘Turas Bhríde – Well’, at Naas Library and Cultural Centre from 27 January to 10 February. The widely depicted religious statues are weighed down with a mantle of modern objects of remembrance: hair ties, rosaries, bracelets, memorial cards, children’s toys. These ritually deposited objects are emotionally charged, weaving layers of unspoken meaning into the site and topography of the well. kildarecoco.ie

Ards Arts Centre

‘Internal Space’ was a joint exhibition of sculptor Ned Jackson Smyth and painter Helen Bradbury. The artists came together in this exhibition at Ards Art Centre to share some of their work created over the past year, which links their personal thinking and perspective in response to the external physical world. The exhibition presented painting, sculpture, and film that give the viewer an insight into the thinking of both artists and the inspiration drawn from the world around them. On display from 1 to 24 February.

andculture.org.uk

LHQ Gallery

Evgeniya Martirosyan’s solo show ‘3+5’ continues until 22 March at LHQ Gallery in Cork’s County Library building. The exhibition was conceived in response to ongoing events in the artist’s home country, Russia, and presents artworks that look at knowledge manipulation and the re-framing of history. Coexisting and opposing versions of ‘truth’ become more apparent in times of conflict. Themes of censorship and contamination of information are explored by the artist, who uses books and other printed materials in the installation. corkcoco.ie

Nenagh Arts Centre

‘Vision, Frequency, Erosion, and Transformation’ by David Harte and Josh Brown was on display from 25 January to 23 February. The artworks of Harte and Brown share a commonality in that they are related to audio, sound and technology and its potential influence on human experience. However, the starting points and the trajectories of each of the artists is distinct, and the resultant works could be seen as being in opposition. Recognising these interesting contrasts and correlations, the artists decided to show their work together. nenagharts.com

CCA Derry~Londonderry

CCA Derry~Londonderry presents ‘Stones from a Gentle Place’, a solo exhibition by artist Susan Hughes. Susan’s practice combines video, audio, sculpture, and installation to examine the mechanics and significance of storytelling in Irish culture. The exhibition follows the artist’s encounter with bioluminescence while swimming in the sea at night, and her subsequent observation of how humans throughout history have made sense of natural phenomena. The exhibition continues until 28 March.

ccadld.org

Linenhall Arts Centre

‘All the Men (We ever loved) are dead or dying’ by Conor O’Grady was on display from 12 January to 24 February. The exhibition examined the complexity of contemporary masculinity though a series of multidisciplinary works that navigate statistical realities with the risk, danger and vulnerability that is inherent within the contemporary male experience. The artworks weaved a narrative documenting an interplay between strength and vulnerability within the re-presentation of certain male identities.

thelinenhall.com

South Tipperary Arts Centre

‘Threadsuns’ (13 January – 24 February) was a solo exhibition by Sophie Béhal, recipient of the Tipperary Artist Residency Award with STAC, supported by Tipperary Arts Office. The exhibited works came from a period of engagement with new materials in a new place. It searches for a new way of being and uses repetition, ritual, and process. The sun and circles are used as a rhythmic refrain and repeated throughout. The circle, and its transcendental properties associated with infinity and certainty, are questioned.

southtippartscentre.ie

Courthouse Gallery & Studios

Curated by Sara Foust, ‘Beyond Brushstrokes: Between Matter and Memory’ at the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon (26 January – 24 February) heralds an emerging movement of painters in rural County Clare. Featuring the work of Matthew Mitchell, Kaye Maahs, Sara Foust, Trudi Van Der Elsen, Marianne Potterton, Gerry O’Mahony, and Mary Fahy, this exhibition represents a pivotal moment in the evolving landscape of painting, where traditional techniques intersect with innovative expressions.

thecourthousegallery.com

Mermaid Arts Centre

In ‘World Without End’, 1iing heaney’s debut solo exhibition, explored themes of preservation, perpetual life, replication, and authenticity in the digital world. Researching Wicklow’s protected native oak forest at Tomnafinnoge Woods, heaney takes objects from nature and represents them as virtual and reimagined artefacts. Using a blend of digital imaging and scanning methods, she proposes a microcosmic exploration of technological integration in the natural world. On display from 15 December 2023 to 24 February 2024.

mermaidartscentre.ie

Wexford Arts Centre

The group exhibition ‘Edges’ explores ceramics and sound art practice through the work of artists from three nations at the western and eastern fringes of Europe: Ireland, UK and Estonia. The works were developed as part of artist residencies and international exchanges, creating collaborative encounters across the two disciplines. ‘Edges’ explores what it means to work at the edge of something and how we understand the concept of ‘outsider’. The exhibition continues at Wexford Arts Centre until 21 March.

wexfordartscentre.ie

[L-R]: Katharine West, Suspended Matter #1, 2021, clay, 70 x 45 x 45 cm; image courtesy of the artist and Wexford Arts Centre; Conor O’Grady, Sundown Delirium (haply I think of thee) 2020, watercolour, ink, and water gathered where violence occurs; image courtesy of the artist and Linenhall Arts Centre; Susan Hughes, Portaferry Dusk Swim 2024, Perspex, wood, LED light; photograph by Paola Bernardelli, courtesy of the artist and CCA Derry~Londonderry.

THE LATEST FROM THE ARTS SECTOR

TBG+S Studio Awards

Temple Bar Gallery + Studios is pleased to announce the awarded artists from the open call for Three Year Membership Studios and Project Studios.

Three Year Membership Studios have been awarded to Rachel Fallon, Léann Herlihy, Atsushi Kaga, Barbara Knežević, Frank Sweeney, and Luke van Gelderen. Project Studios have been awarded to Ella Bertilsson, Jialin Long, Marie Farrington, and Áine O’Hara.

Three Year Membership Studios at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios offer a long-term tenure to artists who have developed an established, professional practice. Project Studios offer a one-year tenure to artists who are developing exciting emerging practices and demonstrate talent and

Hennessy Craig and Homan Potterton Awards 2024

The Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts is delighted to announce that artist Stephanie Deady has been awarded the Hennessy Craig Award 2024 and artist Fiach McGuinne as the recipient of the Homan Potterton Award 2024. Both awards, the largest awards for painters in Ireland, were announced at a ceremony held at the RHA Gallery, on Thursday 15 February.

The Hennessy Craig/Potterton jury selected five artists, from both the 2022 and 2023 Annual Exhibitions, who were invited to submit two new works, currently showing at the RHA until 31 March.

Since 2018, The Hennessy Craig Award has been awarded on a biennial basis and is open to any painter under the age of 35 exhibiting in the open submission section of the Academy’s Annual Exhibition, who has studied at a recognised art college on the island of Ireland. This year the RHA introduced the Homan Potterton Prize, created through a generous bequest left by the former Director of the National Gallery of Ireland and foremost scholar, Homan Potterton. This award is for a painter under 35 years of age whose style acknowledges the tradition of painting figurative or landscape subjects.

Each artist is invited to exhibit two new works and although considerate of the work submitted, the awards are based on the overall practice of the artist. This exhibition offers an unparalleled opportunity to view and for the discernible collector a chance to purchase, the very best work by some of Ireland’s most exciting young painters working today.

2024 Shortlisted artists: Daniel Coleman, Stephanie Deady, Isobel Mahon, Polly Maher, Fiach McGuinne, Manar Mervat Al Shouha, Tadhg Ó’Cuirrín, Niamh Porter, Ciara Roche, Casey Walshe.

NGI acquires Harry Clarke artwork

One of Irish artist Harry Clarke’s finest and rarest works of stained glass has become part of the national collection at the National Gallery of Ireland. Titania Enchanting Bottom, created over a century ago in 1922, now belongs to the Irish public and will be free for Gallery visitors to view in the new

potential.

The artists were awarded their studios by a selection panel following an open submission application process. The panel included current TBG+S Studio members and established curators based in Ireland and internationally. The selected artists are representative of the exceptionally high-quality and rigorous contemporary art practices in Ireland today. TBG+S provides excellent workspaces for over 30 artists to work in Dublin city centre. The artwork made in the studios is often exhibited in galleries across Ireland and internationally. As well as studio space, TBG+S offers the artists professional development opportunities such as studio visits from international visiting curators and artists.

year. The acquisition was supported by the Patrons of Irish Art of the National Gallery of Ireland, whose membership fees support acquisitions of Irish art.

Born in Dublin on St Patrick’s Day in 1889, Harry Clarke is one of Ireland’s best known and most beloved artists. He achieved significant acclaim in his short lifetime, working across different media including book illustration. His principal career was in the production of stained glass windows, mainly for churches and religious houses across Ireland, as well as in the UK, US and Australia. He also produced a small number of secular works in glass.

Titania Enchanting Bottom is the only glass work by Clarke that is inspired by Shakespeare. It depicts Act IV, Scene I, from Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Featuring characters from the play including Bottom, Puck, Titania, Peaseblossom, Cobweb and Moth, the work is adorned with botanical elements – a detail typical of Clarke’s work. From 1917 to 1922, Clarke made a unique series of miniature panels inspired by literature –including this one – adapting his talent and passion for book illustration to the medium of stained glass. These panels were set into bespoke cabinets, of which several, including this example, were designed by Dublin-born furniture maker James Hicks (1866-1936). Titania Enchanting Bottom is one of just five panels that survive. At the National Gallery of Ireland, it joins The Song of the Mad Prince (1917) which is on display in Room 20 and was acquired by the Gallery in 1987. These panels are significant to the understanding of Harry Clarke as an artist. They are the forerunners to the The Eve of St Agnes (1924) and The Geneva Window (1930).

Dr Caroline Campbell, Director of the National Gallery of Ireland, said: “As we reach the end of a busy but brilliant year at the National Gallery of Ireland, it is wonderful to be able to give the nation this special Christmas present. Our stained glass room and works by Harry Clarke are some of the most popular objects in our collection, so we know that our visitors – from home and afar – will love Titania Enchanting Bottom. I’m delighted that we have been able to add a work of such rarity to the

national collection, and I thank our Patrons of Irish Art for their generous support of this new acquisition.”

Through new acquisitions and conservation, the National Gallery of Ireland develops and preserves the nation’s art collection. With extensive exhibitions, public programmes, community engagement, education and outreach work, the Gallery further commits to its role as a caretaker of creativity and imagination. The Gallery thanks and celebrates the role of its supporters, including the Patrons of Irish Art.

Titania Enchanting Bottom is undergoing Conservation treatment and will go on display to the public for free in Room 20 at the Gallery in the new year.

The Gallery would like to thank the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media for its ongoing support.

Ireland at the 2024 Venice Biennale Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin TD, on Thursday 15 February, launched Ireland’s Representation at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia at the Mansion House. Artist Eimear Walshe, with curator Sara Greavu and Project Arts Centre, has been selected to represent Ireland at the prestigious event. The Department, through Culture Ireland, commissions Ireland’s representation in Venice in partnership with the Arts Council.

The Venice Art Biennale, which will run from 20 April to 24 November 2024, remains the most important global platform for the exhibition of visual arts involving the public, members of civil society, individuals and institutions. It offers a unique opportunity for Irish artists to engage with international audiences

Responding to this year’s theme, ‘Foreigners Everywhere’ – selected by curator of the Biennale, Adriano Pedrosa – the Irish Pavilion will present an exhibition entitled ‘ROMANTIC IRELAND’. It will comprise a multi-channel video installation and an operatic soundtrack housed in an immersive earth-built sculpture. Eimear Walshe’s project explores the complex politics of collective building through the Irish

tradition of meitheal: a group of workers, neighbours, kith and kin who come together to build.

New University of Atypical CEO Edel Murphy has been appointed CEO of Belfast-based University of Atypical, a disabled-led charity that develops and promotes the work of d/Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse artists and enhances access for audiences.

When she was diagnosed as a young child with Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia type 3, an extremely rare condition affecting around four people in Northern Ireland, doctors told her she would not live beyond the age of 12.

Having had 19 major operations and defied all medical expectations, the 45-yearold County Donegal woman is looking forward to her new role in her dream job.

She said: “Today is a humbling day for me. I first came into the University of Atypical as a visitor, a fan, a friend, a volunteer and then an employee. I came because I felt I belonged. I saw then how clearly this organisation empowered people to do great things and make this city and our region a better place for people like and unlike me to be.”

The University of Atypical, funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, supports and campaigns for disabled artists through a number of programmes. With its own Atypical Gallery and the Ledger Studio for Performing Arts, the organisation also runs the annual Bounce Arts Festival and many other programmes.

Rachel Fallon, Jelen Vagyok - Red Apron, 2023, digital performance documentation for ‘Adsum / I Am Present / Jelen Vagyok’, Budapest, 2023; photograph by Gabriella Csoszó, courtesy of the artist and TBG+S.

Plein Air

The Rural

Wee Windows

CORNELIUS BROWNE CONSIDERS APERTURES AND VANTAGE POINTS ONTO THE PAST.

NOT A SPECK of notion did I have, picking up a sun-warmed hardback of poet William Soutar’s deathbed journal, Diaries of a Dying Man (Edinburgh: Canongate Press, 1954), from a stall near the River Clyde, that certain books could become old friends. From a vantage point of 35 years later, I have a gull’s-eye view of myself funnelling coins into the hand of the surly Glaswegian bookseller, who was never pleased to see this waifish pavement artist, pawing Scottish literature.

Stricken by spondylitis while serving in the Atlantic with the Royal Navy in 1917, Soutar was bedridden from age 32 until his death, 13 years later. Only the window fed Soutar’s nature-craving eyes. With foresight and a hammer, once confinement embedded itself, the poet’s father enlarged this aperture in their stone cottage. For the remainder of his life, due to his position in bed, Soutar saw people only in part. The shining exception was Jenny, paid to clean the window every Friday morning. In his diary for 1939, Soutar reveals how he sets aside his writing and reading the moment she appears, as Jenny has come to embody the human form in action. Sometimes, if I’m painting near the house and in need of a breather, I take my old friend Soutar out to hear birdsong and feel the breeze against his pages. We sit for about as long as it took Jenny to sheen the glass.

On our Presbyterian side, a strain of immobility runs through my family, likely owing to multiple sclerosis and depression. The aunt with whom I lived the summer I encountered Soutar, diagnosed with MS in her twenties, was bedfast not long after my Impressionist chalks had washed from the streets of Glasgow. I began painting in the open, as a child, hoping to restore views to my outdoors-loving grandmother, in bed for the last decade of her life. As a family, we often visited the bedsides of pallid relatives. Daniel, my first cousin, once removed, took to his bed in his early twenties and remained there until the spring morning,

just days after his fiftieth birthday, when a coffin was squeezed into his bedroom. He once asked me to paint him a few places nearby that he had loved in his freedom. These landscapes he taped to his wall, calling them “wee windows.”

I only paint standing up, frequently after long walks along lanes and through fields, pushing my legs through sedge and bramble, climbing drystone walls and barbed-wire fences, yanking my feet from sinkholes, facing into wind and rain, and keeping on, season after season. My paintings are made by a human form in action. I pace to stay warm. Kickbox air to boost blood flow. Thoughts circulate as I walk and paint, a companionable traffic. Jim Ede, founder of Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, and friend to artists I revere, among them Alfred Wallis and the Nicholsons (Ben and Winifred), held windows on a par with the greatest works of art. Writing in the Listener magazine around the time Soutar began diary-keeping, Ede considered windows “an advantage in these days of financial depression, for whether it is wet or whether the sun shines, the content of that light, dazzling or subdued, is always beautiful. It is all the time changing, so that just about our window we have one of the most beautiful moving pictures we can have.”

From the windows of their cars, elderly locals remark that they often see me painting near ruins where my ancestors lived. Treading their ground, I’m filled with wonder. A feeling wells in my gut when I try to picture families of ten or more functioning in such two-roomed, one-chimney stone cottages. The windows are few and tiny, some blocked with stones. In brutal winds, I sometimes pitch my easel within these roofless walls. I might be standing where once a sleeper half-heard, half-dreamt the same Atlantic howls. I pick up my brush, and paint through windows, casting light onto the past.

Cornelius Browne is an artist based in County Donegal.

Greetings from the Countryside (Strong Emotions)

LAURA FITZGERALD PRESENTS AN EXCERPT FROM HER NEW ARTIST’S BOOK.

THE PRESSURE IS on for me to conform. There have been some things happening recently. Strange weather, weird vibes. Unsettling neighbourhood relations. An argument over a right-of-way. A tussle with a man and a gate. I’m not sure whether to salute anyone anymore.

A land grab.

The community knows something is afoot. Their hands are busy. They are out in force, cleaning the beach and each other’s kitchens. Scrubbing at grief. Pulling plastic out of dead sheep’s teeth. The sheep have come back in on the tide, washed up on the shore.

Say nothing.

Some people got bored of the beach cleanup, preferring to see what kind of messes are in other people’s homes. I followed the crowd into one of them and I found curses in the presses. I pocket them.

You mind your own business and I’ll mind mine.

Other members of the community are airing out bad relationships from the cupboards and murderous feelings from the bedclothes. I see them hanging these out, up on the clotheslines.

What’s the worst that can happen?

World War 3, famine, sickness, extinction. Slipping fan belts. Mortgages sliding into arrears. Solicitors’ letters, financial acrobatics, money turning somersaults in the bank. Someone stealing our road. Eventually, it might all end in tears, or worse, in court. My legs and arms are covered in bruises. I cannot walk.

A good run is better than a bad stand.

Which of the above did I do? I did both, I ran, and I stood, placing my body in the gap where they were closing over our road with the steel barricades. I had seen this deployed successfully by women in stop-

ping wars and saving trees. My body would stop the gap being filled and save our road.

What are your emotions? asks the CBT app. Certainty. Fear. Sadness. Pride. Foolishness. Despair. Trigger: My friends have… I type. Disappeared out the gate, like missing cattle. I was not able to stop them running past me, neither was I able to stop those men putting up those barricades. I put down the phone and stand out in the road and shout to all my lost friends:

HOW, HOW, HOW, HOW.

This is the same call Dad used to use – for the cattle. They would come running down the mountain to the hill gate when he called them, ready to be moved across the road.

Old friends are best.

How did we move the cows before in the old days? I ask myself this as the cars whizz by and as an articulated lorry overtaking a tour bus nearly takes me out. We used to flag down the cars with long bits of black water pipe, rewarding the drivers with jolly salutes as soon as the last cow’s arse disappeared safely through the gate.

Death trap. (Just saying).

The road was quieter then. Less traffic. From the hill gate, we moved the herd down the road, my Great-Grandfather’s Road. An historical road. The artery from the main road to the mountain. It’s blocked off now by six gates – six barricades. Three at the main road and three up the back behind our house. He put them there with the three men some weeks ago.

Laura Fitzgerald is an artist from rural County Kerry. This column is an excerpt from her artist’s book, published on the occasion of her exhibition, ‘Strange Weather’, curated by Niamh Brown, which continues at Ormston House until 20 April. laurafitzgerald.ie

Cornelius Browne reading William Soutar, 2023; photograph by Paula Corcoran, courtesy of the artist.

Laura Fitzgerald, Left-Hand Finger Salute 2024, pen and Sharpie marker on archival paper; image © and courtesy of the artist.

Art Work On Capacity

CATHERINE HEMELRYK SHARES SOME THOUGHTS ON DELIVERING PROGRAMMES WITH LIMITED RESOURCES.

CAPACITY IS HOW much you can do with a set of resources. These resources include: people, money, materials, space, time, health, technology, environment, focus, and more. At CCA Derry~Londonderry, we aim to work smartly with what we have, to make the best programmes we can. Our resources include: a small but mighty team – one full time, three part-time; a small budget made up of restricted and unrestricted programme and core funding; gallery space / office / equipment; and an open approach to working. A list:

We want to avoid:

• Doing projects that don’t fulfil our mission just for the money.

• Burning out staff.

• Being miserable.

• Exploiting artists or anyone we work with.

• Being sloppy with the projects we make.

Some approaches we take:

• We know how much staffing our current funding covers and so we work in line with this capacity.

• We work our contracted hours and build in staffing and artist fees to project funding. If there is no budget for this, we won’t do a project. We are realistic with our own expectations on what can be achieved within budgets.

• We aim to work flexibly to accommodate the non-CCA work/life of parttime staff, and share managing the galleries.

• We work as a team to build in time for our full-time member of staff to take TOIL (Time Off In Lieu) after intensive periods.

• We are clear with artists and others at the start of projects about budgets, resources and timescales so everyone is on the same page. Whilst we cannot always control timescales set by funders, we can control what we apply for in the first place and find smart ways to work within limitations.

Some thoughts on working contracted hours:

• It is very tempting to work more than our contracted hours.

• If we work more hours than we are paid for, we are contributing to the shadow economy that perpetuates low pay as the real primary resource of a project, hiding the real cost and resources.

• A personal note: I get ill if I overwork. I have a compromised immune system, so have to be careful; however, no one should overwork, immune system shenanigans or not.

• We keep a TOIL log and plan PAL (Paid Annual Leave) in advance, to make sure that the gallery staffing is covered, and workloads managed, so we can enjoy our time off.

• Feeling guilty for taking time off is not

helpful.

• Feeling guilty for all the things we could be doing but aren’t, because there is no capacity, is not helpful.

• Underestimating how much resource something will take is easy to do.

• Not having work emails on personal phones helps with work/life balance.

• If something has a deadline, we flexi. But if that happens all the time, then we have a problem and need to do address why this is and make changes, so that it doesn’t happen continually.

• Some things are easy and fast; some things have to wait, whilst other urgent matters are tended to; and some things are really difficult and can’t be rushed. Feeling guilty for being slow isn’t helpful.

• We don’t always get this right; external factors will throw all sorts of curve balls, but we do our best and continually strive to do better.

Practical steps organisations can take:

• Do learn your organisation’s capacity and don’t over-promise what you can deliver.

• Don’t work more than your contracted hours. If everyone works extra, it contributes to sustained underinvestment in the arts and burnout.

• Do budget for paying artists and freelancers for their time.

• Don’t substitute staff with volunteers. Where you do work with volunteers, factor in training and volunteer management.

• Do keep a TOIL log. If you are continually going over hours, then you need to either: Increase the staffing and secure funding to pay for staff time..

• Don’t forget to budget for staff time for reporting, research, and fundraising.

• Do your best to ensure work stacks allow staff to take TOIL.

• Do respect staff time off.

• Do create open lines of communication and structures so that anyone can ask for help if they are struggling; change can only happen if problems are known.

• Do ask if the project is right for your organisation: Is it in line with your mission? Can it function within your budget / timescale / resources? If no, can you increase any of these? And if still no, this really is not the right project for your organisation.

• Don’t be a perfectionist; life is too short.

• Do keep perspective.

• Above all, whether you are an organisation or an individual, be kind and remember that health is the most important thing.

Catherine Hemelryk is the Director of CCA Derry~Londonderry.

ccadld.org

Art Work

Surface Tactics

FOR THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF COLUMNS, LIAN BELL CONSIDERS THE IMPLICATIONS OF SLOW TRAVEL.

I’M STANDING ON the platform of a German railway station. There are two bags at my feet: a pink day pack, with such valuables as my laptop, passport, wallet, and chargers; and a larger blue backpack, filled mostly with dirty clothes. I realise I should probably have my valuables in the less easy to steal bag. When moving, I wear the blue backpack on my back, and my pink backpack on my front, usually hanging from one shoulder. I feel strong, and I can walk quickly and quietly. I’m happy not to be adding to the din of suitcase wheels pinging off pavements, off cobbles, off tiles: tactactactactactac

I’m travelling with an Interrail ticket as an experiment. I want to research how feasible it is to take fewer flights, while continuing (and expanding) my professional relationship with mainland Europe. As an artist and arts manager based on the island of Ireland, I’ve flown a lot for work over the years. I’m doing this research as an ethical experiment, but not just one to do with the pollution of aviation fuel. This journey is also about the ethics of deliberately going slower in an industry that increasingly values speed and productivity. I want to see what it does to my thinking, practice, experiences, and to my connections with other humans.

One morning, having boarded like a zombie at the crack of dawn, I sit in the nearly empty restaurant carriage drinking strong coffee and eating bread and jam while looking out at the morning sun on the beautiful Czech-German border, with a winding river, and green wooded hills, and a castle on a cliff. It is a perfect Interrail snapshot moment, with all the administration, awkwardness, confusion, sore muscles, perimenopause, dirty clothes, messiness, flatlands, self-doubt, grumpiness, and boredom not in the picture.

I try to find ways of advocating for slowing down and taking more time, particularly to people who work in arts organisations. To resist pressure from funders to forever do more with less. To reimagine ‘value for investment’. Yet here I am, thanks to a grant from one of those funders. To do this research, I’ve been given an Agility Award from the Arts Council. I design two threeweek periods of travel, knitting together some European work, attending festivals and exhibitions, online work from Ireland, and a networking event.

Throughout my travels, I send postcards to the Arts Council to thank them for their support and tell them what I’m up to. I imagine them giving one or two administrators a few moments of respite to remember what all the emails, spreadsheets and meetings are for, and what they mean to the people they are supporting. I have a lot of sympathy for the people working there, and other big arts institutions in Ireland. The systems they have to operate within

are extraordinarily badly designed, patched together with the kind of work practices that often lead to burnout.

I find support for my journeys in other ways too. I’ve asked some organisations employing me over the summer to spend a bit more on my travel, I’ve organised a house swap in Brussels, I’ve asked people I know in various cities to sleep on their sofas, and I’ve tried to add activities to each leg, to get the most out of it all.

When I come across other artists and arts workers who are also travelling long distances overland, I ask them to tell me about their experiences. Pippa Bailey is maintaining a European work life while based in Australia: “This time I travelled 6800km by rail and road to save a tonne of carbon. This is not a gimmick, it’s an ethical stance.” She and I cross paths at the Prague Quadrennial, where we have a beer in the June sun.

Pippa says: “I was deliberately rehearsing a future that I think is needed. I am tired of working in broken systems. I can imagine different ways of managing time and resources and understand how to hold the creative processes needed to allow new systems to flourish. However, the world of work I am in is desperately hanging onto old ways, almost aggressively defending them. Travelling slowly helped me have perspective on this, finding strength to go back in for another round of discussion. It also offers concrete examples of change and has provided more ideas about how to do better.”

I’ve noticed when I talk to people about this, they don’t believe they have the power to slow their work down. I can see they think I’m being naïve. I think many of us have more power than we give ourselves credit for. The more of us that can demonstrate the value of this way of working, the easier it will be to articulate it to organisations, and the more likely they will support us to do it. Right? And we can also advocate for the people running the organisations to slow down themselves and give their staff time to work at a more humane pace. Doing less, but better. Imagine.

Lian Bell is an artist and arts manager based in Dublin. This column is an extract from Lian’s longer essay, Surface Tactics, first published on her website in October 2023. lianbell.com

Access Work in Focus

Access Toolkits: A Living Tradition

IARLAITH NÍ FHEORAIS OUTLINES HER RECENTLY PUBLISHED ACCESS TOOLKIT FOR ARTWORKERS.

“DEVELOPED BY QUEER and trans activists of color in the [San Francisco] Bay area, Disability Justice is the second wave of the disability rights movement, transforming it from a single issue approach to an intersectional, multisystemic way of looking at the world. Within this framework, disability is defined as an economic, cultural, and/or social exclusion based on a physical, psychological, sensory, or cognitive difference... Disability is structurally reinforced by ableism, a system rooted in the supremacy of non-disabled people and the disenfranchisement of disabled people through the denial of access.”1

Access Toolkit for Artworkers is a free online resource that contains practical information on how to reduce access barriers and combat ableism in the arts. The toolkit is intended for curators, producers, and arts administrators working independently or in arts organisations. This toolkit contains practical information on how to plan, produce, and exhibit accessible art projects, including information on access riders, financial planning, slow production, display, and creating an accessible workplace. This information is intended to address the access barriers faced by d/Deaf, neurodivergent, chronically ill and disabled artists, audiences and artworkers, as well as those who experience ableism. I developed the toolkit with a group of advisers – including Bridget O’Gorman, Hannah Wallis, Kat Hawkins, Jamila Prowse, Jo Verrent, Leah Clements, Linda Rocco, and Maggie Matić – and through my own experience as a disabled curator, to address the distinct lack of information in the sector on how to work with disabled artists and meet the diverse access needs of audiences. It is written through a Disability Justice framework and follows the examples of existing toolkits and resources variously created by artists, writers, producers, and disability activists, such as Carolyn Lazard (cited above), Sins Invalid, Unlimited, Leah Clements, Alice Hattrick, and Lizzy Rose.

Access Toolkit for Artworkers is broken into four key sections: Planning, Production, Workplace, and Audiences & Display. The planning section includes information on access riders, fundraising, managing access budgets, governance, and sharing opportunities accessibly. The Production section outlines how to reduce barriers for artists and teams when making work, with information on hiring support workers, slow production methodologies, and accessible communication. The Workplace section outlines how to create more antiableist workplaces from the perspectives of employees and employers. This includes information on reasonable adjustments, access check-ins, flexible working, special leave, unions, pay, conditions, and manageable workloads, as well as accessible recruitment to reduce barriers for disabled

applicants, from application through to interview. Audience & Display contains robust information on displaying art, hosting events, and reducing barriers for audiences though captioning, audio description, lighting, seating, and sign language interpretation. At the end, Other Resources links to a wealth of information on writing access statements, alt text, and further access suggestions for events.

It took almost three years to bring the toolkit to fruition, finally launching in January 2024. Access was central to how the project was made, particularly in terms of design, with the website working towards web accessibility standards through the rigorous work of web designer, Saerlaith Uaid Ní Dhuibhir, who navigated us through the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3.0. This included a number of essential features such as screen reader compatibility, audio versions, word counts, and colour-blind friendly formats. Saerlaith also undertook essential accessibility testing to ensure the website was screen reader compatible across devices and platforms. Many of the accessibility features I could do myself, including the audio versions, which I recorded using a voice memo app on my phone.

Access also informed how we worked. We worked in a slow manner, taking regular breaks and extending deadlines to accommodate our needs and capacities. I found the project overwhelming at times, and it would have been difficult to manage this much information without the support of Hannah Willis as editor. In the future, I hope to build upon and deepen the knowledge of the toolkit in conversation with a wider set of practitioners to create further access points, most urgently British Sign Language and Irish Sign Language versions.

In the spirit of anti-ableism, Access Toolkit for Artworkers is in many ways a gesture of generosity – from the immense generosity of the advisors, in sharing their experiences and skills, to the ongoing generative generosity of those who engage with the toolkit and incorporate its principles into their practices. Above all, this toolkit was made possible through the generosity of the knowledge that has come before. The access toolkit format has become somewhat of a tradition now, with each new iteration building upon previous ones – a trajectory that I hope continues.

Iarlaith Ní Fheorais is a curator and writer based between Ireland and the UK. Access Toolkit for Artworkers was supported by the Arts Council England. accesstoolkit.art

1 Carolyn Lazard, Accessibility in the Arts: A Promise and A Practice (Recess, 2019).

Responding to Sound

FOR THE SECOND KCAT COLUMN, CATHERINE MARSHALL DISCUSSES THE WORK OF ARTIST DIANA CHAMBERS.

DIANA CHAMBERS IS something of a phenomenon, capable of producing at least one finished painting a day, yet never missing the essential spark that drives her imaginative vision. An artist in the assisted studios at KCAT Arts Centre in Kilkenny, she works from other people’s photographs rather than from direct experience, but what she does with those sourced images is what makes her paintings stand out.

I was privileged to work with KCAT as curator of ‘The Engagement Project’ from 2014 to 2020, which invited each studio artist to work in a creative partnership with artists from other contexts, making work that reflected their mutual exchanges. Diana joined a year into the programme in 2015. Her intense paintings of musical subjects fascinated and attracted fellow artist, Sinéad Keogh. One of their resulting works together was an installation with a painting by Diana, of the singer Bessie Smith, accompanied by a vinyl record for which Sinéad designed a label using a motif from the painting. It was a sincere homage from the artists to the singer, and to each other, as they pursued their very different practices.

Since then, Sinéad Keogh has included Chambers’s work in each of the annual Soul Noir Festivals, while Diana has gone on to produce increasingly lively and exotic images – mainly of musicians but also of animals. Movement attracts her, and is echoed in every stroke she applies to paper or card, even if that is only postcard-sized. Under the spell of her image, she swaps the brush from hand to hand, rather than taking a break from painting. She loves vibrant colours but uses them economically, perhaps only as carefully selected highlights. The energy, resulting from the fusion of active line and often acidic colours, bursts out of the painting with a charge that has

nothing to do with the size of the image. It is as if the spirit of the subject irradiates her imagination and her brush-holding hand.

For the ‘Women and War’ exhibition in the National Opera House during the 2023 Wexford Opera Festival, Diana painted a face that filled the picture plane with an open mouth, singing, wailing, exploring, communicating a sound, the more powerful because it was forever unheard. The rhythms are expressed instead through the extraordinary movement of her white, curly hair. This was accompanied by another of her Jazz musicians, this time a saxophone player whose rhythms so electrify him that his fingers detach from his hands to dance across the keyboard. Elsewhere, a group of musicians, instruments shining out of the darkness and clothes vibrating with the sound, sway in unison in their collective dream.

As one commentator on the Soul Noir website remarked last year: “It can seem as if she is trying to keep up with the pace of her thoughts and feelings as she paints, as though the process of painting is constantly trying to catch up with her. It can also seem that Diana feels there is so much in the world to be explored and painted that there is little time to procrastinate. The result is an ever-evolving body of deeply expressive and beautiful works.” Diana has an innate understanding of movement as an instinctive response to sound, whether that is from an animal at large, or a performer caught up in the magic of the performance.

A member of the KCAT Curator’s Network, Catherine Marshall is an art historian, freelance curator, and member of Na Cailleacha. nacailleacha.weebly.com

Diana Chambers, Piano Man, 2019, acrylic on paper, 42 x 59 cm; photograph by Declan Kennedy, courtesy of the artist and Kilkenny Collective for Arts Talent (KCAT).

Sarah Long: An Ciúnas/The Silence (2023) builds on your body of films exploring Irish histories, particularly the diaspora. The work was recently presented as a three-channel installation at The Showroom in London (13 October 2023 – 13 January 2024) and will soon tour venues throughout Ireland. Can you talk about how this work fits your larger oeuvre and at what point these ideas around presentation began to develop?

An Ciúnas

Marianne Keating: Over the last decade, my practice has focused on tracing the legacy of the Irish diaspora in the Caribbean, examining Irish-Jamaican anti-colonial ties and both countries’ fight for self-determination through a series of film installations. With An Ciúnas/The Silence, I wanted to push my film production, integrating these complex intersecting narratives in one space. By allowing these histories to be complex, these lingering archival impulses give voice to these histories, returning a voice to what had once been rendered mute. I aimed to highlight how these movements and themes are interconnected and that nothing exists as a singular moment.

From the initial concept of An Ciúnas/The Silence, I wanted the screens to also have a role in the narrative, with no one screen holding dominance or hierarchy. The use of 5:1 sound design was also crucial in the space. For example, when the dialogue comes from the left screen, the left speaker becomes the active speaker, drawing the viewers to turn and interact with that screen, making them active rather than passive participants.

The three-channel installation allows me to highlight multiple legacies of colonialism and how, until those systems that are still in place are fully broken down, true decolonisation can never be achieved. As Audre Lorde states, and which is highlighted in the

SARAH LONG INTERVIEWS MARIANNE KEATING ABOUT HER LATEST FILM AND TOURING EXHIBITION.

Marianne Keating, An Ciúnas/The Silence, installation view, 2023, The Showroom, London; photograph by Dan Weill Photography, image courtesy of the artist.

work, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” This work allows the viewer to see how these threads intertwine and overlap.

SL: The work highlights how Empire’s power structures create dualisms that strengthen its position. Could you speak more about this idea, particularly your provocation, “How Free is Independence?”

MK: The work interrogates how far it may be possible to upend the loop of “unfree independence” that left countries tied to or subjugated by systems set up by the British Empire. Here we see how, after Independence in Ireland, the mechanism of oppression remained and passed to the Catholic Church, which, although a different power, was a power nonetheless that continued to control the population through oppression and subjugation. In the context of Jamaica, I examine the resulting impact of the Irish diaspora on contemporary politics. The work traces how men of Irish descent replaced the outgoing colonial body and that, although change was coming, it was to be based on the systems devised by the coloniser rather than a new, radical approach.

The legacy of colonialism can be seen in how borders were utilised in the 20th century in Ireland and Jamaica, as well as each country’s relationship with Britain today. The role of a border becomes interchangeable depending on the dominant countries’ economic needs. For those who emigrate, the reason has not really changed from that of the Famine years, with economic survival being predominant.

The work’s presentation as a continuous loop reflects that even though the viewer is witnessing historical moments of liberation, migration, and the fight for self-determination and independence, the topics, tensions, and troubles have remained the same throughout history in many ways – highlighting the seemingly endless loop of unfree ‘independence’.

SL: The work’s bilingual title, An Ciúnas/The Silence, is also striking because of its implied dualism: English and Gaeilge; Ireland and the diaspora; the archive and what is lost, censored, or otherwise hidden.

MK: The title of the exhibition can be read in many ways that examine the pervasive power of Empire and the intersecting erasures within Irish diasporic histories. ‘The Great Silence’ stemmed from the Famine, which reduced the passing down of lore between lost generations of Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht regions through death and migration. The silence equally refers to survivors of the Famine, “who would not talk of the past” and “would remain silent as to why and how they had survived.” More recently, ‘the silence’ refers to those who remained in Ireland and chose not to talk about the possibility of the failure of those who migrated. Materially, the silence references the near-total destruction of public records held at the Public Records Office of Ireland at the beginning of the Irish Civil War during the bombardment of the Four Courts in Dublin.

SL: The work is strikingly insightful, with a firm grounding in research, statistics, and archival sources. Can you describe your approach to working with these materials?

MK: Through my films I move forward and backwards in time, manipulating time, modes, and forms of production, and incorporating many sources and creating new, dense and complex narratives. My montage style allows me to incorporate many modes of production, from textual graphics to archival black and white photographs taken with traditional large format cameras or 35mm film reels, which invites the viewer to explore the historical past. Often, the viewer accepts these images as genuine, unedited, and natural without staging or bias, but this is often not the case.

Through the process, I digitally sample many sources (colour, black and white, still and moving images, as well as sound), recombining this visual and aural data

to share with the audience. In some films, I use this method to disrupt present-day footage filmed with a 4K camera by distressing the footage and reducing it to what Hito Steyerl describes as a ‘poor image’ – a substandard copy that is deficient and inferior to its higher quality original. It may no longer be the hierarchical premium quality original, but it is still an image, and in its lower resolution format concedes universal access, decolonial in its approach.

SL: The work has been exhibited in The Showroom in London and will soon tour Ireland. How do you envisage these different contexts and sites will impact the work’s reception?

MK: In one way, that is a tricky question; I left Ireland in September 2011 after the recession pushed me out. The story I am telling is so much a part of all of us, yet by leaving, you are no longer the same; you are different. You see Ireland through an outside lens because you no longer get to see the day-to-day changes, and you are othered by the process. In one way, I tell these histories to inform people of all nationalities who don’t know them. Still, many people in Ireland will speak to aspects of these histories better than I do, as I’m not a historian.

But from what I have found from those of all nationalities who have watched my films, the compassion, empathy and understanding for all countries that have shared similar histories – colonialism, migration, and the struggle for economic survival – unites us all together. Our continued solidarity is our strength. All we have to do is look through our eyes and see the same in others.

Sarah Long is an artist and writer based in Cork. In 2020, she created The Paper – an online forum for discussing and responding to the Cork art scene.

@thepapercork

Marianne Keating is an Irish artist and researcher based in London. The Irish tour of ‘An Ciúnas/ The Silence’ was initiated and organised by SIRIUS, and is curated by SIRIUS Director Miguel Amado, with Rayne Booth as Project Manager. mariannekeating.com

‘Áilleacht Uafásach /A Terrible Beauty’ runs at The Model in Sligo from 16 March to 19 May and includes a larger presentation of the artist’s work. Subsequent tour venues include Galway Arts Centre, Rua Red, Limerick City Gallery of Art, and Wexford Arts Centre. themodel.ie

Marianne Keating, An Ciúnas/The Silence, 2023, film still (detail), 'Irish women protest in New York, while British officers await transportation to Jamaica'; photograph by Central News Photo Service, 1920, University College Dublin Archives, image courtesy of the artist.

Marianne Keating, An Ciúnas/The Silence installation view, 2023, The Showroom, London; photograph by Dan Weill Photography, image courtesy of the artist.

Rehearsals

ELLA DE BÚRCA REVIEWS YVONNE MCGUINESS’S RECENT SOLO EXHIBITION AT BUTLER GALLERY.

UPON ENTERING YVONNE McGuinness’s exhibition at Butler Gallery, I am immediately immersed in a world where the past, present, and future enact various assemblies in a symphony of sight and sound. The exhibition, aptly titled ‘Rehearsals’, is a regional exploration of various themes, ranging from theatrical improvisation and play to political engagement and the fluidity of change in Ireland. These inquiries are encapsulated in two new video works: Priory and Schoolyard, both made in 2023.

The auditory experience is a standout feature, reminiscent of Brian Eno’s ambient compositions. A soundtrack – featuring a blend of organ tones, chirping birds, playing children, distant applause, and a muffled, prophesying orator – transports the viewer to a different realm. The audio is punctured by short mantras, each spoken three times – foreboding phrases that chronicle a lack of control, an imminent flood, and a fall.

Priory is a large-scale immersive video projection that plays with the senses. Overlapping visuals of fabric blowing in the wind create a sense of chaos and beauty. Members of the Equinox Theatre Company (an inclusive ensemble based in KCAT arts centre in Callan) gather in the ruins of Callan Augustinian Priory, setting up a mise-en-scène of chairs and a podium. As we draw nearer, the visuals become more layered, and we see the group perform as audience to a blurry speaker. The echo in the soundtrack is so potent that it obscures the narration. The audience becomes unruly, waving flags bearing images of rocks, and chanting phrases like “The water’s coming in.” The assembled performers break away individually, each enacting their own spirituality, as the power of the orator’s words dissolve.

Schoolyard presents a contrasting, yet complementary vision. Here, a multi-channel installation of different sized screens depicts a moving tableau of children at play. On the largest screen, we see them quickly constructing a ‘scene’, using sticks, ropes, plastic, and tarpaulin. Their creation is reminiscent of medieval scenes, carved into the cornices of cathedrals, with the children posing on tables, chairs, and ladders as saints and prophets. The piece is punctuated by close-ups of individual children on the smaller monitors, chanting

mantras such as “It’s out of control,” and “Careful, it’s going to fall.” Fluorescent colours – a kaleidoscope of vivid greens, pinks, blues, yellows, and oranges – reflect from the screens, creating a mesmerising effect.

While distinct, the two video works share thematic concerns. Both are parable-like, echoing ancient Ireland, while suggesting spiritual approaches to construction and holistic relationships with play. The sense of foreboding in both pieces conjures apocalyptic imagery of biblical floods or other climate related disasters. The older group in Priory resonates with a ghostly, communal aura, poetically alluding to the dwindling power of the church in Ireland. I was surprised by the religious potency of the younger group’s ad hoc creation, the residue of Ireland’s ascetic past still reverberating through new generations in layers and echoes. Both groups reference the structure of ritual.

A significant element in the exhibition is the use of green silk flags, which appear in both videos, while also being physically present in the exhibition, as part of a large-scale fabric assemblage, adding a tactile and grounding element. The flags bear images of rocks in various compositions; some floating singular on the green backgrounds, others assembled into arches, cloisters, and pillars. The vivid green not only roots the exhibition in Irish heritage but also serves as a metaphorical green screen, prompting considerations of Irish culture as something that can be superimposed onto. This feature is particularly poignant when considering the themes of religion and spirituality, exploring ideas of faith as both a grounding force and a framework for personal identity.

‘Rehearsals’ is a reflective journey, situated in the magical crossover between play, improvisation, legacy, and heritage. It encapsulates a sense of wistfulness, as if foregrounding parts of Irish culture that are disappearing, while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of artistic expression, interpretation, and collaboration.

Ella de Búrca is an Irish visual artist and lecturer at SETU Wexford College of Art. elladeburca.com

Above: Yvonne McGuinness, Frontier 2023, fabric assemblage; Below: Yvonne McGuinness, Schoolyard, 2023, multi-channel installation; photographs by Ros Kavanagh, courtesy of the artist and Butler Gallery.

In Focus : Collectives

The Material Body

Mná Rógaire

Interdisciplinary Artist Collective

MNÁ RÓGAIRE IS an emerging collective that fuses the interdisciplinary practices of Northwest-based recent graduates, Samantha O’Reilly, Laura Grisard, and Rebecca Christina Devins. Our name directly translates as ‘Rogue Women’. Our mother tongue, Gaeilge, resides within us as a tangible material; its resurrection is an act of instinctual resistance. The group’s origins are rooted in our experience of completing a BA (Hons.) in Fine Art at the Atlantic Technological University Sligo – a course that was re-imagined prior to our attendance to foster an open approach to student practices. A connection developed organically from there, through our mutual interests and understanding.

The challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic altered our learning processes and continues to influence our practices today. This experience simultaneously drove our independence whilst emphasising the importance of communal support and assistance. We rely on Zoom meetings to maintain communication and momentum within the group, as well as facilitating work.

Throughout our academic experience, collaboration was always prevalent. Participation in Celina Muldoon’s exhibition and performance, ‘Kurnugia NOW!’ at The Dock (10 September – 12 November 2022), solidified our friendship, and through Celina’s mentorship, we began to recognise the opportunities and potential in our group. Mná Rógaire will contribute to Celina Muldoon’s forthcoming exhibition, which opens at The RHA in March.

Events and workshops with art groups, such as Bbeyond in Belfast, and performance artists including Sinéad O’Donnell and Alastair MacLennan, introduced by our lecturer Hilary Gilligan, contributed to our self-determination and collective mindset. The artists we met were supportive and encouraging, which significantly impacted our final year in ATU Sligo.

Finishing our degree, we officially became Mná Rógaire and immediately felt the support of other performance artists. Sandra Corrigan Breathnach reached out to us and introduced us to Deej Fabyc

from Live Art Ireland – an artist residency programme in Milford House, North Tipperary. Our residency at Live Art Ireland resulted in a short film, Lingering Presence (2023), and the participation of Mná Rógaire in Culture Night in September 2023, as well as a screening during the performance showcase, ‘Alive and Kicking’ in November 2023.

This sense of community and agency helped us to evolve and gain exposure to the art world. Artist empowerment, co-operation, and inclusion are profound aspects of our work ethos. Inspired by DIY attitudes and activities that we observed elsewhere in the contemporary Irish art scene, we decided to establish Mná Rógaire in the Northwest. The region and landscape have been elemental in our growth, both individually and collectively.

In order to truly give meaning to our work, we employ intuitive methodologies, whilst reflecting on our observations within contemporary life, and concurrently highlighting socio-political injustices. We wish to ignite and contribute to emerging critical discourse around ideas of inclusion, diversity, unity, activism, oppression, and anarchism through movement.

The material body is an integral part of our work, engaging with physical objects, materials, and spaces within performance. Embodying spiritual exchanges and responses from the audience informs our process. Our fellowship allows us to be connected in the physical and mental state during live activations. We are currently conceptualising a video with performance-to-camera. Other forthcoming projects include a durational performative drawing installation at The Hyde Bridge Gallery in Sligo (28 May – 29 June) that will that will incorporate sculptural elements to further activate material and spatial concerns.

Mná Rógaire are an interdisciplinary artist collective based in the Northwest of Ireland.

@mna_rogaire

A Tapestry of Talents

Everything But The Kitchen Sink Multidisciplinary Art Collective

OUR IRELAND AND UK-based art collective, Everything But The Kitchen Sink (EBTKS), comprises five artists from diverse backgrounds: Keely McLavin, Ren Coffey, Shannon Eager, Niamh Cody, and Shannon McGovern. We each navigate a spectrum of materials and processes, bringing unique perspectives and skillsets to the collaboration. We thrive on the exchange of ideas, creating a vibrant community where mutual inspiration and learning drive our collective growth.

Through the mediums of text, video, sculpture, installation, AI, sound, and textiles, we each draw from eclectic themes in our individual practices, including identity politics, social justice, and the human condition. The collaborative environment fosters an atmosphere of artistic exploration that continuously pushes the boundaries of what is possible. The collective’s ethos is deeply informed by the DIY spirit of past art movements, mirroring historical formations and practices. This is not just a nod to history but a living principle guiding our collaborative projects. This commitment is evident in our research-based approaches, our historical grounding of contemporary issues, and our experimental use of various processes and materials.

Current EBTKS activities and themes resonate with the contemporary human experience, such as womanhood, queer identity, and social justice. We use our work to challenge societal norms, employing a language of subversion to address issues such as misogyny, queer existence, and the complexities of identity in a heteronormative society. Keely McLavin’s researchbased practice explores notions of womanhood in a patriarchal society. Grounded in historical research, her work uses language to subvert misogynistic ideals. Through a combination of text, video, and other visual responses, McLavin creates an empathetic protest, addressing contemporary issues while highlighting their historical roots.

Ren Coffey’s focus on sound, both as a medium and subject, is evident in their multidimensional practice. Working across sound, sculpture, and installation, Coffey brings experiential knowledge and an

interest in sound and musical composition to their experimental approach. The goal is to make tangible the intangible medium of sound, through interactive sound installations that challenge perceptions of noise. Dublin-based digital artist, Shannon Eager, explores intersections of art and technology. Using digital imagery and video, Eager addresses the ethical concerns arising from the rapidly expanding metaverse. Her work speaks to the implications of the digital realm on contemporary society, reflecting the collective’s commitment to engaging with current issues through innovative artistic practices.

Challenging gender binary norms, Meath-based visual artist, Niamh Cody’s work involves textile and sculptural installations, playing with the juxtaposition of queer struggles with the soft and playful material of wool. Through a narrative association with tapestry and personal lived experiences, Cody interrogates and portrays a unique perspective of the world.

Dublin-based multimedia artist, Shannon Mc Govern, also explores queer identity and the human experience through lensbased media, sculpture, and audio. Loving

The Only Way We Know How (2023) is an installation that combines video projection, typewriter audio, and plaster and latex sculptures, articulating the emotional vulnerability felt within queer kinship.

As a collective, we do not necessarily make coauthored work but rather we support each other creatively. Going forward, we will continue to self-publish zines that showcase our individual and collective activities. We are also planning our first collective exhibition, which will showcase the practices of each member alongside a new collaborative centrepiece. The exhibition will also feature a newly published piece. EBTKS emerges not just as a collective but as a dynamic force, pushing the boundaries of art and engaging with the contemporary world in meaningful ways.

Everything But The Kitchen Sink is a multidisciplinary art collective. everythingbutthekitchensinkx.weebly.com

Shannon Mc Govern, Loving the Only Way We Know How 2023, video still; image courtesy of the artist and EBTKS.

Mná Rógaire, Deasghnáth Aistriú Saoil (Rite of Passage) 2023, digital photograph documenting the performance Lingering Presence, 2023, at Live Art Ireland, Milford House; photograph courtesy of Mná Rógaire.

Mutual Care

Kirkos

Experimental Music Ensemble

KIRKOS FORMED IN 2012 as a student-run contemporary music ensemble in the Royal Irish Academy of Music and has transformed several times over the last decade. Currently, the organisation has two forms, which are distinct but work in tandem: an ensemble comprising six members (five musicians and a theatre maker) who also collaborate occasionally with many other artists; and the DIY venue, UNIT 44, in Stoneybatter. Our niche is probably best described by the slightly dodgy term ‘experimental music’, and our sensibilities emerged from an interest in treating concerts as integrated artistic experiences, drawing on a keen interest in historical art movements such as Fluxus. We refer often to Fluxus, because our work is playful, open, and attempts to remove various barriers of access to art.

The decision to start a DIY music venue came from the realisation that the funding we were obtaining from the Arts Council would have a much greater impact on the artistic community and the general public in Dublin if we poured resources into creating a space, rather than producing performance projects. The space is run with a policy of welcoming everyone – albeit with music projects taking priority whenever the space is heavily booked – because we were excluded from other venues in our early years, both for curatorial reasons and for financial ones, which is obviously a common issue in Ireland. We give the space away free of charge unless there is significant funding behind an event, and we don’t book artists based on personal taste. The venue is run by a small paid administration and production team of five people – myself (Sebastian Adams), Paul Scully, Isabella Utria Mago, Alice Quinn Banville, and Robert Coleman. A number of artists regularly organise events in the space without much intervention from Kirkos (notably Aonghus McEvoy, fanvid film club, and the Frustrated Writers’ Group) as well as a large range of musicians and artists from other disciplines who put on events occasionally, normally with production support from our team.

In recent years, the ensemble has developed a way

of working which is very unusual in contemporary or classical music. Rather than working with a top-down hierarchy of composer, artistic director, and performers, we have started making music more like a band. Members bring ideas, briefs or frameworks to the group and we spend a lot of time working together to devise pieces collectively, while aiming for equal artistic input from all members. We followed the example of composer collectives such as Bastard Assignments in the UK, although it was just a short step from performing Fluxus text pieces, whereby the act of deciding how to perform a piece often requires at least as much creative agency and input as the original act of composition itself.

Most of our members have classical music training, and the cultural and economic norms of that industry dictate that performers maintain highly varied and busy freelance careers until (if they’re lucky) they find a full-time orchestral job. In many ways, working with Kirkos goes against that grain, as to create work collectively we need to have the same people each time. This creates many organisational challenges, and there are times when members must turn down more lucrative concerts, in order to honour previous commitments made to the group. Therefore, this kind of work (under current economic conditions) is only possible with a group of people with a shared mission and a great deal of loyalty and commitment (who can also tolerate one another). We all believe that our group dynamic emerged from the content of the music we played –often music about the world and including concepts of mutual care, something which is more radical in classical music than it would be in the visual art world.

Kirkos is a music group from Dublin and the operator of UNIT 44 – a DIY venue in Stoneybatter with a radically open approach to programming. This text was written by Kirkos member, Sebastian Adams, on behalf of the group. kirkosensemble.com

Kirkos, Everything’s Left That’s Worth Defense, 2022, Magazine Fort in Phoenix Park; photograph by Eoin Mulligan, courtesy of Kirkos. Kirkos Ensemble, To Every Action 2023, performance in Douglas Hyde Gallery; photograph by @pddykrnn2, courtesy of Kirkos.

Kirkos Ensemble / Day Magee, Sundays at Noon, 2023, performance filmed in the Hugh Lane Gallery Sculpture Hall on 29 October 2023; image courtesy of Kirkos.

What Makes A Club?

Temporary Pleasure

Rave Architecture Collective

TEMPORARY PLEASURE WAS conceptualised in 2018 as a response to the nightlife crisis in Ireland, where the most restrictive licensing in Europe applies, and more clubs were closing than opening. Inspired by temporary clubs and DIY movements since the 1960s, founder and space-maker, John Leo Gillen, explored ephemerality as a way to dance around the red tape associated with permanent bricks and mortar spaces, and to better meet the needs and energies of cultural moments and local scenes. He imagined a club with no fixed location or time, existing only in a certain place and moment, for a few weeks or just a night, before changing shape and location again.

In 2021, when John was joined by project manager Irini Vazanellis, architect Stan Vrebos, and visual artist Jennifer Mehigan, the collective was formed. We are a rave architecture collective that designs temporary club spaces for temporary pleasure. We began with our flagship workshop, ‘What Makes a Club?’ in Barcelona. The workshop, a week-long design and build intensive, has since had numerous iterations in different cities and we continue to develop the format and structure.

The intention is to explore how space design, intersecting with multiple art forms, has a direct influence on the experience and energy of a club. We do this by gathering a group of 20 or so participants who come from different backgrounds and callings. We believe collective design breeds collective experiences. We blend architects with multimedia artists, DJs, promoters, producers, builders, community leaders, and movers, to create a club from scratch.

We guide the process by breaking down club design into three fundamental areas – Space, Programme, and Ethos – and asking the following questions:

1. Space: What houses the club, where do the dancers go, where do performers go, where do we rest, how does the traffic flow to the bar or the toilets, how do we allow for the different energies of the audience and artists, how does material choice transfer a certain feeling?

2. Programme: What happens in the club, who performs and why, when and how do things take place, and what is the intended flow of energy

throughout the day/night?

3. Ethos: Why are we here, what is the spirit of this club, in what socio-political context does it exist, what do we stand for, what will not be tolerated, what will be encouraged, and how do we communicate all of this online and in the space with limited time?

The culmination of a week’s work of designing and building is a 12-hour celebration where the energy of the workshop participants is shared with a wider public. Communicating the group’s intentions for the enjoyment of the space can be challenging and is where we most lean on visual art. It’s a fun, intense experience, and it’s simply a pleasure to see a huge group of people dancing in a space you have created with your friends. Then, it disappears, dies, changes shape, and waits to be born again.

We think a lot about not only what we have filled the space with, but also what is left behind after it’s gone. There are of course the materials and structure, which our architect Stan selects and designs with a sensitivity to buildability, material cycles and reuse. And there is the energetic footprint we left behind with the workshop, which we optimistically hope has a ripple effect, beginning with the 20 workshop participants, the performers, and the people who enjoyed the club when it was briefly open.

Architecture, visual art, and music intertwine in most of what we do, and when we imagine projects, we rarely exclude any of the three disciplines. We do this in our own projects and when designing for others, and love connecting with multidisciplinary creatives in the different cities we have the pleasure of working in. In 2024, Temporary Pleasure is an architecture, design and production collective operating in Brussels, Berlin, and Barcelona. We are exploring commercial work, club scenography for local scenes, and bringing the club to unexpected places. See you on the dancefloor.

Temporary Pleasure is a rave architecture collective that designs temporary club spaces. temporary-pleasure.com

All images: Temporary Pleasure Dublin, 2022, 35mm film; photographs by Karl Magee, courtesy of Temporary Pleasure.

Liberatory Practices

Éireann and I

Collaborative Community Archive

ÉIREANN AND I is an online platform and a migrant memory project that contextualises the experiences of Black migrants in Ireland. The project began as a digital archive but is now changing. Digital archives present their challenges and opportunities, and we are not experts. Instead, we utilise archival methods and frameworks as tools for memory work, to facilitate autonomy and agency – two things that are important for marginalised communities.

The project foregrounds the often-complicated histories of Black immigrants in Irish society. We seek to create spaces that facilitate memory work in its most reflexive and creative forms. Our projects include workshops, exhibitions, dinners, and events which foster creative conversations between artists and community members around heritage and migration.

In our ‘Fugitive Archives’ workshop, we facilitated a collective exploration of personal archives, linking them to the NIVAL contemporary zine collection. This initiative aimed to uncover hidden narratives and connections, emphasising the power of shared storytelling in building a more comprehensive understanding of our individual and collective histories. We recently curated and edited Dreaming Still – a compelling collection of texts by Black Irish writers, commissioned by the Douglas Hyde Gallery. With each writer carrying a family history of migration, the publishing project encouraged them to employ speculative writing as a tool for critical thinking, storytelling, and speculative imagination. This practice served to challenge established norms, question power structures, and explore alternative possibilities. Additionally, our participation in the Museum of Everyone’s ‘Communal’ programme has led to a series of residencies in various institutions across Ireland. Viewed as guests, we’ve actively engaged with the politics of hospitality, delving into the dynamics between migrants/natives and artists/institutions. As part of this series, our ‘Open Table’ workshops invite attendees to share a meal, read, and explore these complex topics

together, fostering dialogue and communal experience.

As a project, the archive responds to our practice as cultural workers; we aim for it to have research value and a transferable contribution to knowledge. The project is political – meaning that it cannot be done alone – and embraces our interconnectivity. Éireann and I is one of many DIY archival initiatives operating within and outside the contemporary art realm. Thanks to the democratising power of the internet, artists and cultural workers have been able to depart from the traditional archive’s legacy of power, control and authority, acknowledging archives not as places but as mutable sites for transfer. This work sits within the intersection of this and other liberatory practices – particularly those concerned with epistemology (how we handle knowledge) and decolonisation (how we depart from colonial legacies).

Originally, we sought to create a migrantled and migrant-focused heritage project, to fill in the gaps that existed in the programming focus of dominant institutions. In doing this, we have learnt that those gaps have already been filled; communities and individuals have been doing this work in disparate forms from the beginning. Over the last three years, we have discovered a plethora of other Black migrant groups who are working joyously with heritage and memory in a DIY fashion. This affirms to us that the solution was not to bring attention to the work institutions weren’t doing, but to affirm that this work can, and often is, done without permission. We must leave the centre and go to the margins to find the good stuff.

This text was written by Beulah Ezeugo on behalf of Éireann and I – a community archive for Black migrants in Ireland that chronicles stories centred around heritage, activism, and art. Éireann and I is developed by Beulah Ezeugo and Joselle Ntumba. eireannandiarchive.com

Not About Horses

The Glue Factory

Emerging Artist Collective

THE GLUE FACTORY is a collective of seven emerging Irish artists: Husk Ben- nett, Michelle Malone, Tadhg Ó Cuirrín, Gearoid O’Dea, Elinor O’Donovan, Jack Rogers and Aoife Ward. Hailing from all four corners of Ireland and working across a broad range of media – including performance, sculpture, painting, drawing and installation – The Glue Factory is an experiment in, and a testament to, collaboration, communication, and friendship.

The Glue Factory emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, mid-lockdown, when we came together as an Instagram group chat. Responding to our shared need for peer-support, we began to host online group crits, in which we could respond to and learn from each other’s practices. Early attempts at collaboration led to the adoption of The Glue Factory’s mantra: “A camel is a horse designed by a committee” – a quote from Sir Alec Issigonis, designer of the Mini automobile, which reflects the difficulties of group work. The collective’s name is a morbid tongue-incheek reference to the place where dead horses are sent.

Summarising broadly, we work within consistent idiosyncrasy, with a focus on connection, fun and investigation. The Glue Factory’s activities are structured only by weekly online meetings. We take breaks for holidays, periods of significant collective business, and when it feels right. There is no outcome-focused reason nor meaning behind the collective, other than a sense of enjoyment, space and collectivity. So far, we have literally done everything ourselves, when external support was not there to fulfil our needs for connection, community, and criticality. The glue (pun intended) holding this factory together is that we can all be considered as early career artists, so TGF is a kind of peer support group with friendship as our main goal. In other words, we’re like the country music supergroup, The Highwaymen – we’re all good artists who do our own cool things, but when we

come together, we get to do other cool but different things (dibs on being Willie Nelson).

As already mentioned, we come from across Ireland and are separated by geography; as a result, a lot of our work is about the fact that we cannot usually come together physically to make work. When an exhibition opportunity arose last year, it forced us to try and put some shape on what we were doing and how we were doing it. Curated by Simon Fennessy Corcoran, ‘A Camel is a Horse Designed by a Committee’, was presented at The Courthouse Gallery & Studios in Ennistymon (3 February – 1 April 2023). This was a galvanising experience through which we could build trust and become familiar with each other’s technical, curatorial, and creative styles of working.

The Glue Factory is broadly informed by the DIY ethos of artist-run spaces in Ireland and the critical discourse around care, as seen in the work of other collectives, such as Bog Cottage and Array, and in recent exhibitions, including the latest edition of TULCA Festival. Care naturally ties in with friendship but also with ideas of precarity and burnout in the gig economy, all in the context of the Basic Income Pilot Scheme (which some of The Glue Factory members are receiving).

By nature, we are DIY and mostly operate self-sufficiently on an ad-hoc basis outside of institutional boundaries; yet occasionally, we operate within them. In maintaining a collective practice, we find that there is a need for clear communication. This often requires a ‘leader’ or main energy driver; however, this responsibility can flow from person to person. Specific roles usually emerge naturally, based on whoever has the time and energy to push forward and lead at any given time.

This text was coauthored by members of The Glue Factory. @the.glue.factory

Éireann and I and Thais Muniz, Native Memory Tracking 2023, installation view, Nun’s Island Theatre, Galway; photograph by Mary McGraw, courtesy of the artist and Éireann and I.

The Glue Factory, ‘A Camel is a Horse Designed by a Committee’, installation view, The Courthouse Gallery & Studios, Ennistymon, February 2023; image courtesy of The Glue Factory.

Olivia O’Dwyer, Author of My Days, 2023, oil on canvas, 33 x 28 cm (framed); image courtesy of the artist and Kevin Kavanagh.

Critique

Olivia O’Dwyer, ‘HomeBird’

Kevin Kavanagh

11 January – 3 February 2024

POSITIONED ON THE wall facing the entrance, In the Morning (2023) takes my attention, upon entering Olivia O’Dwyer’s exhibition. Holding within it the emotional binary encompassed throughout the presented works, the painting features a robe-clad figure lying prone on a taut white sheet. The scene evokes a poignant return to bed, perhaps after the departure of children, yet her dressing gown ties appear to float, as if poised for freedom.

There are another 13 works in the show, all oil paintings made last year. Guest Room (2023) expands on the empty nest narrative, the title transforming what may initially be perceived as a boy’s bedroom in primary colours. Hidden Mother (2023) sees the maternal presence as unneeded and shrouded like furniture. In Waiting (2023), a head cut off by the dark monolith of a door or curtain anxiously awaits a return. ‘HomeBird’ captures ordinary days that recur, one after another – more particularly the domestically contained, solitary life of the artist.

O’Dwyer’s painterly style is a flat, graphic blend of figurative and abstracted elements; she cites Philip Guston and the Danish painter Tal R as influences. The artist’s quick, competent mark-making also reminds me of her late father’s background not only as an artist but as a signwriter. It is a style that says: “Look at the story I am telling.” Look closer, and there is an intense painterliness; the work of painting is on show, rubbed back to expose the canvas, creating the texture of carpet or, as in Shapeshifter II (2023), clearing space around the figure. Areas of thick impasto are worked up to a shine; visible brushstrokes are crosshatched or applied thickly to create textile patterns, or frequently to denote a figure’s hair. Bed linen is worked repeatedly in the same direction as if to reflect the repetitive labour of their daily making. The artist’s colour palette is limited; dark brown, white, grey, medicine-pink, and a homogenous flesh colour predominate.

The figure is often presented in part or turned away – legs, a proliferation of knees, in simple two-dimensions (my notes state “legs like cheese strings”). Yet, enough of a body to say, here is a person, and enough of a recognisable person to realise that this is the artist herself. Poses are attuned to the material substance of the figure, responding to the desire for movement and positioning in the present moment, often with humour. In Figure Ground and Something Else (2023), the figure is caught in the air as if mid-jump. In ShapeShifter I (2023) and BedHead II (2023), limbs stick out of the bed at angles. ShapeShifter II (2023) features a levitating body, while Triangle of Sadness (2023) shows the figure engaged in a yoga pose.

While it’s reasonable for a painter to study themselves – theirs being the body most available – this focus is more than convenience. It is solitude examined. Solitude, as distinct from loneliness or isolation, is embracing aloneness and focusing on one’s own presence rather than others. A further complexity teased out in this work is that of being a woman – encompassing societal expectations that we should have

the primary responsibility for others – and a heightened ‘ethics of care’ that intertwines our identity and relationships, resulting in blurred boundaries and a more porous sense of self. Solitude for a woman, then, is a challenging proposition: to disengage from external connections and overcome social norms that view our solitude as selfish. Once achieved, shifting beyond the conventionally gendered gaze offers a break from role performance and prompts a shift in self-perception. Through a reclamation of sensual aliveness, she becomes a body for the self.

An absence of human connections in solitude also fosters a deeper intimacy with our surroundings and non-human entities – a material phenomenon that allows objects to be felt as presences when alone.

In ‘HomeBird’, the foregrounding of furniture and textiles is equal to the figure. This is O’Dwyer’s second solo at Kevin Kavanagh, the first being ‘A Mind’s Eye’ (18 October – 13 November 2022), which was an online exhibition, as necessitated by the global pandemic – our mass solitary experience. While ‘HomeBird’ is O’Dwyer’s exploration of what it means to be alone, it speaks beyond the individual to solitude, the body for the self, and the solitary gaze –vital parts of the female experience that are relatively overlooked and underrepresented.

Neva Elliott is a visual artist based in Dublin. nevaelliott.com

Top: Olivia O’Dwyer, Shapeshifter II 2023, oil on canvas, 38 x 48 cm (framed); Bottom: Bed Head II 2023, oil on canvas, 52 x 42 cm (framed); all images courtesy of the artist and Kevin Kavanagh.

Christine Mackey, ‘Acts of Care (in-process)’ Glór, Ennis

2 February – 30 March 2024

CHRISTINE MACKEY’S SOLO exhibition, ‘Acts of Care (in-process)’, is showing in the gallery space at glór until 30 March. The exhibition weaves a transversal narrative that is rooted in ecological and biological dialogues of immediate local concern; it dismantles the stratified order of things, and attends to the ways in which all things operate ‘ecosophically’.1 The presented works reflect Mackey’s committed practice of care in response to complex environmental issues.

With both aesthetic and ecological sensitivity, Mackey fuses drawing, printmaking, and sculptural forms that are adaptable and responsive to environmental and audience interaction. ‘Acts of Care’ first highlights the contrast between the bountiful nutrient-rich seaweeds along the Irish coastline and the expansive non-native Sitka Spruce afforestation dead zones, now covering what was once nature-rich land. A fast-growing, non-native, American evergreen, Sitka Spruce covers 16% of County Clare and accounts for 9% of the 11% of Ireland’s limited forestry land coverage. 2

Sitka needles are acidic and can lower the pH of soil as well as block out light, affecting the growth of other species and impacting the overall biodiversity of the forest floor. Mackey’s three-minute video work, Surface Dressing: Acts of Care (2024), situates the audience within an intertwined ecosystem narrative. Mackey illustrates her active efforts of interspecies stewardship within the non-native forest floor setting. She attentively transplants a trio of native saplings, distributes seaweed at the sapling base, and crafts a barrier from fallen twigs in defence against predators. The video is accompanied by a floor installation, combining a recycled palette box layered with seaweed and sand, a glass specimen jar containing a soil sample, and a photograph of a garden planter.

The installation establishes the biophilic link between human, plant and marine life which is further apparent in Dúlamán (2024), a hybrid, large-scale wall-hanging of interlaced eco-prints on plant-root sized Washi paper. In this delicate patchwork, phenolic compounds present in the seaweed have chemical reactions, producing shadow-like marks on the natural paper. Merged Archival Interventions (2024) repurposes a photography developing tray to display an unframed photograph, flanked by a series of analogue photograms depicting various seaweeds. These photograms are made by arranging the ocean vegetation on a light-sensitive surface and illuminating –a technique that produces ethereal, abstract silhouettes.

Duse; Dillisk (Palmaria palmata) and Kelp; Oarweed, Sea rod (Laminaria digitata) are two archival items from Mackey’s ongoing ‘Alga Marina Visual Archive’. These wall-hung circular works were produced using chromatography, which differentiates and highlights the unique colours of the seaweed. Mackey’s multi-method approach is most successful in these works, which have a detailed and patterned colour spectrum of browns and greys that capture seaweed’s intricate chemistry. The central patterning of these works are reminiscent

of the gilled structures beneath mushroom caps, a similarity that underscores the shared eukaryotic complexity of seaweeds and fungi, along with their capacity for asexual reproduction via fragmentation. Home-extraction mobile unit (2024) is a floor-based installation composed of a repurposed iron plate, topped with a metal grid shelf. A glass jar, enveloped in muslin cloth, holds oil extracted from the brown seaweed, Chorda filum – better known as Sea Lace or Dead Man’s Rope.

The exhibition subtly addresses themes of extractivism and ecocide, particularly through the installation Oceanic Debris (ongoing) (2024). Discarded rope forms a structure that is adorned with hanging seaweed. Three circular bioplastic agar forms, positioned on the gallery floor, have contracted – cracking and changing in response to the controlled climate of the human-centric gallery space. The 13 works presented in ‘Acts of Care (In Process)’ individually and collectively speak of industrial exploitation and ecological preservation with melancholic beauty. Mackey’s signature iterative artistic practice offers the viewer a delicate resonance of affective relations in response to the urgencies of ethical interspecies care. The artist will present a lumen printing workshop and a gallery tour on 16 March at glór.

Gianna Tasha Tomasso is an artist, writer, and Assistant Lecturer in Limerick School of Art and Design.

1 The term Ecosophy was coined by French philosopher, Félix Guattari, to denote an ideology of ecological harmony. See: Patricia MacCormack and Colin Gardner (eds.), Ecosophical Aesthetics: Art, Ethics and Ecology with Guattari (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) p4.

2 Daragh Murphy, ‘Ireland’s Native Woodlands are Quietly Disappearing’, The Irish Times, 19 June 2018.

Both Images: Christine Mackey, ‘Acts of Care (in-process)’, installation view, glór; photographs by Tom Flanagan, courtesy of the artist and glór.

Critique

Laura Buckley, ‘Painting with Light’ Galway Arts Centre

10 February – 30 March 2024

DURING HER TOO short lifetime, Laura Buckley developed a distinctive body of work that quickly gained international recognition. However, she has remained little-known in her own country, having only had one solo show in Ireland: ‘Waterlilies’ at mother’s tankstation in 2010. ‘Painting with Light’, curated by Eamonn Maxwell, then set itself the dual task of being an homage to the artist – the opening coincided with what would have been her 47th birthday – and bringing her work home, so to speak. The exhibition includes four of Buckley’s sculptural projections and nine framed digital prints.

Upon entering the first-floor gallery, even during the busy opening night, the visitor felt swept in by the visual movement of the projections and the electronic soundscape. The effect is all the more powerful on a quiet day, when one can examine the projection set-ups and take in the layers of sounds composed by Andy Spence, which are at once elegiac and tense. In an interview for Bomb Magazine in 2014, Buckley mentioned the importance of showing the technical apparatus of her artworks to make “technology more personal and handmade.”1 And it is part of her work’s appeal to be both dazzled by the effects and intrigued by the processes.

In each of the three gallery spaces, there is a projection, each with its own set-up. In The Magic Know How, the projector has been fixed sidewise, halfway up the right-hand wall. Neatly framed by the projected image on the back wall are nine triangular prisms set vertically. Their faces are alternately made of plain birch plywood and mirror. The film is perhaps the most abstract presented here; a flickering grid-like arrangement of colour, not unlike a TV screen test pattern at times, is held in a state of tension and simultaneously refracted by the mirrored surfaces as an arrangement of straight, long strips onto the adjacent wall. This tension, combined with the constant electronic drone, provokes in the viewer a suspended sense of self.

The set-up in the front room reuses the angled projection on a structure of alternating plywood and mirrored surfaces, but from the floor and onto the shape of a fan in the middle of a large conic projection area. The images are sometimes abstract and at other times recognisable as the blue tiles of a pool, perhaps an aquarium, undulating with the movement of water. The fan-like form with its three-dimensional rays disrupts the image, while its mirrored surfaces disperse the light and movement across the walls, ceiling, and floor into static, distorted, triangular fragments. Their distortion is a reminder that no matter how straight a ray of light might look, it can always throw a curveball and create the strangest shape.

The title of this piece, Attract/Repel, is an apt characterisation of Buckley’s work. Her home videos that constitute much of the raw footage pull the viewer in, suggesting intimacy, only to then be pushed away by the splicing and scanning processes and the configuration of apparatuses that variously obstruct, refract, distort, fragment, and displace. This is perhaps nowhere more so than with KZN Grounded Hexagon. In the middle room of the gallery, the projector is set on the floor and projects through a rotating Perspex hexagonal prism – a recurring form across Buckley’s wider practice. The film is a montage of images taken in a garden. We see flowerbeds and garden furniture, and little hands playing with a rotating stand. The camera is constantly moving, and the footage is often blurry, but we can figure things out. The rotating hexagon almost creates a blind spot in the middle of the projection; we can see through it, but just about. The reflective Perspex shifts this subtracted image around the room, creating a kaleidoscopic dance of colour and movement like a magic lantern. This sense of magic is all the more poignant when the flitting shadow of the artist filming is captured and refracted throughout the gallery.

The posthumous moment of this important exhibition imbues some pieces with a haunting sense of loss. In the most straightforward of the projections, Shield, scanned images of colour and texture are moved around by a cursor. The fact that we are looking at a filmed computer screen is confirmed by our occasional glimpses of Buckley, who is sitting at a desk beside a video camera on a tripod. This double screen barrier between us and the artist imparts, under the circumstances, a very different emotional response; a sense that the screens could no longer shield her. The exhibition carries such a vivid sense of ongoing creative processes, ceaselessly inventing new ways to work with moving images, that one can’t help wondering what might have come next.

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

1 Rob Sharp, ‘Laura Buckley: Technological distortion, motherhood, and painterly approaches to video’, Bomb Magazine, 19 November 2014 (bombmagazine.org)

All images: Laura Buckley, ‘Painting with Light’, installation view, Galway Arts Centre, February 2024; photographs by Tom Flanagan, courtesy of Galway Arts Centre.

Venus Patel, Eggshells

Crawford Art Gallery

8 December 2023 – 5 March 2024

LOOPED IN CRAWFORD Art Gallery’s projection space, as part of an ongoing screening series entitled ‘The Power of Us’, Venus Patel’s Eggshells is a short film made in response to a transphobic assault in which she was pelted with eggs. The egg is already an object loaded with symbolism. As the artist points out, its psychological and symbolic meanings include the power of reincarnation, birth, nature, and hope, as well as the ability to belittle or humiliate.

As part of her project exploring her experience as a transfemme of colour, navigating a largely heteronormative world, Patel seizes on these multiple facets of the egg to process this traumatic incident instead of simply internalising it. The resulting work, while never losing sight of the underlying seriousness of the assault and its broader implications, is nothing if not joyously defiant. Patel creates a bracingly rough-hewn musical that embraces the colourfully gritty aesthetic of underground cinema and its liberating tradition of seizing, personalising and often subverting archetypes and narrative conventions. Through juxtaposing a series of outlandishly camp, flamboyantly costumed figures, performing against the oppressively grim, mainly public spaces that

they inhabit, she uses humour and absurdity to call out the othering pressure of a still bleakly conformist society.

Eggshells plays out in 12 sections, or ‘acts’, each corresponding to a different character played by Patel. Each of these figures reference Carl Jung’s archetypes and perform with an egg. They are all, according to Patel, “based around my own personal understanding of myself in how I react and perceive the world around me.” As the acts unfold, they trace an emotional trajectory that moves from internalised hurt through anger, liberation, connection, destruction, nothingness, and rebirth. The sections are all captioned with a title card bearing the name of the character portrayed in them, names which are all unambiguously masculine in contrast with the archetypally feminine characters depicted. These include a princess, a dancer, a sex worker, a seductress, a housewife, a bride, a vampire, and a chicken.

The first character, Claude, is an eighteenth-century aristocrat, dreamily drifting around a park. Claude is at once a model of fairy tale innocence and perhaps also a figure symbolising a target for revolution, a condition in need of overthrow. The dream-

er might need awakening. The first post-assault reaction is to rise above the experience and escape it. Tom, a model of moustached positivity, grows the egg like a plant that transports her, Jack and the Beanstalk-style, to the clouds. But she crashes back to earth as a 1920s-style street performer, who dances in a busy Grafton Street to general indifference and breaks the egg over her head. From this expression of frustrated invisibility emerges a sex worker who dances in an empty residential street and breaks the egg in a condom. The next character is similar but instead of exuding cool professionalism, she brims over with rage and flings her egg at the iconic gates of the Guinness Brewery. These imposing and austere black barriers are apt targets for her frustration, as they represent both Ireland and different modes of exclusion.

As a gorgeously flamboyant seductress, she is presented with an egg as an offering under The Spire on O’Connell Street; but in the next sequence, her suitor has become a neglectful husband whom she murders. Having liberated herself from this relationship, she transcends to a pastoral dancing nymph and then a bride, who regretfully abandons her betrothed at the church

door, leaving him holding her egg. She is then prey to dark forces that turn her into a vampire who reclaims the egg in the graveyard. Sinking into darkness and chaos, she ultimately re-emerges as a dancing chicken, the egg now a symbol of (re)birth.

As well as Patel’s always engaging performances, the power of Eggshells largely stems from its eloquent, formal roughness. At a time when capturing pristine HD images has become perhaps too easy, the lo-fi visual textures of Eggshells are a lovely reminder of just how poetic and subversive a DIY aesthetic can be in appropriating and othering established conventions and archetypes. When applied with the nuance and sophistication of Eggshells, it feels compellingly personal in a way that a slickly polished aesthetic could not achieve.

Maximilian Le Cain is a filmmaker and critic based in Cork City. maximilianlecain.com

Venus Patel, Eggshells 2022; film still courtesy of the artist and Crawford Art Gallery.

Critique

Kate Cooper, ‘Ground Truth / Fírinne Bhunúsach’

Project Arts Centre

15 December 2023 – 10 February 2024

“God created man in his own image…” –Genesis 1:27

IN MACHINE-LEARNING, A ‘Ground Truth’ is the original image from which an artificially intelligent system trains itself – it is a given reality one seeks to model. On one wall of the Project Arts Centre gallery space, we see projected Untitled (After Sensory Primer), the computer-generated viscera of a human anatomy, beginning with the muscular cycles of a foot taking a step. The sounds of synths, of drones, of a child babbling, resonate across the room. Through a pale glow we see the X-rayed bones, the sinews, the cells, all branching off into their own diagrammatic fractals, and the axes of their mechanical motion. There is a clinical religiosity to their mandala-like arrangement as they glow in pulsing primaries of red, blue, and gold before breaking down into their constituent structures, fading cyclically in and out. A simulation of a body being skinned alive via the computer’s generative gaze, it should register as violent, but is serene.

On the eroticism in harm, Roland Barthes wrote of “the exposure of the flayed… the particular sensibility of the amorous subject, which renders [them] vulnerable, defenceless to the slightest injuries,” – that is, the raw nerve of experience, an open wound like an unblinking eye upon the world. On digital beauty, Byung-Chul Han writes: “the pure inside without any exteriority is the mode in which it appears. It turns even nature into a window of itself… an absolute subjectivity under which the human being encounters only itself” – mitigating the violence of perception, mediating what he otherwise describes as “seeing as injury.”

It is this exposure that characterises the neurodivergent experience, as manifest in ‘over’ or ‘under’ sensitivities – even sensibilities. The accompanying literature reveals Cooper’s interest in ‘stimming’ – the repetitive non-verbal behaviours and sounds that arise in the autistic body, so as to cope or non-verbally communicate. It is in communication, or perceived lack thereof, that neurodivergence is often identified. As an ‘autist’ myself – diagnosed late into my twenties – I speculate on the nature of bodies as individuated, biomechanical languages in their own right. Self-enveloped, if perforated systems of countless chemical and nervous semiotics. The term ‘autism’ derives from the Greek word ‘autos’ meaning ‘self’. Is to be autistic, then, to be acutely oneself?

From a young age, I have considered myself a body that is trying to become human.

The image before me could seem anything but human, in its sheer technical proximity to the human – the most human element is perhaps revealed only in a technical error. I have misjudged in thinking the projection is the sole component of the show, for the gallery’s opposite wall has been blank for 20 minutes. Two technicians enter, before, miraculously, the second piece begins to work again by itself. They laugh, and walk away – I smile, somehow relieved to witness a mistake. We see pink lasers live-animating (described in the literature as ‘performing’) childlike drawings of a

spider, then a snake, then a jellyfish – their otherwise naive forms uncannily disrupted by the realism of their motion.

The animated figures are the untitled result of collaboration with Cooper’s fouryear-old daughter. The rudimentary forms of the child’s first drawings invoke former evolutionary possibilities, whose remnants, to one degree or another, selectively litter the deeper sediments of our DNA. These interactions between past and present are reflected in the show’s makers. In ‘Ground Truth’, beyond the conceptual exploration of contemporary technologies, we are seeing a dialogue of times – as embodied in two generations of Cooper – encoding and generating both one another, and the third space of the gallery, in an emergent, tertiary reproduction. Two ways of speaking a third way into existence.

Standing between the two projections, between Mother and Child, I ask myself: Is not all ‘intelligence’ artificial? Does not all intelligence build upon its input? Do we not construct one another in mutual simulation? Did not the physical universe continue to intervene upon itself, communicate to itself, eventually conceive of itself through consciousness? By this logic, is Artificial Intelligence not the most human thing one could think of? Or are us humans really who we think we are?

Day Magee is a performance-centred multimedia artist based in Dublin.

@daymagee

All Images: Kate Cooper, ‘Ground Truth / Fírinne Bhunúsach’, installation view, Project Arts Centre; photographs by Louis Haugh, courtesy of the artist and Project Arts Centre.

Joanne Laws: Were you familiar with Derry and Ireland before applying for the Director role at Void?

Social Permaculture

Viviana Checchia: I first visited Void and Derry as part of the Independent Curators International (ICI) week-long Curatorial Intensive programme in May 2013. I moved to Derry from London last year, having previously worked in Delfina Foundation in London, HDK-Valand in Gothenburg, and the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. After applying for the Director position in Derry, I undertook residencies in Dublin and Wexford. A number of years ago now, I took courses in English, which is my third language, every summer at the University of Limerick, and have previously collaborated with the MA SPACE at LSAD and Workhouse Union in Callan. So, between these professional and personal connections, I have been engaging with the island of Ireland for quite a while!

JL: How have you been settling in?

VC: Since I was appointed as Director in May 2023, I have been taking time to familiarise myself with and observe the ecosystem of Void, the city, and the island. We have been building a new team, and I’ve tried to reimagine the roles in support of the organisation going forward. Recreating a less hierarchical infrastructure has been part of my objectives, alongside creating a holistic understanding of the institution and programme. The Director’s role is adapted now, with some integrated functions of the former Head of Programmes. Mitch Conlon has recently been appointed as Head of Sustainable Growth, which considers both the financial and conceptual sustainability of the institution and how we connect with the local ecosystem and the climate crisis that affects all of us. Mhairi Sutherland is Curator of Civic Engagement, a

JOANNE LAWS INTERVIEWS VIVIANA CHECCHIA ABOUT HER PLANS AND ASPIRATIONS AS DIRECTOR OF VOID ART CENTRE IN DERRY.

Banu Cennetoğlu, Article 11/1 and Article 11/2 in ‘right?’ programmed by Mary Cremin and curated by Viviana Checchia at Void Art Centre in 2023; photograph by Simon Mills, courtesy of the artist and Void Art Centre.

key role in connecting the institution to the city of Derry. Sinéad Feeney is Coordinator of Dynamics and Production, a role that extends principles of care to stakeholder liaison and the day-to-day running of the gallery. Cecelia Graham is currently our Press and Marketing Officer (maternity cover), and for the first time we have a fulltime paid Front of House and Invigilator, Alex Cregan, thanks to Job Start support. We also have a group of engaged volunteers. During January and February, we undertook coaching sessions and training to define who we are, what we do, why we do it, and for whom. It has been amazing working with all the team!

JL: Can you discuss some of your strategic priorities and aspirations for Void?

VC: When I arrived, I inherited a settled programme from my predecessor, Mary Cremin, so as a result, I had some time to focus on the organisation and its infrastructure for the future. One of my main priorities is to have a strong team culture and to invest in the organisation more than anything else. The programme is part of this but first and foremost, the organisation and its team need to be nurtured. If we are not happy and healthy as a small team, we cannot make good work with external participants. Another immediate priority is to make Void more relevant at the local level, and to integrate more into the daily life of Derry and Northern Ireland. A related aspiration of mine is to become more aligned with the local university, including Ulster University. There is a lot we can share with academia, including knowledge and research that can be mutually relevant to a diversity of audiences, so I’m currently hosting strategic conversations about how this can evolve. But above all, our main goal is to convert Void into the first Social Permaculture institution of Northern Ireland –a living practice based on three main pillars: people care, earth care, and fair share. Void’s organisational structure will be founded on these pillars and will adopt permaculture principles as part of our operational system.

JL: Can you elaborate on the concept of Social Permaculture?

VC: Permaculture is a well-known design approach used extensively in gardening, landscaping, and natural environments.

Sociologists and business leaders have adapted and translated the principles of permaculture to social enterprises, organisations and projects that require the coordination of humans, non-humans, ideas, and infrastructure. Social Permaculture requires a different use of the site and its resources to minimise waste; it also involves the gradual application of small solutions, so as to limit interference with the existing environment; and it requires a different approach to time, so things are done more slowly in the present. These ideas call for a shift in energy away from perpetual delivery modes – the frantic modus operandi of the arts – towards a more considered pace that acknowledges the need for moments of rest. The Void team recently took part in a three-day Social Permaculture workshop, facilitated by Alfred Decker, where we discussed ideas to slowly transform our internal and external communications, and adapt the institution into an organic being, if you will. For example, one of the first changes we have made is to restructure the programme and deliver it seasonally to respond to those rhythms of light and weather, and the active and quiet phases of our audiences.

JL: What do you perceive as the advantages, challenges, and urgencies of working in a city like Derry?

VC: Derry is a very vibrant city; there are lots of things going on, and people are extremely warm. I am surrounded by very interesting and committed colleagues, not just at Void but all around Derry – so that is really special. From my perspective as a foreigner, it is astonishing to see a city of under 100,000 people, with so many cultural venues. Culture is an important part of daily life here, and this is very promising because it means there will be many opportunities for collaboration. Unfortunately, there is a lack of basic infrastructure to support the visual arts ecosystem here in Derry; there are no artist’s studios, and no art school. This means that the demographic of the visual art community that would generally find a city like Derry very appealing may not consider moving here; and even some of the artists and curators who are from here often leave for Belfast or further afield. This is definitely a big challenge, along with the lack of funding – though with recent

changes in government, we are hopeful that this situation will begin to improve. Among the urgencies, there is of course the climate crisis, which is not specific to Derry; but there are specific problems connected to the river and industrial farming that are affecting the region. Another urgency is in the areas of multiple deprivation, where people are living in extreme poverty with issues that need to be acknowledged, and we are keen to engage where we can.

JL: Public engagement seems to be a core element of your curatorial practice. Can you outline your plans to engage with communities in the Derry region and beyond?

VC: Public engagement is my passion and the foundation of my curatorial practice as a whole, which aims to bring art and society together – if this is not possible, then I think we are failing. Devices and strategies tend to emerge from a reciprocal and interdisciplinary approach, since the culture that belongs to other sectors is as valuable as the culture of the visual arts community. Otherwise, the idea of art ‘enlightening’ other people can sound a little bit colonial. It is also important to meet participants mid-way, both physically and conceptually. For me, it is not just about inviting them through the door, but for us to leave the institution, to get out of our premises and connect with the public realm. Encounters can happen in cafés, community halls, gardens, or other venues that perhaps have a different look and atmosphere than a contemporary art centre. Another way to deconstruct the ivory tower of contemporary art is to include everyday creative activities like cooking or gardening that make us connect. This is the focus of our Curator of Civic Engagement.

JL: A core challenge of running any art centre is maintaining relevance and visibility at local, national, and international levels. Do you have a sense of how this might be prioritised and achieved at Void going forward?

VC: The important thing for me is to work

with the site, to depart from the site, and to do it for the site. The artists, the ideas, the concepts we are going to use are equally relevant globally, nationally and locally – so these things do not sit in opposition but are highly connected, because this is the only way we can exist right now. Sometimes we will bring in artists to work with local groups so that research and content can be generated from Derry directly; other times, the content and the production might be developed elsewhere and once the work is presented in Derry, there will be a further expansion of engagement with the site as an organic implementation of the work.

JL: Perhaps you could outline some of Void’s exhibition programme highlights for 2024?

VC: At the moment, we are trying to change the glossary, and refer to ‘projects’ because they are more complex than just exhibitions. The current project at Void is called ‘Composting for the Future’ and the exhibition component opens on 23 March. The galleries will be divided into two parts: one side will reflect on the 20-year history of Void; and the other side will focus on the future of the organisation. For summer, we will host a project from an Ecuadorian artist, Adrián Balseca, whose new research commission will focus on the post-industrial heritage of Northern Ireland. In autumn, we will present a new work by a Greek artist, Mikhail Karikis, who has been working with the LGBTQ+ community in Portugal, which will inform an engagement programme in the Derry context. In winter, we will reflect on a long-term project by Deirdre O’Mahony which relates to a variety of potato particular to Donegal, while bringing some of the research she has conducted elsewhere. So, as you can see, the components of local, national, and international are always there, but vary from project to project.

Viviana Checchia is Director of Void Arts Centre in Derry. derryvoid.com

Dorian Braun, coaching workshop for ‘Composting for the Future’, Void Art Centre, January 2024; image courtesy of the artist and Void Art Centre. Background: Áine Mac Giolla Bhríde, ‘son of’, installation view, Void Art Centre.

Shezad Dawood, Leviathan Cycle, Episode 8: Cris, Sandra, Papa & Yasmine, in ‘Leviathan: We go elsewhere’, curated by Mary Cremin at Void Art Centre in 2023; photograph by Simon Mills, courtesy of the artist and Void Art Centre.

Joanne Laws: Can you briefly discuss the new work you have been developing for the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale this year?

Romantic Ireland

Eimear Walshe: The exhibition is called ‘ROMANTIC IRELAND’ and comprises a sculptural work, which in turn contains a video installation, that is then soundtracked by an opera work. These three elements have a complex temporal relationship with each other, almost as a past, present and future format. The video depicts a chaotic and socially fraught building site, in which seven characters have somehow time travelled from different moments in history to work side by side on an earth build. There are two characters from a late nineteenth-century tenant-farmer class; an early twentieth-century politician or businessman and his housewife; a late twentieth-century barrister and her stay-at-home farmer husband; and me as a twenty-first-century single landlord. A soap operatic drama unfolds in the building site, with moments of conflict, and moments of harmony and collaboration, as they work towards the same goal.

The opera is next in the temporal sequence. Cork-based composer Amanda Feery invited me to write a libretto in response to Éamon de Valera’s speech, The Ireland That We Dreamed Of (or On Language & the Irish Nation), which he delivered as Taoiseach on St Patrick’s Day in 1943. In Venice, we are presenting just one act of this much larger opera. There are many contentious images in de Valera’s speech, but one line describes “a countryside filled with bright and cosy homesteads” and a “reverence, respect and care for the elderly.” The libretto very much responds to these themes through the story of an old man, who is listening to this speech on his deathbed and wakes up to the sound of being evicted. The libretto chronicles the man’s relationship with the building and its symbiotic relationship with the environment. As an optimistic,

JOANNE LAWS INTERVIEWS EIMEAR WALSHE AND SARA GREAVU ABOUT THE FORTHCOMING REPRESENTATION OF IRELAND AT THE 60TH VENICE BIENNALE.

Both images:Eimear Walshe, ROMANTIC IRELAND, 2023, production still; photographs by Faolán Carey, courtesy of the artist and Ireland at Venice.

speculative gesture, building anticipates structures and environments that will be used by people in the future. The libretto connects with post-revolutionary periods in colonised lands, foregrounding notions of betrayal, and the failure of the promise of building.

JL: Perhaps you could outline your research and writing processes for the libretto?

EW: Amanda is a classically accomplished composer but is also deeply experimental as a musician. So, you rarely get a better scenario than that, in terms of scope for writing. One of my first decisions was for most of the libretto to rhyme rather conventionally, which was quite fun as a writing parameter. In addition, Amanda and I were very interested in non-textual ‘mouth sounds’, so there is an emphasis on vowel sounds throughout. An important historical source was Irish folk ballads, which allowed me to access the emotional impact of a story as the characters bear witness to both the quotidian and the tragic. Key songs included Tumbling Through the Hay – which I first heard on Ian Lynch’s podcast, Fire Draw Near, and which chronicles the orgiastic romp of workers at harvest time; The Limerick Rake, which is rowdy and full of inuendo, describing a womaniser who has aspirations to create a homestead with all of his lovers; and the ballad, Dónal Óg, which I find quite devastating, in terms of its rhyming systems and turn of phrase, and its depiction of rejection and betrayal.

Another important influence on the writing was working with Dr Lisa Godson, who advised on the historical accuracy of the scenarios I was describing. I was also inspired by Jonny Dillon’s Blúiríní Béaloidis podcast from The National Folklore Collection at UCD, particularly one about mythology surrounding the house, which describes the burial of horse’s heads and coins, and different building traditions. It helped me to think about this man’s relationship with his house as something far beyond property to consider his intrinsic connection with the building materials – from the fixing of thatch and lime rendering to knowing the person who laid the first stones. This sits in contrast to contemporary alienation from our built environment – the result of outsourcing materials to underpaid workers in the Global South. Nowadays, we are not only disadvantaged by not understanding how our buildings work, but we are also creating terrible conditions elsewhere, through cheaper materials that are deeply inefficient in a wider ecological sense.

JL: How does the sculptural artefact resonate with your ongoing research inquiries relating to housing, habitation, and shelter?

EW: In the system of the work, the sculpture exists as a kind of aftermath. It laments the Sisyphean labour of making a building that will never amount to anything other than a ruin. Even though the sculptural object itself is potentially quite stark, I do find earth building an incredibly exciting and inspiring process. I learned about cob building, among other skills, when I did a course with Harrison Gardner at Common Knowledge – a skills sharing social enterprise for sustainable living located in County Clare, where the ‘ROMANTIC IRELAND’ set-building and filming later took place. There is something empowering about remembering that communities once came together to undertake this incredibly labour-intensive, slow process of building with materials that were cheap, free, or available on site. This is exciting on the level of community because you need to extend your kith and kin to include a wider network of co-builders. It’s fascinating to watch the process, which is very sensory, visceral, and physical, and it’s also mystifying that such simple structures using compressed earth have survived so long. One example is the ancient communal settlement, Tell es-Sultan, located northwest of Jericho in Palestine, which dates from 10,000 BC – a moment in human history when people began to settle and come together to create not only domestic buildings, but much larger collective spaces for gathering. Cob building can be perceived as a local tradition in Ireland, while also being a global tra-

dition that goes back centuries with regional variations. These social, environmental, and historic elements are what led to this material becoming such a central part of the exhibition.

JL: As stated in the press material, your work “speaks of and from a precarious generation” and “emerges from the context of a nation in escalating crisis.” Can you elaborate on this?

EW: The reason I did a building course and learned about cob was because I felt that if I was ever going to own a house, I would probably need to have the skills to build one myself. At the time I was converting a van, so a lot of these skills were applicable. What led me to the cob material was housing precarity, and it opened a portal into the past. When you live in a crisis as acute, illogical, enraging, needlessly violent, and destructive as this one, you end up looking to history for guidance. In researching the history of housing and land activism, I learnt about the demands people were making in the late-nineteenth century, as well as the political promises that were being made and broken.

JL: How are you getting to grips with the vast logistics of Venice – from shipping and install limitations, to language considerations?

Sara Greavu: We are relying heavily on partners and collaborators with knowledge and experience. I guess we are learning how to think about a project at a different scale and trusting these partners to carry elements of the work with their own expertise. We are so lucky to work with such brilliant installation, technical, and communications partners, who are helping us to navigate these waters.

JL: Have some of the previous Ireland at Venice curators, commissioners, and artists reached out to share their experience and advice?

SG: Everyone has been so generous! I would particularly note Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, whose advice and experience have been so essential to us as we jumped into the planning and work. Michael Hill made a public offer to anyone applying to the open call last year that he would be happy to speak to them about the process, and he has continued in this spirit of generosity and care. I think it makes sense to establish a more robust way to hand over knowledge gained in this process, and we will feed back some of our experiences. We’ll also try to be as generous as our predecessors in sharing information with future teams.

JL: In pragmatic terms, has it been challenging to conceptualise such a large-scale international solo exhibition?

EW: I haven’t had time to think about it! I found out in May 2023 and the work had to be finished by December, so there hasn’t been time to have doubts. I had to be extremely decisive from the start and developed the work by expanding my existing research, and choosing where to venture out into new, ambitious terrain. For example, I’ve never worked with such a big film crew or cast before. I’m lucky to have an amazing critical community around me, in the form of my friends who are practicing artists. As Assistant Director, Niamh Moriarty kept the whole project on track, while Aoife Hammond liaised with the performers to make sure they were happy with the conditions; they were performing, filming, directing each other, wearing uncomfortable masks, and not wearing shoes. So, when you’re scaling up the production ambition, you also need to have someone looking after the project and the people involved. Getting to work with all these experts and incredible performers has been a massive career highlight for me.

JL: How has the Irish pavilion (building and site) informed the exhibition you intend to present in the space, especially with regard to access and the circulation of visitors?

SG: We talked a lot from the very beginning about the audience encounter with the work, and the depleted

attention-economy of Venice. People arrive to the Irish pavilion having already seen so much, feeling tired, overwhelmed, or even jaded. I think Eimear has been very smart about imagining this moment and considering how to induce people into the space and hold their attention, by offering different points of connection and engagement with the work.

JL: What are your thoughts on the Venice Biennale –or global biennials more broadly – as platforms for the practices and urgencies of contemporary art?

SG: Yes, this is a huge question that deserves more attention and sustained critical discussion. I have mixed feelings about biennales generally, while at the same time recognising what an incredible opportunity it is to be able to participate in this important international space for the sharing of ideas and practices. Of course, only certain types of work can thrive there. And the snapshot of the practices and urgencies of contemporary art that we see there is so conditioned by economic and political power and privilege. There are so many nations who can’t afford to set up a pavilion and send an artist, or who don’t have the political recognition to do so.

JL: What does this mean for you, to represent Ireland in Venice, at this stage of your career?

EW: I felt very ready to make a work of this scale, and it has been thrilling to have the opportunity to do so. In terms of ambition, what I want to get from this project is to continue developing shows, performances, projects, and collaborations in Ireland. I have an ongoing project called ‘TRADE SCHOOL’ that, if I work fast, will probably take 45 years to complete. It involves making a film work in every county of Ireland. Occasionally getting to work in other countries is equally exciting, inspiring, generative, and important for me.

JL: Can you discuss the Ireland at Venice national tour?

SG: Our plan for the Irish tour builds on Eimear’s established methodology of travelling to and drawing from rural and peripheral locations to make and share the work. We have talked about it in terms of acting within the bardic tradition of carrying stories from one place to another, and they will return to present this project in some of the specific places that inspired the work. Materially, the exhibition is thinking about and through ideas of malleability, so you can expect to see the work taking different forms in different spaces.

The 60th International Art Exhibition runs from 20 April to 24 November 2024 (preview 17-19 April).

labiennale.org

Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council, with Principal Sponsorship from Dublin City Council. irelandatvenice2024.ie

Memory Ware¹

SOMETIMES IT FEELS naive to think there is a difference between public and private funding of art. Sure, collectors and galleries generously lend works, sold and unsold, to museums on behalf of artists. Foundations and estates add to the paperwork once an artist is dead. Cynically, this all helps to augment the provenance and value long-term but also gets the work out of storage and out on view. But in bigger cities than Dublin, it’s also amazing to see billionaires compete over who can spend the most on public spaces. The Arnault/Pinault battle in France, for example, reinvests riches from luxury goods back into building museums. The Bourse de Commerce notionally displays the Pinault Collection but really it functions like any public museum. As does the Fondation Louis Vuitton, which had a large Rothko show (18 October 2023 – 2 April 2024) concurrent with the Mike Kelley retrospective at the Bourse (13 October 2023 – 19 February 2024).

While foregrounding Pinault pieces, ‘Ghost and Spirit’ involved four institutions – it was organised by Tate Modern in collaboration with the Pinault Collection, K21 (Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen) in Düsseldorf, and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm – and loans from many more places. The interpretative set up of labels, podcasts, press material, and QR audio clips are of the highest standard, more extensive than some public museums. Large local commercial galleries function like mini museums now anyway, and many offer private tours and QR codes to help your understanding of the work. Selling happens somewhere else. In contrast, while I was in Paris, the Pompidou was on strike and closed, as employment certainty during its forthcoming renovation closure is unclear. Despite being 200 years older, The Bourse building mocks its younger competitor with an immaculate renovation, which was one third less expensive than the projected €262m it

ALAN PHELAN REVIEWS MIKE KELLEY’S RECENT RETROSPECTIVE AT THE BOURSE DE COMMERCE PINAULT COLLECTION IN PARIS.

Mike Kelley, ‘Ghost and Spirit’, installation view, Bourse de Commerce; image courtesy of the Pinault Collection, © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. All rights reserved. © ADAGP, Paris, 2023.

will cost to fix the 1977 Piano and Rogers masterpiece.

With such abundant information on the exhibition, it would be easy to cut and paste into a review. However, details on the work do matter, especially since it is a retrospective, showing the various turns within Kelley’s practice from an entire career. American pop counterculture that much of the work is rooted in and references kind of needs explaining decades later. There are definitely many LA/Detroit micro-narratives that are good to learn about, forgotten yet generic characters from television, newspaper scandals, as well as the pervasive personal trauma, which so much of the show curatorially overstates and yet never explains. Being an Irish-American working-class Catholic seems to be the tumultuous problem. In an era of victimhood, it’s difficult to parse how he staged much of his. The grubby soft toys implied something nasty, so everyone assumed child abuse; he denied this but ran with it, exploiting the misperception and darkness of others.

Yet the dark cultural underbelly that Kelley explored throughout his career is not so much sanitised by a big touring retrospective but thoroughly explained. The trauma narrative arc is there, and it’s all dark and needy, but not dirty and scruffy. It’s all a bit too clean. I first saw a Kandors installation in Berlin and was annoyed by the high-quality fabrication and clear commercial viability. The Pinault Collection own the full set of 21 cities – coloured resin versions of Superman’s shrunken hometown. Against a history of thrift store toy configurations, felt fabric banners of enlarged flyers, foam core models or deranged performances – these felt wrong. It does not have the DIY aesthetic, no folk technique, no formlessness. Thankfully this was just elsewhere in the show.

The broad selection of works goes back to his MFA work, with a display of various performance objects, showing a trajectory that began early. Television factors stronger than cinema. Daytime soap operas seem almost obscure now, with a TV stage set recreated for Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #1 (A Domestic Scene) (2000), and the incredible 2h46m formation dancing girls from Day Is Done (2006) in the basement cinema. Tropes upon tropes of non-linear narrative. Very alluring, very confusing.

And then there was Double Contour with Side Bars (2000), which belongs to the Pinault Collection, with the iconic Educational Complex (1995) as one part, paired with two other tabletop pieces, making it even more dense. What begins as an array of schools he attended, made from memory, is now buttressed piles of materials (red foam core), books, knick-knacks and a hellscape of grottos with kitsch figurines. The work critiques the sentimentality of childhood and the fad for repressed memories, again biting back at assumptions about his personal life. It is great to see this work collected and its fragile materiality preserved and presented so well. It is also important to note that Kelly gave back while alive, setting up his foundation five years before his suicide in 2007. His legacy supports like minds to make new work, keep institutions open, and make a space for the difficult.

Alan Phelan is an artist based in Dublin. alanphelan.com

1 Memory

Ware is a Folk Art technique originating from Canada which, as described in the exhibition material, was widely used, both physically and metaphorically by Kelley. It involves studding cement with an accumulation of everyday objects, including buttons, pins, chains, seashells, and coins.

Top: Mike Kelley, Perspectaphone 1978, performance at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE); image © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. All rights reserved. Middle: Mike Kelley, Kandors Full Set (detail), 2005-2009, varying dimensions; photograph by Fredrik Nilsen, courtesy of the Pinault Collection, © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. All rights reserved © ADAGP, Paris, 2023; Bottom Left: Mike Kelley, Double Contour With Side Bars (detail), 2000, four tables with various objects; image courtesy of the Pinault Collection, © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. All rights reserved. © ADAGP, Paris, 2023. Bottom Right: Portrait of Mike Kelley with the costume for The Banana Man; photograph © Jim McHugh.

Thomas Pool: How has your participation in PS2’s Freelands Artist Programme helped you grow and evolve your practice in ways that wouldn’t have been possible without it?

Freelands

THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS THE ARTISTS FROM THE FREELANDS ARTIST PROGRAMME AT PS ² AND THE FREELANDS STUDIO FELLOW.

Christopher Steenson: That’s a difficult question to answer. After two years being on the programme, it’s now difficult to imagine an alternative version of reality, where it wasn’t part of my life. I’ve just been trying to keep my head above water, making the work I need to make. I suppose being part of a programme like Freelands can provide a form of credibility to your practice. I’ve been given a lot of opportunities over the past two years in Ireland, the UK and further afield, and I wonder if being part of the Freelands Programme has helped in some way. I think with these types of fellowship programmes, there’s an accumulation of small moments and experiences that shape your development. Usually, it’s the ideas that emerge through studio visits and group crits. The ideas generated from those encounters simmer away subconsciously, slowly opening up new perspectives on things. They’re invaluable and life-changing; however, they’re also elusive in their exact origin, and certainly not enumerable.

Dorothy Hunter: No matter how strong the artist community is, you always feel a bit isolated. With the tight resources in Northern Ireland in particular, it can feel like you’re trying to forge a way with only so many routes through, cut off from the rest of Ireland and Britain. A lot of funding is structured to be short-term and pre-planned, where you have to deliver in a linear way. The Freeland’s Artist Programme countered this; for the first time I was trusted to use funding in a way that most benefitted me as an artist – whether that’s exploring materials, simply covering rent, or trying something out but maybe finding another, better way.

Top Left: Christopher Steenson, Let it run all over me, 2023, four-channel, site-specific sound work with horse skull, theatre lighting, field recordings, voice and resonances, installation view, Lagan Weir Underwater Tunnel, 25 March 2023; photograph by Simon Mills, courtesy of the artist.

Bottom Left: Tara McGinn, Soft Laundry (for a performance) 2023, pinewood rail rod, mahogany wood stain, cast latex, brass rail hooks; photograph by Simon Mills, courtesy of the artist.

Right: Ciarraí MacCormac, A Dance to the Music of Time (After Nicolas Poussin) 2024, paint skin, clear nylon thread, transparent wound dressing, Perspex, installation view, ‘After the Fact’, Ulster Presents, February 2024; photograph by Simon Mills, courtesy of the artist.

For me, it meant being able to waste less time splitting my attention across multiple types of freelance work; being able to spend serious time in the studio and in research; and being able to travel to do so, when otherwise I wouldn’t have had the option. It’s also pretty unique to have such a long-term curatorial relationship in one’s practice that doesn’t have the implicit pressure of the ‘end product’. Things could just develop, and more interesting and inspiring conversations were then possible.

Susan Hughes: Here is just one example of many: in the summer of 2022, we got an email from our curator Ciara Hickey, to say that some of the practice-based PhD students at the University of Ulster had organised crits in PS2 with Sarah Brown and Alice Butler. There were a few places left and they were opening them up to the Freelands artists. I put my name down and suddenly I had a deadline. Before the crit, I started to panic; what on earth was I going to show? I frantically finished off a video experiment I’d been thinking about, but hadn’t had the impetus to actually complete. A few weeks later, Alice Butler contacted me to say that Dublin-based initiative aemi (artists’ and experimental moving image) thought my film would be suitable for their forthcoming touring programme. I was invited to add subtitles and send them a high-resolution file if I was interested in proceeding. I sure was! Thus ensued the most amazing year of touring with my film to cinemas and art venues across Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden with aemi and two other Irish filmmakers, Holly Márie Parnell and Lisa Freeman. The experiences and relationships that emerged from this opportunity have been totally invaluable.

Tara McGinn: Being part of the Freelands Artist Programme provided me with a small stipend with no specified outcomes; so, there was little pressure to produce or achieve external goals of any sort. This gave me a liberty I hadn’t had before, safe in the knowledge that I wouldn’t have my time wholly consumed in chasing freelance gigs and funding opportunities, which negatively impacts time better spent on professional development. The Freelands programme has granted me travel and networking opportunities that I could never have dreamed of accessing before. Crucially, it gave me the chance to grow, to fail, and get back up again on my own terms.

Jacqueline Holt: My acceptance to the Freelands Artist Programme at PS2 coincided with a difficult period in my personal life, when family became more of a priority. In one respect, it could be seen as bad timing; however, in reality, the consistency of support through regular meetings with the PS2 curator, Ciara Hickey, allowed me to maintain and develop my practice during this difficult time. With her practical advice and organisational support, I have been able to experiment with new ways of working through a series of experimental workshops. The discussions around these ideas, with Ciara and the other curators we were introduced to during the programme, as well as my fellow PS2 artists, were invaluable in helping to develop and articulate a methodology of practice. This has also been helpful in successfully presenting my ideas to funders for the development of this new work.

TP: How has the programme been tailored to you as an individual artist?

CS: I’ve used the Freelands Programme as way of reaching out to people for advice or mentorship at moments when I’ve needed perspective with certain projects. It’s provided avenues for conversation and dialogue that might not otherwise be as readily or formally accessible. A way of coming up for air, so to speak. I do wonder whether being on an island like Ireland might isolate artists from wider ‘artworld’ networks. A trip to London or Berlin isn’t as straightforward as it is for our artist peers in Britain or mainland Europe. We’re separated from these ‘cultural centres’ by a body of water. This makes it more difficult for us to travel to

these places, and for international artists and curators to come in. That said, I think one of the most valuable aspects of the programme has been connecting with a group of peers – both locally in the north, and with the other UK artists and institutions. Each year of the programme, there’s been a symposium for all the participating artists and institutions to get together from across the UK. The first of these (for our cohort) took place in Belfast in September 2022 and was hosted by PS2. The second was in November 2023 in Edinburgh and was hosted by Talbot Rice Gallery. Those occasions have been so rewarding for meeting new people and experiencing place through a unique lens, either as a ‘host’ or as a visitor.

DH: I think it became apparent early on that we enjoyed talking about the wider conditions in which we work, how our practices form in that, and how we could expand through conduits like reading groups, group crits, and exhibition visits. We gathered a lot as a group and could learn from and be involved in one another’s work in supportive ways – something usually only possible in art school. I need to step outside my regular working conditions to get some perspective with changes of scenery and short, focused bursts. Residencies in PS2 and Digital Arts Studios and doing some practical courses as part of the programme allowed me to treat my way of working a bit differently.

SH: We have had time and space to deepen our practices, and our curator Ciara Hickey has had two years to get to know us deeply as artists. Her conversations with us are entirely tailored to who we are as individuals navigating our practices. This thorough attention to detail has heightened the value and quality of the support she can give us – when she helps us with applications, when she has conversations with us leading up to exhibitions, and when she pushes us to push ourselves. Anything we’re interested in trying out with the group, we are supported to do, whether that be organising a crit or film screening, reading a text together, or trying an experimental way of working collaboratively.

TMG: The programme isn’t so much tailored but could be described as open-ended. I was part of the final cohort of a five-year programme, which meant that we received a wealth of data and feedback that previous cohorts perhaps had not. We were paired with local curator Ciara Hickey, who selected the successful applicants with a genuine desire to work with each of us. For me, this was a far more personal and warm relationship, which formed the foundations of a lasting professional connection. Many opportunities with curators can be fleeting, temporary, and sometimes cold in the face of achieving set outcomes or deadlines. This

circumstance gave me the chance to understand the role a curator can play in assisting my career choices, as well as my own expectations on my work and myself. This contributed to better working relations with other curators whom I had the opportunity to work with during the programme; I learned when to reach out and when to clearly define my own boundaries. In this sense, the tailoring came through my own initiative – I learned to articulate my own needs, allowing for a more considered approach to navigating institutional demands.

JH: I wouldn’t say it was tailored for me, but more a case of me leaning into what was on offer and finding out what was helpful. For me, the conversations were the most important part of the programme. We were given an allowance for mentoring that allowed me to engage in a series of conversations with other artists and curators that I was curious about. It also allowed me to get practical advice on the use of cameras and prime lenses. I was able to meet up individually with the curators invited by the programme as well as with the curators from the other Freelands Artist Programmes across the UK. For me, the programme was an opportunity to excavate and articulate my practice and spend time working through new processes.

TP: What can you tell us about the work you’ve created so far?

CS: I’ve been making work that deals with our relationship with time and environment, through sound, video, writing and photography in response to specific sites and archives. For example, in March last year, I worked with PS2 curators-in-residence Cecelia Graham and Grace Jackson to create the artwork Let it run all over me (2023), which responded to – and was presented within – an underwater tunnel in Belfast’s Lagan Weir. Another solo exhibition from last year, titled ‘Breath Variations’, responded to the work and concepts of artist John Latham and was presented in his former home and studio at Flat Time House, London. For the recent exhibition at the Freelands Foundation in London (16 – 23 February 2024), I developed a new artwork, titled The long grass (2022-4). The work stems from a research residency I undertook with Ormston House, Limerick, in 2022 that focused on the conservational status of the corncrake in Ireland. The artwork itself is a 35mm slide projection, which uses the corncrake as a vehicle to discuss ideas relating to contested land use, memory and (post)colonial identity. The work comprises a series of anonymised textual material presented alongside photographs I made during visits to corncrake conservation sites around Ireland. There is also a synchronised sound component to the work, which – for the Freelands exhibition – was presented outside the gallery, broadcasting the corncrake’s distinctive call out onto Regent’s Park Road. You might say it’s a freedom call of sorts.

Jacqueline Holt, Belfast Workshop, 2023, video still; image courtesy of the artist.

34 Project Profile

DH: During the programme, I kicked off a project that I’ll probably be returning to for the rest of my life… I’m looking at the politics and knowability of subterranean cave networks and have spent the last two years gathering material, writing, and experiences. I started this off as ‘fully conscious movements, fully different time’ – my solo exhibition at Golden Thread Gallery (25 March – 20 May 2023) – which involved a set of fabric sculptures, drawings and films that look at naming and mapping processes for the underground, working with and thinking about how language relates to things that can’t be readily evoked, which I hope to explore further in new work.

SH: My current solo exhibition, ‘Stones from a Gentle Place’ at CCA Derry~Londonderry (20 January to 28 March), has given me an opportunity to show work from the past couple of years as well as brand new work. The presented works encompass a range of media including sculpture, video, audio installation and archives. The exhibition follows my own encounter with bioluminescence while swimming in the sea at night, and my subsequent observation of how humans throughout history have made sense of natural phenomena, the stories associated with such occurrences, and the physical and cognitive effects on the body. During my participation in the Freelands Artist Programme, I have had the time, money and mentoring to support extensive and very fun research into these connections between folklore and natural phenomena. I have travelled within Ireland and over to the Netherlands, connecting with museum archivists, storytellers, musicians and mariners to gather stories and film footage. Now with successful funding applications, I can continue my research into the next stage, when I will create a significant new film work.

TMG: I have recently become interested in the work of Eileen Gray and the queer spaces she produced as indirect rejection of the modernist architecture of the early twentieth century. In response, I created several new works including a site-specific installation in the PS2 project space in Belfast. I subverted familiar forms with new materials, blurring the line between feminine and masculine qualities, merging their similarities, and making visible what interior design generally seeks to hide in plain sight. For example, the invisible plinth, boxy and painted white, acts as an island blended into the background of the white cube. I playfully undermined this concept and constructed what appears to be a vintage coffee table out of craft materials. Titled A Resting Place (or a coffee table to be exact) (2023), it is art as plinth, plinth as art. The exhibition last June was titled ‘An Intimate Public’, a figure of speech I had read in an essay from Lauren Berlant’s Cruel Optimism (Duke University Press, 2011), which had stuck with me for almost an entire year before the exhibition even came into being.

JH: I work with various media including sculpture, print, photography and film. Over the last couple of years, I have made several films and recently finished making what turned out to be a very labour intensive wall hanging for the final Freeland’s exhibition at the Mimosa Gallery in London. Over the course of the FAP I have been developing a way of working with video that aligns more with the values of my process orientated, fine art practice and that I can scale up. Previously, my film work has used what I have to hand and what I could create by myself. Over the last year, I have attended a workshop on improvisational, performer-camera practices, led by Pete Gomes, and participated in a PHD research Constellations therapy session. I want to feed these experiences into creating larger scale work by collaborating with other artists through an intuitive process of improvisation that frees the agency of those participating. As part of this process, I have started a series of film workshops to test and develop this method of working, and am looking forward to seeing how this process plays out.

TP: As a recent graduate, what has the Freelands Studio Fellowship meant for you and your practice?

Ciarraí MacCormac (Studio Fellow): To be awarded the Freelands Studio Fellowship was incredibly exciting; it meant that I could completely focus on my art without having a side job to maintain my practice. I am fully aware that this kind of opportunity doesn’t happen out of thin air, and I felt that it came at the right time for me personally. It’s such a generous award for artists and it has provided a foothold for me to progress my work. As a graduate of Bath School of Art, I was able to apply for the Fellowship in Belfast School of Art at University of Ulster. It was very exciting to get a sense of what it might have been like to study there, and to work on the famous seventh floor alongside current students.

TP: How has having access to the university library and workshop facilities, as well as your own studio space and mentor, helped you develop the trajectory of your career?

CMC: Accessing the library was what I looked forward to most when I started – I pretty much spent all of my time there. When you leave art college, you definitely take facilities and technical support for granted. Straight away, I made plans to create additional drying trays for my paint skins, meaning that I could make more than one piece at a time. I have really enjoyed sharing my work with students, getting some teaching experience, and discussing how painting can exist in a multitude of ways. My mentor is the artist Susan Connolly – we both are massive paint nerds. Susan was the perfect fit for the mentorship, as she is a well respected painter and arts educator, and of course, we both make paint skins. This specific process involves applying layers of paint to a glass frame, which are then peeled off and attached to walls and ceilings. Once hung, the paint skin oozes, collapses and buckles, as the material creates its own form. Liberated from canvas and frame, this technique dissolves distinctions between painting and sculpture and invites the viewer to move in the space. I feel excited to share this new body of work and hopefully develop my career through the connections I’ve made this past year.

TP: What can you tell us about the solo exhibition you presented at the end of your fellowship?

CMC: My exhibition ‘After the Fact’ ran at Ulster University Art Gallery from 1 February to 1 March. This was my very first solo show and it meant a lot that it happened in Belfast. I exhibited only a fraction of the paintings I have made throughout the fellowship. My focus over the last year has been exploring the longevity of the paintings, and I have invited materials that can support these works and be more self-sufficient. This has allowed me to be more ambitious in scale and create an exhibition in which the bodies of paint control the viewers’ bodies as they navigate the space around the work.

Christopher Steenson is an artist who works across sound, writing, photography and digital media to forge ways of listening to the future.

christophersteenson.com

Dorothy Hunter is a cross-disciplinary artist, writer and researcher, living and working in Belfast.

dorothyhunter.com

Susan Hughes is based between the North and South of Ireland and is a studio holder at Orchid Studios in Belfast.

susanhughesartist.com

Tara McGinn is an interdisciplinary artist from Enniscorthy, currently based in Belfast, where she is a member of Flax Studios.

taramcginn.com

Jacqueline Holt is a visual artist working with moving image, photography and sculpture. jacquelineholt.org

Ciarraí MacCormac is an artist from Antrim who currently lives and works in Belfast.

ciarraimaccormac.com

Left: Susan Hughes, Eyes Like Cats 2022, Perspex, wood, LED ceiling light; photograph by Paola Bernardelli, courtesy of the artist and CCA Derry~Londonderry.

Right: Dorothy Hunter, deep / sleeping troll, 2023, laser-cut drawing on black wool, installation view, ‘fully conscious movements, fully different time’, Golden Thread Gallery, March 2023; image courtesy of the artist and Golden Thread Gallery.

Vanitas: New Old Paintings

MADELEINE SHINNICK REFLECTS ON THE CONVERGENCE OF JOY AND SORROW IN HER PAINTING PRACTICE.

MY RETURN TO art college finally became a reality in 2014. After a lifetime of working in the corporate world of art in the USA and Europe, I wanted time to just paint, and was curious to see where art college would take me. My focus began changing from overly romantic figurative work, with obvious metaphors and notions of finished paintings, to refining and resolving other approaches.

My paintings have developed to reflect themes like the transitory versus the eternal, including some of my earliest childhood dialogues with the landscape, informed by Anne Whiston Spirn’s book, The Language of Landscape (Yale University Press, 2000). I didn’t fully realise then how important these themes would become for future work. Derek Jarman once said that “gardens are haunted by paradise.”

Vanitas paintings of flowers intrigued me as they unfolded their secrets to me. Themes of death and the transience of life are represented in glorious floral bouquets, intoxicating hues, the saviour, eternal life, notions of emptiness and vanity, a life without meaning, without God, all linked to Ecclesiastes. Much has been lost in translation over the centuries.

In October 2014, brimming with excited stories about my new life as a student in art college, we travelled to Cork to celebrate our eldest son Edward’s 24th birthday. I took a photo of him as he was approaching us, the sunlight behind him, tall and lovely as ever, and pride welled up inside me. I can still feel the wool of his jumper and his hair as I hugged him. His last words to me, as he walked away that evening in the warm autumn sunshine, were: “Love you too mom.” His smiling face is etched in my soul. The next time I saw that lovely face, a little over a month later, was in a coffin. His eyes were closed, and I couldn’t hold his hand – they were tucked away under him. He had taken his own life.

That December I returned to college. In the carpark, Siobhán, a lovely darling girl who had been at Edward’s funeral, asked me if I wanted a hug. “Yes please,” I said. I finished preparing my work for assessment that day. Somehow, I just kept studying, and went on to graduate with an Honours Degree, followed by a MA in Creative Practice in 2019.

For years, I was haunted by the horror of the Auschwitz-like smoking towers at St Jerome’s crematorium, my child in there, the theatrical nature of the place, almost surreal, with men in Victorian morning suits and top hats. I remember the pretty china in the tearoom, where we waited for the little white church of the angels to be ready for us. Earlier that week, my friend Lucia Evans sang hymns full of hope and love, as she stood barefoot in St Nicholas Cathedral.

My days became a juxtaposition of ordinary life in art college and the numbing horror of grief. The new normal comprised mornings in the studio with group crits, and afternoons of devastating tasks, like picking up my son’s ashes or washing his clothes for the last time. The care and love at home held us. Driving alone, I screamed all the way to college. I was mindful of concealing this pain from my fellow students, many of whom were just kids themselves at the time.

It has taken me ten years to respond artistically. Plans forming for an exhibition of new work stem from the gathered seeds of everything I experienced during those years. This work contains small nuances, richly painted, and is reminiscent of the Vanitas genre. New ‘old’ paintings, where joy and sorrow meet, like they once met centuries ago, have become my reality.

Madeleine Shinnick is an artist based in County Galway. madeleineshinnickart.com

Colour Across the Continents

SHABNAM VASISHT OUTLINES THE JOURNEY OF HER PRACTICE TO DATE.

COLOUR AND SUSTAINABILITY are important concerns in my art practice. As an Indian-born artist, I see colour as my cultural inheritance, while my creative use of detritus is a reaction to the shocking waste I have encountered in the western world. My use of waste materials in my artworks exudes ideologies of sustainability, environmentalism, and repurposing.

I originally studied History of Indian Art at University of Kanpur, India, and also qualified in Commercial Art (now called Graphic Design). Portraiture being my passion at the time, I worked in pastels, as they allowed greater speed of execution. The Grenadier Regiment of the Indian Army commissioned me to produce portraits of their Victoria Cross awardees for their Officers’ Mess in 1976.

At age 25, I journeyed overland from England to India and back. Over the 100 days of bus travel, I took advantage of stops in deserts and remote villages to do quick sketches of tribesmen and camel herders from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and other countries along the way. My Irish fellow-travellers persuaded me to visit Belfast, where I held a solo show of pastel portraits. I ended up living in Belfast for seven years and studied at Ulster Polytechnic (now University of Ulster) and College of Technology, Belfast. I qualified in garment design, creating PR uniforms for Belfast City Council and an attention-grabbing bikini for Miss Belfast 1982.

I established a dress design business in Dublin in spring of 1984, once producing costumes for the backing singers in RTÉ’s National Song Contest 1986. Later, RTÉ used my pen, ink and watercolour, Indian Madonna (1997) during The Angelus slot. My pastel portraits graced the walls of Jury’s Hotel, Ballsbridge, until its closure, and I design all the promotional material for Irish Mensa.

Writing jostles with art for my attention. I have published six books, the last facilitated by a Heritage Grant from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, I wrote a monthly blog for the Military Heritage of Ireland Trust, entitled ‘Digging up the Raj’, and I regularly contribute short stories to British weekend magazines.

My trade inspired me to progress to mixed-media by creating assemblages from waste fabrics – their colours, textures and irregular shapes suggesting the final outcome. At my first exhibition of textile waste art in Ayesha Castle in Killiney (now called Manderley Castle and owned by the Irish singer, Enya), I was encouraged by the sale of eight artworks on the opening night. Similar solo exhibitions followed. After my show, ‘Illusions’, in the United Arab Emirates in 1998, I demonstrated my art practice in Sharjah Art Museum Department of Culture and Information, Govt of Sharjah UAE, with the local media christening me ‘The Material Girl’.

Soon the manipulation of waste textiles extended to other throwaway materials, combining diverse textures and colours by layering, intertwining or juxtaposing into a composite mixed-media whole. My show ‘Festival!’ in Oscar Wilde House, Dublin, was covered by RTÉ’s Irish-language Programme, Cúrsaí, and images from it were used by British Mensa’s magazine to illustrate its article on religions. In 2015, I was on the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council panel that curated an exhibition of the Irish State Art Collection in association with the Office of Public Works. For a collaborative show in 2018, prose poet Cathy Dillon responded to my art through verse.

My most recent solo exhibition, ‘Fragments’ in Mill Theatre, Dundrum, last year, was reviewed by professional artist Tony Gunning, who noted that the presented works had a “global sensibility” but also contained “autobiographical references” through the use of “tiger-print and spiral patterns, possibly alluding to the artist’s Indian/Irish heritage.” Gunning also noted that the presented works “responded with great imagination to the lockdown, capturing the lightness from the dark with a skill and dexterity of someone who really understands her medium and the use of light and colour.” I am currently preparing for a solo exhibition in Deansgrange Library in April. Meanwhile, my larger portraits hang in a Dublin yoga studio – which is infinitely preferable to hiding them behind my settee!

Shabnam Vasisht is an artist based in Dublin.

Madeleine Shinnick, New Year’s Rose oil on canvas; image © and courtesy of the artist.

Shabnam Vasisht, Vector waste textile; image © and courtesy of the artist.

Lifelong Learning

Spring 2024

In-person Events

DUBLIN

LET’S TALK CREATIVE: NATIONAL ENTERPRISE WEEK IN PARTNERSHIP WITH DUBLIN CITY LEO

Venue: VAI Dublin Office

Date: Monday 4 March

Time: 5pm – 7.30pm

Places: 60

Cost: Free

CAVAN CURATOR IN CONVERSATION

Speaker: Clíodhna Shaffrey

Venue: Cavan Arts Office

Date: Wednesday 6 March

Time: 6.30pm – 8pm

Places: 20

Cost: Free (For Cavan-based Artists); €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General)

LIMERICK ARTIST’S NETWORKING EVENT: LIMERICK, CLARE, TIPPERARY

Venue: Limerick City Gallery of Art

Date: Thursday 14 March

Time: 11am – 1pm

Places: 40

Cost: Free (Limerick, Clare, Tipperarybased Artists); €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General)

CORK CURATOR CLINICS

Curators: Niamh Brown (Ormston House)

Caimin Walsh (Ormston House)

Ann Davoren (West Cork Arts Centre)

Venue: Cork County Council

Date: Wednesday 20 March

Time: 11am – 1pm

Places: 20

Cost: Free (County Cork-based Artists); €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General)

BELFAST WORKSHOP: TAX ADVICE FOR NI ARTISTS

Speaker: Louise Gorman, Balanced Business Solutions

Venue: VAI Belfast Office, 109-113 Royal Avenue

Date: Wednesday 10 April

Time: 11am – 1.30pm

Places: 20

Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General)

Webinars

WRITING ABOUT YOUR PRACTICE

Speaker: Marianne O’Kane Boal

Date: Monday 11 March

Time: 11am – 12.30pm

Places: Unlimited

Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General)

DOCUMENTING YOUR WORK

Speaker: Simon Mills

Date: Tuesday 19 March

Time: 2pm – 3.30pm

Places: Unlimited

Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General)

TAX ADVICE FOR NI ARTISTS

Speaker: Louise Gorman, Balanced

Business Solutions

Date: Wednesday 27 March

Time: 3.00pm - 5.00pm

Places: Unlimited

Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General)

CURATOR IN CONVERSATION

Speaker: Dermot Browne

Date: Wednesday 10 April

Time: 6.30pm – 8pm

Places: Unlimited

Cost: Free (Wicklow-based Artists); €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General)

ARTIST’S TALK: COLIN DAVIDSON

Date: Wednesday 24 April

Time: 3pm – 4.15pm

Places: Unlimited

Cost: Free (Clare, Limerick, Tipperarybased Artists); €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General)

ARTIST’S TALK: MICK O’DEA

Date: Monday 22 April

Time: 3pm- 4.15pm

Places: Unlimited

Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General)

EXHIBITION PLANNING

Speaker: Valeria Ceregini

Date: Wednesday 24 April

Time: 6.30pm – 8pm

Places: Unlimited

Cost: Free (Cork-based Artists); €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General)

VAI Helpdesks (March)

HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT

Date: Wednesday 6 March

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND

Date: Thursday 7 March

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT

Date: Wednesday 13 March

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND

Date: Thursday 14 March

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT

Date: Wednesday 20 March

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND

Date: Thursday 21 March

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT

Date: Tuesday 26 March

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND

Date: Thursday 28 March

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

VAI Helpdesks (April)

HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND

Date: Thursday 4 April

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT

Date: Wednesday 10 April

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND

Date: Thursday 11 April

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND

Date: Tuesday 16 April

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT

Date: Wednesday 17 April

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT

Date: Tuesday 23 April

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND

Date: Thursday 30 April

Time: 2pm – 4.30pm

Places: 5

Cost: Free

Information and Bookings

ROI Information and Bookings

To register a place or to find information on any of our upcoming Professional Development events in the Republic of Ireland, visit: visualartists. ie/professional-development

Fees

NI Information and Bookings

To register a place or to find information on any of our upcoming Professional Development events in Northern Ireland, visit: visualartists. org.uk/booking

VAI members receive preferential discount of 50% on fees for all VAI training and professional development events.

Alternative Ways of Seeing

Curated by Eddie Cahill

An Exhibition of Work by People in Custody

19.03—27.04.24 Rua Red

The Merrion Hotel are delighted to launch the 2024 edition of our biennial contemporary art prize The Merrion Plinth. Open to all forms of contemporary art, we are inviting professional artists to enter this open submission competition. As dedicated supporters of late 19th and early 20th century art, we aim to support living artists by sponsoring this prize honouring outstanding talent. Our aim is to provide a platform for artists to bring their work to new audiences and be seen alongside some of the great Irish artists of the last century. Our collection holds some significant artworks relevant to the history of Irish visual culture and our ambition is to promote the importance of visual art being made today.

€5,000 prize

The selected artwork will be exhibited in a dedicated area in The Merrion Hotel

Open to all professional artists resident in Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK

Open to artists in all visual art forms that adhere to guidelines

Please visit www.merrionhotel.com for further information and to download the application form.

The closing date for entries: 12th April, 2024

Mermaid Arts Centre Main street, Bray, Co. Wicklow, A98N5P1

www.mermaidartscentre.ie

Illustration by Isadora Epstein. Design by Stina Sandstrom

Fingal County Council, Tyrone Guthrie Centre and Age & Opportunity Residency Award 2024

Fingal County Council, in association with the Tyrone Guthrie Centre and Age & Opportunity are offering two, one-month long, residencies at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. These residences aim to celebrate and support older artists at all stages of their careers working in literature and visual arts.

The residencies will offer a professional visual artist and a professional writer the opportunity to research or develop new work.

Online applications open: Tue 7th May

Application deadline: Fri 14th June at 5pm

For further information and to register interest in the award email: arts@ageandopportunity.ie

To be eligible to apply applicants must be aged 50+, have been born, studied, or currently reside in Fingal. Applications are welcomed and encouraged from artists from diverse cultural or minority backgrounds. The residency will take place between July and December 2024 at a date to be agreed with the successful candidates.

Or visit www.fingalarts.ie

www.tryoneguthrie.ie

www.ageandopportunity.ie

Fingal, A Place for Art

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