The Visual Artists' News Sheet – November December 2022

On The Cover

Enda Burke, Deirdre by the Window, 2021, photograph; image courtesy of the artist.

First Pages

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

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

Columns

9. Sea Interludes. Cornelius Browne considers the sea as an omnipresent force in the work of Donegal painters. Reflections on a Radical Plot. Clodagh Emoe chronicles the evolution of a long-running ecological project at IMMA.

10. Chronic Collective. Tara Carroll and Áine O’Hara discuss the art collective and their advocacy for improved accessibility. Oh Infamy. Iarlaith Ni Fheorais discusses a new film.

11. Making Change Happen. The Arts Council’s EDI toolkit. Reflections on Making. Pauline Keena’s residency at BAG.

Regional Focus

12. Civic Contribution. Megs Morley, Director, GAC.

13. Engage Art Studios. Rita McMahon, Managing Director. Evolution of Artist-Run. Lindsay Merlihan, Director, 126.

14. New Directions. Kate Howard, Galway City Council. Full Steam Ahead. Anne Marie Deacy, Visual Artist.

15. Galway: A Suburban Perspective. Hilary Morley, Visual Artist. Rainy Metropolis of Ambition. Enda Burke, Visual Artist.

Ecologies

16. Eco Showboat. Cleary Connolly outline their recent tour of Irish waterways to raise awareness about climate change. Land-made. Padraig Cunningham outlines his contributions to the Eco Showboat Shannon expedition this summer.

17. Mesocosm. Christine Mackey assembles a glossary of key terms pertinent to her Eco Showboat research and project.

Art Publishing

18. The Story of Art Without Men. Varvara Keidan Shavrova reviews a new book, published by Hutchinson Heinemann.

Critique

19. Eleanor McCaughey, Learning to smell the smoke, 2022. 20. ‘Bones in the Attic’ at Hugh Lane Gallery.

21. Eithne Jordan at Highlanes Gallery. 22. Michelle Malone at The LAB.

23. Caoimhe McGuckin at Riverbank Arts Centre. 24. ‘Braid’ at Lord Mayors Pavilion.

Exhibition Profile

26. Unseen. Nick Miller interviews Philip Moss about his painting practice and recent exhibition at the RCC in Letterkenny. 28. To Ashes. Maximilian Le Cain reviews Evgeniya Martirosyan’s recent solo exhibition, ‘To Ashes’, at GOMA Waterford.

29. Kurnugia NOW! Celina Muldoon outlines her recent collaborative research project and current exhibition. 30. A Dormant Light. Aengus Woods reviews Lucy McKenna’s recent solo exhibition at Solstice Arts Centre in County Meath. 32. Staggering Verisimilitude. Jonathan Brennan reviews Ron Mueck’s ongoing solo exhibition at The MAC in Belfast.

Performance Art

34. Live Art Ireland. Deej Fabyc outlines the renovation of Milford House in Tipperary and the founding of Live Art Ireland. 36. Ritualistic Repair. Day Magee reflects on ‘Performance Ecologies’ at Interface in the Inagh Valley, Connemara.

Member Profile

37. Alive and Picking. Kathryn Crowley discusses her practice. Remotely Radical. Emma Campbell reflects on a recent exhibition by VAI members at Vault Studios in Belfast.

38. Augmented Auguries. Brenda Moore-McCann interviews artist and VAI member Claire Halpin.

Last Pages

39. Opportunities. Grants, awards, open calls and commissions.

Editor: Joanne Laws

Production/Design: Thomas Pool News/Opportunities: Thomas Pool Proofreading: Paul Dunne

CEO/Director: Noel Kelly Office Manager: Grazyna Rzanek

Advocacy & Advice: Elke Westen

Membership & Projects: Siobhán Mooney Services Design & Delivery: Alf Desire 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.

The Visual Artists' News Sheet: Visual Artists Ireland: Republic of Ireland Office

Visual Artists Ireland

The Masonry 151, 156 Thomas Street Usher’s Island, Dublin 8 T: +353 (0)1 672 9488

E: info@visualartists.ie W: visualartists.ie

Northern Ireland Office

Visual Artists Ireland 109 Royal Avenue Belfast BT1 1FF T: +44 (0)28 958 70361 E: info@visualartists-ni.org W: visualartists-ni.org

The Most Recent Forever

Brian Fay

Limerick City Gallery of Art: 1.12.2022 – 12.02.2023

Uillinn / West Cork Arts Centre: 18.02.2023 – 25.03.2023

18 November – 28 January

In & of Itself, Abstraction in the age of images Austin Hearne Requiem for Raymo Gallery Press, Cover Versions Mark Joyce & Orla Whelan Ciara Roche, nightcall to 18 Dec

15 Ely Place, Dublin D02 A213 +353 1 661 2558 info@rhagallery.ie www.rhagallery.ie

H I B E R N I A N

Helen G Blake, Second sleep, 2022, Oil on linen, 40 x 50cm, Image courtesy of the artist.

IMAGE: Kevin Mooney, Blighters, 2021 Photograph by Jed Niezgoda

Exhibition Roundup

Dublin

Douglas Hyde Gallery

The Douglas Hyde presented the Irish pre miere of Arthur Jafa’s seminal work Love is the Message, The Message is Death. Jafa pres ents a poignant, visceral, and emotional reflection on African American life, identi ty, and history. Material largely taken from online sources, scenes of trauma, racism, and grief, such as routine police violence against Black people that is endemic to U.S. his tory, is presented alongside images of joy, defiance, and creativity. On display from 8 October to 6 November.

thedouglashyde.ie

Green on Red Green On Red Gallery presented Damien Flood’s exhibition ‘Dig’, in its Spencer Dock gallery, comprising new paintings, ceramics, and a new limited edition vinyl. Flood continues to make paintings and ceramic works that are seen separately and, in the case of Hanging Garden (2022), where one medium seems to grow out of or is enmeshed with the other. On display from 20 October to 27 November.

ArtisAnn Gallery

‘Time to Process’ was a joint exhibition by Gail Ritchie and Jennifer Trouton RUA. Though “time to process” is ostensibly a simple phrase, it can, like the works of both these artists, be interpreted in different and more complex ways. It has more than one meaning. Just as time need not be linear, nor process refer to a method or means of conducting an activity, so the works in this exhibition connect through commonality of approach. On display from 5 to 29 October.

Belfast Exposed

Mairéad McClean’s exhibition ‘HERE’ comments on the tension and anxiety felt by those living in Northern Ireland in the 1970s during “an explosive period of con flict and political unrest”; a time when the pressures of danger and threat – both invis ible and visible – permeated everyday life. McClean’s work unfolds the complexity of this experience through her memories. ‘HERE’ asks us to think about how politics and culture of a region are defined and how they define those who live here. On display from 6 October to 23 December.

MART Gallery

The MART Gallery presented ‘Mutators’, a solo exhibition by Kevin Mooney, in part nership with Sample Studios Cork and supported by The Arts Council of Ireland. Mooney is a Cork-based artist and member of Sample Studios. His work considers the voids which mark Irish visual culture, par ticularly related to Irish diasporic traditions and journeys. His paintings are inventions, tall stories which present as artefacts from a lost culture, and sometimes speculative imaginings of an alternative art history. On display from 1 to 21 October.

mart.ie

Pallas Projects/Studios

greenonredgallery.com

Pallas Projects/Studios presented the trans media installation ‘Interregnum’ by Rocío Romero Grau. Influenced by Bauman’s conceptualisation of a ‘Liquid Modernity’, Rocío interrogates our present as a liminal space, an interregnum between an unre liable past and an uncertain future. This liminal space has been mostly shown as an empty, desolated, non-place, but it could potentially be a vivid space of collision and chaos; the battlefield where the antagonis tic meet. On display from 13 to 29 October.

pallasprojects.org

Platform Arts

artisann.org

‘Hot glue’ was an exhibition of newly com missioned work by materialists Sophie Gough and Daire O’Shea, curated by Sara Muthi. The German word Material gerechtigkeit loosely translates to ‘material justice’. This principle holds that any mate rial should be used where it is most appro priate and that its nature should not be hidden. ‘Hot glue’ maintains that sculpture cannot be exhausted by perceptive experi ence nor reduced to any formal description of its constituent parts. On display from 5 to 21 October.

platformartsbelfast.com

QSS Artist Studios

belfastexposed.org

QSS hosted ‘Did That Really Happen?’, a two-person exhibition by QSS-based artist Dan Ferguson and Belfast-based artist Pat rick Colhoun. Both artists rely on memory to direct their work. With age and deeper personal introspection, it has become a pri mary feature in Colhoun’s sculptures and Ferguson’s paintings. The element which unifies the two artists’ practice is the accep tance that the broader concept of ‘memo ry’ that underpins their work is malleable, unreliable, inconsistent, and possibly even false. On display from 6 to 27 October.

queenstreetstudios.net

RDS

The RDS Visual Art Awards were held in the RDS Concert Hall, Ballsbridge, from 21 to 29 October. 13 graduate artists were exhibited after making it through a very selective two-round process out of 109 art ists who were longlisted. Each of the 13 artists has a chance to receive: The RDS Taylor Art Award (€10,000); R.C. Lew is-Crosby Award (€5,000); RDS Members’ Arts Fund Award (€5,000); RHA Gradu ate Studio Award (€7,500 value); and final ly the RDS Mason Hayes & Curran LLP Culturel Irlandais Residency Award, in Paris (€6,000 value).

rds.ie

SO Fine Art Editions

‘Thin places of escape and return’ featured colour etchings, monoprint and collage by Niamh Flanagan, and was the first major solo exhibition of her work since ‘An Else where Place’ in 2012. The motif of the house or dwelling space is central to Flana gan’s work, calling into question the notion of the house as a formative psychological structure, one that inhabits our dreams and our inner spaces, while also providing a physical barrier between the inside world and the outside. On display from 8 to 29 October.

sofinearteditions.com

RUA

The 141st RUA Annual Exhibition at the Royal Ulster Academy is one of the most eagerly anticipated exhibitions in the Northern Irish cultural calendar, providing a unique platform for acclaimed artists and emerging talent to showcase their artwork in the galleries at the Ulster Museum. It is also a chance for the public to engage with a fully democratic, free admission exhibition. The exhibition presents painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video and more. On display from 14 October 2022 to 3 January 2023.

Vault Artist Studios

‘Sense of Place’ was an exhibition of new work by Belfast-based artist, Jonathan Brennan. Featuring large works on canvas, drawings and experimental photos, from several evolving series, Brennan attempts to conjure feelings of intrigue, awe and mel ancholy with these atypical depictions of spaces, both real and imagined. ‘Sense of Place’ included new work created in 2022. This is Brennan’s first solo exhibition since 2019 and celebrates atypical landscapes, places teetering on the edge, real views and imagined scenarios of Belfast and its sur roundings. On display 14 to 30 October.

vaultartiststudios.com

Arthur Jafa, Love is the Message, The Message is Death, 2016, video still; ©Arthur Jafa, courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery.

Jonathan Brennan, Hic Jacet MPW et al., 2022, acrylic on canvas; image © and courtesy the artist.

royalulsteracademy.org

Belfast

Exhibition

Regional & International

Ards Arts Centre

‘Beyond Edges’ was a group exhibition of paintings, glass artefacts, and sculptures crafted in wood and metal by Andrea Spen cer, Nicola Nemec, and Sharon Adams. This was an elegant and thought-provok ing exhibition in which three woman art ists investigate, interrogate and interpret their immediate locale and shared hinter land of open hills and dramatic coastlines in North Antrim. All three artists respond to the land and the impact of man’s inter vention on it. On display from 8 Septem ber to 22 October.

andculture.org.uk

Ballinglen Arts Foundation Gallery

‘Inherit’ was an exhibition by Place|Lab collective. The seeds of ‘Inherit’ were sown in Iceland in 2019 when the collective came together for a residency. The project then developed over time via Zoom , culminat ing in this diverse collection of thoughts and work. On display at Ballinglen Arts Foundation Gallery from 27 August to 27 September, the show will tour to Contem porary Art Space Chester (CASC) UK in November 2022, and to Springville Muse um, Utah and MCLA Gallery 51, Massa chusetts, USA, in 2023.

ballinglenartsfoundation.org

Coastal Wexford

‘Catch 22 /Art Tra’ took place during August and September on 22 beach loca tions around South Wexford. It featured the work of 15 Artists working in drawing, textile, painting, sculpture, photography and recycled materials. The coastal ven ues varied, depending on the tidal restric tions and weather. The project was funded through Wexford County Councils Arts Office – Small Arts Festival and Experi mental Events Scheme 2022.

sunmoonandstarspress.wixsite.com/catch-22-art-tra

Custom House Studios and Gallery

‘Imagine Life Without Art’ by Bernadette Kiely was on display from 29 September to 23 October. Kiely grew up on the banks of the River Suir and has lived and worked on the quayside of the River Nore since the 1980s. This exhibition was an exploratory journey around her primary themes of the effects of weather and changing climate on land, landscape and human lives over time. It featured paintings, drawings and moving image created over a 25-year period.

customhousestudios.ie

Garter Lane Arts Centre

‘A Way of Showing’ by John Conway, fea turing sculpture, installation, text-based work and moving image, is on display from 8 October to 12 November. Con way is a visual artist based in Rua Red in South Dublin. His work is characterised by innovative multi-disciplinary projects and sophisticated solo and participato ry artworks which are often produced in response to sensitive, challenging, or nov el contexts. He frequently commissions, curates, and collaborates with other spe cialists, and orchestrates complex projects. garterlane.ie

Solas Art Gallery

‘On Edge’ was a joint exhibition by Eileen Ferguson and Neal Greig, on display from 26 August to 17 September. This was their first exhibition together since 2010. They have their studios in Monaghan and on Coney Island, Sligo, where Eileen has her ancestral home. While Eileen and Neal’s paintings are thematically different, they are connected by a sense of colour, texture and an awareness of painterly tradition. The language of mark-making is explored and a sense of time and space conveyed.

solasart.ie

Highlanes Gallery

Brian Fay’s ‘The Most Recent Forever’, is a survey exhibition of the artist’s drawing practice, which was presented at Highlanes Gallery as a national tour in partnership with Limerick City Gallery of Art and Uil linn: West Cork Arts Centre. Fay’s practice uses different representational strategies of drawing to record, depict and present mod els of time and temporality using pre-exist ing artefacts, objects and artworks to stand in for our own experience of time. The exhi bition continues until 12 November.

highlanes.ie

KAVA

‘Awakening’ by Nicole O’Donnell was on display from 20 to 26 October. O’Donnell’s practice is influenced by the wilderness of the Irish landscape. Daily observations and the natural world are used to create imag inative landscape paintings that deal with themes of experience of place, memory. They are inspired by the endless complexity found in nature. This body of work focus es on what is both equally beautiful and degraded and is concerned with balancing both the abstract and realistic elements within.

kava.ie

Pigyard Gallery

The Pigyard Gallery in Wexford town presents a solo exhibition by artist Gillian Deeny from 15 October to 6 November. The exhibition, titled ‘Quest’, is delivered in partnership with Wexford County Council and Wex-Art, to coincide with Wexford Festival Opera 2022. As an artist, Deeny searches for meaning and beauty in the everyday, which includes detailed examina tions of the Irish landscape and the natural world, where she finds quiet moments that resonate across different strands of poetry, philosophy, and ecology.

facebook.com/PigyardGallery

Sonic Acts Biennial

Recently shown at Sonic Acts in Amster dam, ‘Gauge’ (2015), is an experimental film installation showing tidal movements of sea ice off Baffin Island in the Canadian Arc tic. Using time-lapse from cameras on the floating sea ice, painted sea ice cliffs appear to rise and fall. The work is a collaboration of Danny Osborne, Patrick Thompson, Alexa Hatanaka, Sarah McNair-Landry, Eric McNair-Landry, Erik Boomer and Raven Chacon. On display 30 September to 23 October.

sonicacts.com

St. Luke’s Crypt

The Project Twins’s exhibition ‘100 Sec onds to Midnight’ takes its name from The Doomsday Clock, a metaphorical sym bol that represents how close humanity is to self-destruction. In January 2020 the clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight. Employing minimal forms and graphic shapes, their work is rooted in the visual language of signs, symbols and pictograms which can be found in various systems of propaganda and control to communications and way-finding. On display from 1 to 24 September.

sample-studios.com

The Earth Vision

‘Augmented Body, Altered Mind’ wove a brain-computer interface with an audio visual environment on display at London’s The Earth Vision from 8 to 16 October. Created by Alan James Burns, the show celebrated different cognitive abilities used for creative problem-solving. ‘Augmented Body, Altered Mind’ explored the potential to collectively reshape the world towards a more diverse and sustainable future. It was initially conceived during Burns’s residency at the Science Gallery Dublin in 2020 and was presented at Carlow Arts Festival 2022. theearthvision.com

‘Catch 22 /Art Tra’, Baginbun Beach, Wexford, 19 September; photograph by Lisa Kinneen, courtesy Andi MacGarry. The Project Twins, ‘100 Seconds to Midnight’, 2022, installation view; image courtesy of the artists.

The tenth edition of the King Ping Pong tournament will take place on Monday 7 November at The Complex, Dublin. All are welcome, but partici pation in the tournament is only open to visual arts workers.

King Ping Pong started in Monster Truck in 2012 and was such a success, that Davey Moor and Monster Truck director Peter Prendergast decid ed to run it as a fun annual event for the sector. Over the years, many arts organisations in Dublin and beyond have fielded players. KPP does not receive any kind of funding or corpo rate sponsorship and depends on the generosity of the host organisations (which changes every two years).

This year, Paul McGrane, Visual Art Co-ordinator at The Complex, joined as a co-organiser.

Basic Income for the Arts

In early September, 2,000 Artists and Cre ative Arts Workers were granted Basic Income for the Arts. The historic, threeyear pilot scheme will give €325 per week to those selected for the experiment. A fur ther 1,000 people were chosen to be part of the control group who will be offered remu neration for their participation.

Over 9,000 applications were made under the scheme with over 8,200 assessed as eligible and included in a randomised anonymous selection process. Those select ed include 707 visual artists, 584 musicians, 204 artists working in film, 184 writers, 173 actors and artists working in theatre, 32 dancers and choreographers, 13 circus artists and 10 architects. 3%, or 54 of those selected, work through the Irish language.

Eligibility for the scheme was based on the definition of the arts as contained in the Arts Act 2003; “arts means any cre ative or interpretative expression (whether traditional or contemporary) in whatever form, and includes, in particular, visual arts, theatre, literature, music, dance, opera, film, circus and architecture, and includes any medium when used for those purposes.”

There were three categories under which applicants could apply as follows:

1. Practising artists;

2. Creative Arts Workers (defined as someone who has a creative practice or whose creative work makes a key contribution to the interpretation or exhibition of the arts);

3. Recently Trained i.e. graduated with a relevant qualification in the past 5 years.

84% of those selected identified as prac tising artists, 9% identified as Creative Arts Workers and 7% as Recently Trained Applicants.

In October, a further 27 artists were selected, through another lottery of non-ac cepted applicants, to replace declined offers.

VAI welcomed this significant event and recognised the widespread disappointment amongst those artists who did not receive positive news. With 2,000 artists, 707 visu al artists are to benefit directly from the scheme, with an unknown number of visual artists not in receipt of the payment being asked to participate as paid members of the

THE LATEST FROM THE ARTS SECTOR

Since 2016, a ‘krazy table’ has been commissioned to augment the visual experience. The first of these was by Prendergast & Moor, the curatori al duo that founded KPP. From 2017 onward, the hosts began inviting artists to make tables, which have amused and frustrated participants and spectators alike. Table makers to date: Ella Bertilsson (2022), Lil iane Puthod (2022), Conor O’Sullivan (2021), Dáire McEvoy (2019), Tanad Aaron (2018), David Lunney (2017), Prendergast & Moor (2016).

An exhibition of the seven krazy tables will be presented in the the atre space of The Complex on 6 and 7 November, ahead of this year’s tournament, which takes place on 7 November.

control group. The figure of 707 artists rep resents approximately 20% of the visual art ist population, and we look forward to the results as they are published, either during or after the pilot scheme, and the time when a permanent scheme is put in place to the benefit of all visual artists. We continue to be in dialogue with the Department.

The Arts Council Budget 2023

The Arts Council welcomed the September announcement of €130M funding as part of Budget 2023. This funding enables the Arts Council to continue and deepen its investment in the arts. The Arts Council recognised that Covid-19 continues to have an impact on audience engagement and that the sector faces further challenges with issues relating to cost of living. The funding announcement ensures that the Arts Coun cil can provide meaningful support to the sector in the coming year.

Arts Council Chair, Prof Kevin Raf ter said, “The decision to keep funding at €130M for a third consecutive year is wel come, and this money will allow the Coun cil to continue to help the arts sector recov er from the Covid-19 pandemic and to deal with significant cost of living increases. The Council will continue to make the case – as it has done over the last two years – for an annual budget of €150M to further develop the arts sector across the country.”

Arts Council Director, Maureen Ken nelly said, “The Arts Council is delighted to welcome today’s budget announcement. The work of the Arts Council invests in thousands of artists and hundreds of arts organisations across the country while providing long-term sector development. Today’s funding announcement ensures it can continue this vital work.”

The O’Malley Award for Visual Art 2022

The New Jersey-based Irish American Cul tural Institute announced that the 2022 O’Malley Award of €5,000 went to Vukašin Nedeljković for his ongoing project Asylum Archive

The O’Malley Visual Arts Award was inaugurated in 1989 and is given in mem ory of Ernie O’Malley and Helen Hooker O’Malley. Previous winners include Tony O’Malley, James Coleman, Dorothy Cross,

and Alice Maher. The Award is given for outstanding work created during the period since the previous award.

The judging panel for the O’Malley Visual Arts Award 2022 was made up of Sean Lynch (artist, curator and writer), Johanne Mullan (curator, Irish Museum of Modern Art), and Helena Tobin (curator and director, South Tipperary Arts Cen tre). The award was given to Vukašin Ned eljković for his ongoing work documenting the experience of people living in detention centres and “the architecture of confine ment, ghosts, traces, remnants – what is left after people have been transferred or deported.”

EVA International Biennial EVA International announced ‘Never Look Back’, a new initiative that revisits EVA’s 45+ year history of producing contempo rary art exhibitions and events in Limerick.

Originally founded by artists in 1977, EVA remains one of the longest running visual arts organisations in Ireland, working with some of the world’s most acclaimed artists and curators.

‘Never Look Back’ explores EVA’s histo ry in Limerick through the roster of tempo rary sites, spaces, and venues – from offices, shops, museums, ex-industrial units, and public spaces – used for the presentation of contemporary art in successive editions. Borrowing its title from Jakob Gautel and Jason Karaïndros’s street inscription – pre sented during EVA’s 20th edition, EV+A 96, curated by Guy Tortosa – ‘Never Look Back’ seeks to illuminate a rich history of contemporary art that intertwines with the urban evolutions of the city. Developed by EVA in partnership with a working group of architects and artists (Peter Carroll, Caelan Bristow and Fiona Woods) the initiative hopes to provide new access and understanding of Limerick’s unique story of contemporary art, while thinking crit ically about the ways that art takes place within the public realm, often through pro cesses of regeneration and redevelopment.

The inaugural projects of ‘Never Look Back’ in 2022 include a website and digital resource designed by An Endless Supply which will go live in November, and the first of a series of curatorial commissions

that respond to EVA’s history in Limerick – by RGKSKSRG (Kate Strain & Rachael Gilbourne) and Michele Horrigan (Askea ton Contemporary Art).

EVA Director Matt Packer says, “In its 45+ years of existence, EVA offers a unique and invaluable story of contemporary art in a city that has, itself, undergone con siderable change during this same period.

The ‘Never Look Back’ initiative not only provides an opportunity to tell this story through the sites and spaces that art has temporarily inhabited, it also provides a platform of critical and creative responses to ideas of art’s relationship to architecture, to people, and to place.”

‘Never Look Back’ is supported through the Arts Council’s Engaging with Archi tecture Scheme and Limerick City and County Council.

RDS Visual Art Awards

The winners of the RDS Visual Art Awards have been announced, at the launch of the annual exhibition that celebrates emerg ing Irish artists. The 2022 exhibition was curated by internationally acclaimed artist Aideen Barry and ran at the RDS Concert Hall from 21 to 29 October. This year’s awards were announced by Chair of the judging panel, Mary McCarthy (Director of the Crawford Gallery, Cork) and pre sented by the RDS President, Professor Owen Lewis.

Commenting on the talent this year, Mary McCarthy said: “We were enthralled by the work of the 13 shortlisted artists... We are also very impressed by the ability of this year’s RDS Taylor Art Award winner, Venus Patel to turn a transphobic attack into an incredibly beautiful artwork.”

• Venus Patel – RDS Taylor Art Award (€10,000)

• Sadhbh Mowlds – R.C. Lewis-Crosby Award (€5,000)

• Orla Comerford – RDS Members’ Art Fund Award (€5,000)

• Lucy Peters – RHA Graduate Studio Award (value €7,500)

• Myfanwy Frost-Jones – RDS Mason Hayes & Curran LLP Centre Cul turel Irlandais Residency Award (value €6,000)

King Ping Pong

Paul McKinley and Vanessa Donoso López, King Ping Pong 2015 tournament at TBG+S; image courtesy the artists and Davey Moor.

Sea Interludes

CORNELIUS BROWNE CONSIDERS THE SEA AS AN OMNIPRESENT FORCE IN THE WORK OF DONEGAL PAINTERS.

Ecologies Reflections on a Radical Plot

CLODAGH EMOE CHRONICLES THE EVOLULTION OF A LONGRUNNING ECOLOGICAL PROJECT.

REFLECTIONS ON A Radical Plot is an eco logical archive of wild plants growing in the artwork Crocosmia × (2018), located on the margin of the front lawn of IMMA – a plot that was planted entirely of Crocos mia × crocosmiiflora in 2018. Crocosmia × is an outcome of my ongoing collaboration with individuals seeking asylum that began in 2015 in the garden of Spirasi (Spiritan Asylum Services Initiative) – the national centre for the rehabilitation of survivors of torture in Ireland. The garden set the foun dations for the project, giving us a shared sense of purpose and a physical space to connect with each other and the natural world, offering meaning, and inspiring our collaboration.

My residency in IMMA as part of ‘A Radical Plot’ (July 2021 – March 2022) allowed me to re-engage with Crocosmia ×, giving me time to observe and reflect on what we did not foresee – the quiet evolu tion of this artwork. Its status ensures that it has not been tampered with, allowing the natural process of self-seeding. Reflections on A Radical Plot witnesses the transforma tion of this artwork into a valuable ecosys tem of significant and distinct plant species, offering a further reminder that diversity is the natural state of being.

THROUGHOUT THIS YEAR, I’ve been paint ing extremely small pictures of an extraor dinarily vast subject. The pockets of my paint-spattered raincoat accommodate a dozen of these roughly cut boards. In the past, in a life conditioned by frugality, it pained me, after painting sessions, to scrape paint away. The boards give me a com pact stage upon which to perform encores. Instinctively, I also now reach for one when something catches the corner of my eye, and I’m perhaps painting in the opposite direction. I find myself dashing along the shore, clutching palette and brush, knowing I can use my hand as easel. The sea is omni present where I live and work, so although I have painted more than a hundred tiny boards so far this year, without exception they dance to a maritime tune.

An ocean of music has been shaping my paintings since I was a schoolboy. I first heard Benjamin Britten’s opera, Peter Grimes (1945), on wobbly cassette almost 40 years ago. To move listeners from one physical location to another, Britten wrote Sea Interludes (1945); short pieces of music that, despite their brevity, capture with alarming fullness the majestic force mould ing the lives of the townspeople in his iso lated little fishing village. I clearly recall my young self, rewinding or fast-forwarding the tape relentlessly to locate the high grace notes of flutes and violins that mimicked so closely the sea birds I could hear from our home. Light on water was already attract ing my attention as a juvenile painter, yet I felt no artist could better the shimmering arpeggios created by Britten’s harp, violas, and clarinets. In all likelihood, that cassette wore out on the Storm (1945) interlude – I remember the house empty one calm spring morning, giving me the opportunity to raise the volume. Within moments, our rickety dwelling was battered by thunderous waves. My own ‘sea interludes’ take about the same time to paint as it takes to listen to one of Britten’s pieces: just under five min utes. I’m already in the flow, geared up to catch the wave. The sight we see from the

shore is the same as it has ever been; the sea is a place where the boundaries between past and present are slender. I paint from the fields my great-great-grandparents and their neighbours tilled for crops or walled for cattle. My children, however, look towards the horizon and ponder microplas tics, extinction, and rising sea levels.

From the anonymous author of Navi gatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis in the ninth century, recounting St. Brendan’s westward journey in his medieval skin boat, to Doro thy Cross’s Ghost Ship (1999) in Scotsman’s Bay in Dún Laoghaire at the end of the twentieth century, the sea has been a perva sive presence in Irish art and literature. At 1,134 km, the Donegal mainland coastline is the longest in the country. Unsurpris ingly, generations of Donegal artists have wrestled with the Atlantic.

Recently, I spent the 22nd anniversary of Derek Hill’s death teaching a plein air workshop in the gardens of the English painter’s former home, Glebe House in Donegal. In the eighties, having seen some of my paintings made using household gloss, Hill gifted me a set of oil paints –my first ever. In the fifties, roughly a decade before I was born, Hill gifted paints to one of Donegal’s most astonishing paint ers. James Dixon was at the opposite end of his life to me when he received these paints. This was a man already in his sev enties, who observed Hill painting a large landscape outdoors one Sunday morning after mass on Tory Island, and remarked, “I think I could do better”. Dixon, at that moment, had hardly ever stepped foot off the small island where he was born, devot ing his life to fishing. Describing Dixon’s work, Hill reached for the language of the sea, observing that they had been “painted quickly and instinctively – unrestful and turbulent”. Furthermore, when recollecting the bundles of paintings sent by Dixon, Hill stated: “I imagine them thrown into the sea and washed ashore after a storm”. Cornelius Browne is a Donegal-based artist.

While gardening, we found a gnarled corm of a crocosmia × crocosmiiflora –more commonly known as Montbretia, and found along hedgerows in Ireland. Although many assume this to be a native plant, it is a hybrid from South Africa. This vibrant orange flower offered a symbol of hope for members of the group who had themselves been uprooted; forced to leave their homeland and create a new life in a foreign land. Crocosmia × became our met aphor that questioned received notions of what is ‘native’ and what is ‘foreign’. Their flourishing in Ireland champions our con ception of community, centring on relations formed across categories of nation, race and culture. Support from Janice Hough (Art ists’ Residency Programme Co-ordinator at IMMA) and Mary Condon (Head Gar dener at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham / IMMA) ensured our access to the nursery at RHK, to grow and nurture specimens for the artworks in IMMA and TU Dublin (commissioned as part of the Grangegor man public art programme, ‘…the lives we live’, curated by Jenny Haughton). This had an immense impact on the project and this beautiful outdoor workspace became our place.

The companion prints in the archive include nettle, forget me knot, primrose, herb Robert, plantain, nipplewort, prickly sow thistle, poppy, wild violet, and western willow herb. This ecological form of print making is not reliant on technical expertise but on the composition of the plant itself. This unpredictable process draws the nat ural essence from the plant and ‘saddens’ it onto paper. The resulting image is the trace of the plant. In archiving a continuously evolving artwork, Reflections on A Radical Plot acknowledges the potency and com plexity of both nature and art as entangled and un-ending processes.

Clodagh Emoe is an artist and parttime lecturer at IADT. Recent projects include Classroom in the Sun (2022), an inter-generational, collaborative, Arts Council-funded project that addresses urgent issues of our bio diversity crisis by supporting a com munity to connect with nature and realise their ambition to design and create an outdoor space for learning, exploration and connection. Clodagh is currently developing Seed STUDIO, an ecological studio space piloted by IMMA, that addresses an overwhelm ing need to explore, deepen and cele brate our connection with the natural world.

clodaghemoe.com

Cornelius Browne, Sea Interlude: Black Boat, 2022, oil on board; photograph by Paula Corcoran, courtesy of the artist.

Clodagh Emoe, Primrose (Primula vulgaris) 2022, ecological print on cotton paper; image courtesy of the artist.

Moving Image

Chronic Collective

TARA CARROLL AND ÁINE O’HARA DISCUSS THEIR MULTIDISCIPLINARY ART COLLECTIVE AND THEIR ADVOCACY FOR IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY IN THE ARTS.

WE ARE TWO best friends, Tara Carroll and Áine O’Hara, who connected over our love of performance art more than ten years ago. Now our bond strengthens over our shared chronic illnesses and the immense care we provide each other, in order to survive. We’ve subconsciously created a care web. Explained by queer disabled femme writer and activist, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Sa marasinha, a care web is when a group of disabled people work together to provide care and access to resources to support each other.

The pandemic’s disruption of societal stasis and the barriers we and our peers collectively face in the arts more broadly, made it even more apparent that our col lective (previously called 4D Space) needed to evolve. We wanted to expand our care web in the best way we knew how, through art, knowledge sharing, creating spaces and nurturing relationships.

We are now known as Chronic Collec tive, a multidisciplinary curatorial art col lective with a strong focus on accessibility in the arts. As two queer and disabled/ chronically ill artists, we strive to create opportunities to platform disabled and/or chronically ill artists’ work in a supportive and care-focused environment, catering to individual needs with a view to alleviating some of the barriers faced when creating and exhibiting work.

This summer we curated a programme of events and workshops about the body, illness, and accessibility at Pallas Projects. All events were active sites of learning and practice about access. It was supported by the Capacity Building Award 2022 from the Arts Council. All events and workshops were designed to have a slower pace, flexible timing, and plenty of breaks. We provided a quiet low light rest area, comfortable seat ing, masks, ventilation and free snacks and water. Many of our events were hybrid with Irish Sign Language (ISL) and live cap tioning.

We designed a series of performance art workshops and events which supported the work of 15 disabled and/or chronically ill artists and nurtured connections within their community. We supported these art ists by asking them what their needs are – a question many told us they had never been asked before – which we accommodated to the best of our abilities. We did this because we saw a glaring gap in accessibility in the visual arts and the arts in Ireland generally. We wanted to give disabled, chronically ill and neurodiverse artists and audiences an accessible space that was made by us for us.

What does accessibility mean to us?

In Ireland conversations around accessi bility in the arts, and accessibility in gen eral, have been very limited. When asking about how accessible an event or venue is, we have often been simply told a space is

‘not accessible’. We assume when this is the answer that they mean a space is not wheelchair accessible. We cannot cater to every individual’s access needs at once, but access for us is a lot more than a ramp into a building, though we want those too!

Information is power for us. Is your event seated? What kind of seats? Will there be captioning or ISL? Is your event relaxed, can I leave and come back, can I make noise, can I be on my phone? Do you require masks? Will the event be available to watch online? If there are steps into the building, how many? On a good day I could climb a flight of stairs, on a bad day I might be able to do one step, but I can’t make an informed decision if you don’t give me the information.

Make your information available and easy to find on your website. We know that no space or event is fully accessible, so there is no need to shamefully shy away from highlighting what is and isn’t available. It is good practice to include access costs in your budget to develop your programmes with access in mind from the beginning.

In 2011, writer and disability justice activist Mia Mingus, in her blog Leaving Evidence, described “access intimacy” as an “elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone else gets your access needs” and a sense of “comfort that your disabled self feels” (leavingevidence.wordpress.com). This is what we are striving for in our work and in our personal lives. Access intimacy can be given or received by anyone, disabled or not.

Access intimacy builds connection; it often doesn’t mean that an event or exhi bition is 100% accessible but that everyone involved is trying as hard as possible to ensure accessibility for as many people as possible. We encourage you to work with us as a community when you are developing your access plans and creating events, exhi bitions and workshops. There are as many different access needs as there are artists or audience members. We will continue to create spaces for our community to take part in the arts.

Tara Carroll is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and facilitator and Áine O’Hara is a multidisciplinary artist, designer and theatre maker. @chronicartcollective chronicartcollective@gmail.com

Oh Infamy

IARLAITH NI FHEORAIS DISCUSSES A NEW FILM MADE IN COLLABORATION WITH EMMA WOLF-HAUGH.

OH INFAMY WE eat electric light (2022) is a new film by Emma Wolf-Haugh and I, which will be launched at Oonagh Young Gallery on 3 November. The film was co-commissioned by ANU, Landmark Productions, and the Museum of Litera ture (MoLI) in partnership with Arts and Disability Ireland (ADI). The commission forms part of Ulysses 2.2 – a year-long pro gramme marking the centenary of the pub lication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, through 18 multidisciplinary projects, including film, poetry, music, theatre, writing, archi tecture, and visual art, presented in various venues across Ireland throughout 2022.

Our fellow practitioners are Adrian Crowley, Anne Enright, Branar, David Bolger of CoisCéim, Emilie Pine, Emma Martin of United Fall, Evangelia Riga ki, Fehdah, Fintan O’Toole, God Knows, Harry Clifton, Louise Lowe, Marina Carr, Matthew Nolan, Molly Twomey, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, Owen Boss, Paula Mee han, Sinéad Burke, The Domestic Godless, and Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects. Each practitioner was matched with one of the 18 episodes of Ulysses to respond to in their own way. Emma and I were given Episode 15, ‘Circe’, which follows the protagonist Bloom on a night-time hallucinatory adventure through Dublin’s Monto.

Emma has made critical and playful work inspecting the legacy of modernism in Ireland, most recently the legacy of Eileen Gray in the film Domestic Optimism (2021), shown at Project Arts Centre last year. Oh – Infamy – we eat eclectic light emerged from a series of conversations between Emma and I about how we wanted to treat this material that has come to be held in such high regard as an artefact of national signif icance and symbol of high Irish literature. Adopting a disobedient position, aimed at undoing the sanctity that’s been construct ed around the text, we proceeded with a close reading – a first for both of us. This revealed an unexpected tale of nocturnal lives, animism, justice, sex work, kink, and gender-swapping, raising new questions of this work’s relevance to contemporary Dub lin. This included a section, which came to be the central focus of the film, in which Bloom swaps gender with a dominatrix in a BDSM session. Alongside this unforeseen depiction of sexuality for the time, ‘Circe’ holds an image of the Monto and of Dub lin that many today would not recognise.

Reflecting the history of the Monto drew our attention to the ecstasy, chaos, mysticism, revelations, and the labour of the night. We considered how the liberato ry potential of some of these activities has been extinguished in Dublin over the last 15 years; how nightclubs and independent spaces, especially for queers, have given way to fancy restaurants and wine bars, thereby sanitising Dublin’s nocturnal streets. The

central scene of the film is a party set in basement, with friends as guests and Bé as DJ. Filmed in August by Helio León, the film also includes Emma and I as spectral visions of James Joyce and Nora Barnacles in drag, transformed with makeup by Lor can Devaney. Unseen by the partygoers, we perform mainly as a pair, acting in impro vised tableaux while moving slowly through the space, our mouths illuminated.

The film is overlaid with text, spoken by three object characters – an eye, a rubber fist, and a snake – holding a parallel conver sation alongside and against the words of Joyce. The script was largely based on ‘Circe’, redeveloped through a writing exercise. We focused on language describing liquids, and the quite ableist descriptions of nameless disabled characters in the beginning of the episode. Through this technique, it was pos sible to begin unpicking the troubling and slippery language.

Oh Infamy was made possible by a won derful team. Ulysses 2.2 Project Manager Gráinne Pollak worked with us through planning and production, supporting with finance, communications, building rela tionships, and even acting as bouncer on the door of the party! Ulysses 2.2 Produc tion Manager Stephen Bourke, substituted by Tomás Fitzgerald for filming, played an essential role, arranging equipment, supporting installation, and also acting as bouncer. Oonagh Young provided invalu able insight into ‘Circe’ and the history of the Monto, and graciously hosted a party, a film set, and an exhibition. ADI’s Access Services Coordinator, Aidan Gately, and Executive Director, Pádraig Naughton, worked closely with us in providing access and support through planning and produc tion. This included how to host an accessi ble party and film shoot, whilst supporting captioning and audio description work. We hope that the film is a generous ode to the Dublin night – to the people who find solace in it, the spaces we’ve lost, and those that made them.

Iarlaith Ni Fheorais (she/her) is a curator and writer based between Ireland and the UK.

@iarlaith_nifheorais

Iarlaith Ni Fheorais and Emma Wolf-Haugh, Oh – Infamy – we eat electric light 2022; image courtesy the artists.

Making Change Happen

Policy Residency Reflections on Making

DR SUHA SHAKKOUR AND JENNIFER LAWLESS OUTLINE THE ARTS COUNCIL’S EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION ( EDI ) TOOLKIT.

AT THE CENTRE of the Arts Council’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and Strategy, launched in 2019, was the firm belief that everyone who lives in Ire land should have the opportunity to cre ate, engage with, enjoy and participate in the arts. In other words, that access to the arts is a basic human right, regardless of a person’s age, civil or family status, disability, gender, membership of the Traveller Com munity, race, religion, sexual orientation, or socio-economic background.

While the policy commits to ensuring the inclusion of all voices and cultures that make up Ireland today, it also acknowledges that barriers continue to exclude individu als and communities from full participation and representation in the arts. Additionally, in the almost four years since the policy was published, it has become increasingly clear that these barriers are further compound ed when considered from an intersectional perspective, where multiple factors combine to amplify exclusion from the arts.

The Arts Council is committed to con tinuing to identify and dismantle these bar riers, and to support organisations seeking to do the same, all of which will ultimately lead to a more diverse and inclusive arts sector for artists, arts workers, audiences, and participants. The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Toolkit, developed in consultation with the sector, was pub lished earlier this year (artscouncil.ie). It is a direct action of the EDI Policy’s Action Plan, intended to support organisations in addressing these barriers and in building policies and action plans of their own.

The EDI Toolkit is a practical, working resource that guides organisations through a series of questionnaires, in order to: • Take stock of where they are cur rently in relation to EDI practice • Identify what they want to achieve • Outline how they can reach their goals

In designing the templates and tools pro vided, we acknowledge that every organ isation is unique, and so these templates can be adapted according to each organi sation’s needs and the stage they are at in the journey to embed EDI in their work. The EDI Toolkit takes a reflective approach and encourages organisations to view policy development as a continuous practice, rath er than an end in itself.

The first step in the process asks organ isations to consider their strengths and areas for improvement. This helps to build a picture of what the organisation has achieved to date and identify any areas that require intervention. This could involve, for example, looking at an organisation’s staff, decision makers and board members, to determine if they are representative of Ire land’s diversity. A resulting action could be to update hiring and selection policies to ensure current practices are not intention

ally, or unintentionally, exclusionary.

The Toolkit’s Artist Engagement and Audience Engagement self-audit ques tionnaires ask organisations to consider the artists they employ or commission, as well as the audiences or participants they attract, and ask: Is our organisation welcoming and accessible to all? Do we have clear goals and a clear vision of how we can improve inclu sion and diversity for the artists we employ and the audiences or participants we pro gramme for?

Providing a platform for direct consul tation with the individuals and communi ties whose voices, experiences and needs are not being heard, is essential to creating real and lasting change through the policy and action plans developed.

The insights gathered from the evalua tion and consultation process will inform the policy development and associated action points. It will further enable organ isations to prioritise their objectives, out line the resources required, and identify the timeline for delivery of their goals. One of the key elements in achieving these objec tives is to adopt a process of continuous monitoring and evaluation with clear lines of accountability and ownership of tasks, in order to keep track of progress and adapt and respond to changing priorities.

The EDI Toolkit also features a number of case studies from organisations in the sector. Each case study shares the steps the organisations have taken and are planning to take. They highlight the difference this has made to the organisations to date, and the most important learnings they have encountered on their EDI journeys thus far.

A common thread running through all of the featured cases studies is an openness to challenging how things are currently done, and an understanding of the need for continuous and honest reflection, adap tion and change. We hope they will inspire and encourage you on your own path, and we invite you to collaborate and to share knowledge and good practice with each other as we work towards eliminating dis crimination in the arts.

When we make policies and develop action plans – when we curate, produce, commission, fund and programme, with and for the full diversity of Ireland – the arts reflected back at us are all the rich er and more vibrant for it. But we cannot expect change to happen organically and of its own accord. Inclusion is active and responsive and deliberate. We all play a role in making change happen.

Dr Suha Shakkour is Arts Council Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclu sion. Jennifer Lawless is Arts Council Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Proj ects Officer.

artscouncil.ie

PAULINE KEENA DISCUSSES HER RECENT RESIDENCY AT BACKWATER ARTISTS GROUP.

LIKE MOST ARTISTS during lockdown, I spent two years working in isolation. In winter, my rural studio is freezing and almost impossible to heat, so I was delight ed to be awarded a two-week research res idency in Studio 12 at the Backwater Art ists Group in Cork City. Backwater Artists Group was founded in 1990 and is a key fixture in Cork’s cultural landscape. It is one of the largest and longest running artist-led initiatives in the country, which currently provides access to facilities and develop mental support for 64 artists.

Positioned in the heart of the city, the mission of Backwater Artists Group is to support and advocate for visual artists, enabling them to thrive at all stages of their careers, and empowering them to foster a deep appreciation and enthusiasm for the visual arts within society. Facilities include 28 studio spaces, a fully functioning dark room, an exhibition/project space (Studio 12), a computer meeting room, and wood work facilities. The premises is shared with Cork Printmakers and The Lavit Gallery.

BAN (Backwater Artists Network) was set up in 2019 to create a shared city-centre focal point, as well as opportunities to con nect for professional artists working in iso lation in home studios, or in privately rent ed studios. I became a member of BAN just before lockdown, as I wanted to be part of a bigger network of professionals to exchange ideas and develop new work. BAN supports artists through the provision of opportuni ties to sustain and develop artistic practice, including networking, exhibition and resi dency opportunities, learning and discur sive events, peer to peer critique sessions, a visiting curator programme, and more.

Studio 12 operates both as a site of exper imentation and exhibition, and as a public testing ground for new artworks and ideas. During my residency at Studio 12, I want ed to reengage with my drawing practice as part of a larger body of new work. Having spent a long period of time in my studio engaged in the painstaking task of stitch ing a large-scale and very heavy tapestry, my drawing practice had been neglected. So, I was delighted to have this large bright warm space on the first floor of the Back water building in which to start drawing again. Although the studio is very private, there are artists all over the building and we could meet during breaks in the communal kitchen area. It felt so strange and wonder ful to be meeting people in reality and not on Zoom.

I wanted to develop a series of new draw ings based on the failing body, by focusing on the skin as a porous boundary. Of course, drawing confronts me with many challeng es and questions, including: how do ideas manifest through the corporeal intimacy of materials? I wonder whether I draw because I find out something that isn’t available through other strands of artmaking. For

me, drawing is like a location; a commotion of place, where seeing becomes possible in a way that’s not available through other means. Drawing provides me with a very particular way of engaging with the work and seems to extend my knowledge by finding things out through the physicality of the process. This encompasses the fragil ity of the watercolours, the bold heavy lines, and coming to know something as I pro ceed – perhaps forgetting and remembering it again, when I observe what has happened in the process.

Connecting with other artists was a valu able part of the residency as well. One day there was a knock on my studio door and another artist was there wanting to visit and see what I was doing. Sean Hanrahan had recently finished a residency at IMMA in Dublin, where he created a project entitled ‘Flag Anthem’. We chatted about his work, the flag, what a flag may mean, what it rep resents, and what a country could be. We spoke about the importance of residencies for artists and the value of having space and time to think about the work. With a twoweek stay, there is no expectation to pro duce finished work; however, the value is in the space and time to think about it. I man aged to establish a new body of work that is at a reasonable stage and can be developed further in my own studio.

Finally, I had the opportunity to talk about the project. Several studio artists attended, and following my talk and film screening, a robust discussion took place, mostly focusing on our individual practic es, and the ways in which thinking devel ops through both making and reflection on making. I was very impacted by how art ists are truly valued in Backwater Studios and how the ongoing development of their work is central to the ethos of the organ isation – something that is largely due to the incredible work of the current director, Elaine Coakley.

Pauline Keena is an artist who is interested in the human form, in terms of its physicality, its power, its chaos and interiority. The Backwater Artists Group is funded by The Arts Council and Cork City Council.

backwaterartists.ie

Regional Focus

Galway City

Civic Contribution

Megs Morley Director, Galway Arts Centre

GALWAY IS ONE of the most vibrant cultural cities in Ireland, bustling with extraordinary talent, with artists from all over the world choosing to make this city at the utter most western edge of Europe their home. A highly internationalised city, it is also embedded in a region steeped in traditional culture and language. This unique context has nurtured an incredibly rich dynamic of creative practices, with Galway Arts Centre (GAC) playing a central role in the devel opment of this cultural ecology for over 40 years.

GAC was founded in 1981 by the Gal way Artists Group in a former Presbyterian church located in Nun’s Island, who initial ly renovated the church as a gallery space and theatre, the first of its kind in Gal way. In 1988, the former city residence of Lady Gregory on 47 Dominick Street was redeveloped by Galway City Council into a modern gallery for Galway Arts Centre. Since then, GAC has operated a cultural campus across these two venues as a mul tidisciplinary arts centre focusing on visual art, theatre, and literature.

Many of Galway’s most important cul tural organisations were initiated and devel oped by Galway Arts Centre, including TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Galway Theatre Festival, Galway Youth Theatre, Cúirt International Festival of Literature, and many more. Along with this, former curators and directors such as Helen Car ey, Paul Fahy, Ger Ward, Michael Dempsey and Maeve Mulrennan to name but a few, developed important bodies of work that supported artists and played a central role in the cultural scene within the city.

As the new(ish) director and curator of GAC (since September 2021), I feel that this legacy is important for us to reflect on, as we embark on a new chapter in the development of GAC and the arts in Gal way. I believe the legacy of GAC extends far beyond its walls – it is more social, rhi zomatic, and radical. GAC is situated at the core of a delicate cultural ecology that has supported and nurtured so many artists and creative communities in the West of Ireland over the decades. This is a legacy that we are committed to continuing, growing, and expanding in the coming years.

This year has been challenging and exciting in equal measure for everyone in GAC, with the return to the first in-person Cúirt Festival in two years, as well as Gal way Youth Theatre’s return to the stage this summer, as part of Galway International Arts Festival. Opening the galleries again was a delight with Kevin Gaynor’s Currency Exchange (2022) last December, and with the 2022 visual art programme ‘Entangled Histories’ – which included artists Sarah Pierce, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Alice Rekab, Duncan Campbell, Denise Ferreira da Silva

and Arjuna Neuman – as well as solo exhi bitions by Declan Clarke and Sean Lynch. We have developed a new Artists-in-Resi dence scheme, through which we have supported the work of Éireann and I, Pavithra Kannan, and Rewind Fastforward Record.

Undoubtedly one of the highlights of our year was bringing the Turner Prize-winning work The Druthaib’s Ball by Belfast-based collective, Array, to GAC in August. This immersive installation, which celebrates collectivity and activism and highlights human rights issues in Northern Ireland, was installed in our performance space in Nun’s Island Theatre, with a wider concur rent exhibition by Array in our galleries. To bring that work to Galway was a huge col lective venture in itself, involving extensive partnerships at local, national, and interna tional level. Opening the exhibition in part nership with Galway Community Pride was an incredible and joyous event, with Array and their peers from Northern Ire land marching with local Galway groups.

Our public engagement programme was hosted in the installation itself, which takes the form of an illegal bar, or sibín, and comprised over 25 performances, discus sions, talks, and workshops over the dura tion of six weeks. This opened the space for the public to engage in deeply reso nant, complex discussions and experiences that variously unearthed LGBTQ+ histo ries in Galway, explored the politics of the North, the social history of traditional song, the activism inherent in storytelling, the transgressive practices in Irish wakes, and the creative potential and joy of working together collectively.

We look forward to an exciting pro gramme next year at GAC, which includes a solo exhibition by The Otolith Group, a new open-call Artist-in-Residence pro gramme, an innovative sound project by Red Bird Youth Art Collective with artist Anne Marie Deacy, a contemporary choral theatre project by Galway Youth Theatre, the first edition of the Cúirt festival pro grammed by new festival director Manu ela Moser, and much more. We also very much look forward to our ongoing and long-term partnership with Galway City Council, which has resulted in a signifi cant capital development investment in our performance space in Nun’s Island. Works begin in 2023 and will redevelop the site to provide much needed rehearsal, production, and performance space in the city, as well as making a crucial contribution to civic space for public participation in the arts.

galwayartscentre.ie

Array collective participating in Galway Community Pride Parade, prior to the launch of The Druthaib’s Ball, 13 August; photograph by Tom Flanagan courtesy Array and Galway Arts Centre.

Array, The Druthaib’s Ball, 2021, installation view, Nun’s Island, Galway; photograph by Tom Flanagan, courtesy Array and Galway Arts Centre.

Array collective, first-floor gallery, Galway Arts Centre; photograph by Tom Flanagan, courtesy Array and Galway Arts Centre.

Engage Art Studios

Rita McMahon Managing Director

FOUNDED IN 2004, Engage Art Studios is dedicated to providing studios to profes sional visual artists and has become an inte gral part of the Galway visual arts scene. As an organisation, Engage has developed and grown a lot over the years, expanding and relocating in order to continue to provide support for professional visual artists in the development of their practices.

Our goal has always been to offer afford able, secure, well-lit, and private studios, as well as to foster an atmosphere of creativity, production, inspiration, and opportunity for working artists in the Galway area. Engage has created, and continues to maintain, a supportive environment of productivity and creativity. Engage has become a vital part of the Galway creative landscape.

In 2017, we opened a second premises with six studios on St. Francis Street in the city centre, in addition to the studios in The Cathedral Building on Middle Street. However, in 2019, Engage faced immense upheaval when we were forced to vacate the Cathedral Building studios due to an unaffordable and unsustainable rent hike. Thankfully, the move, while extremely chal lenging, had a prosperous outcome in the discovery of the new premises in Church fields, Salthill, where Engage Art Studios remain at present.

The new space in Salthill allowed us to increase the facilities available to our mem ber artists, and provided us the opportu nity to expand our exhibition and event programming, as well as our education programme. In Churchfields, we now have a gallery space, project workspace, seven single-occupancy studios, a hot desk area and digital suite, small library, storage and kitchen utilities, and space to expand into printmaking facilities and a darkroom.

We have been able to expand our educa tion programme in the form of weekly chil dren’s art classes, provided by our education co-ordinator, and adult workshops run by member artists and invited facilitators. This has allowed us to establish Engage as

a resource for the community as well as a creative hub.

With this dramatic increase in supports that we can offer, we have been able to sus tain over 30 artists working in the Galway area, providing 13 physical studio spaces, and Orbital Membership to over 20 art ists, allowing them to avail of all benefits of the studios common spaces and services, including professional practice opportuni ties, talks, exhibitions and peer-based cri tiques.

It is not only the physical facilities that we offer, but the secondary supports that make Engage a vital resource for visual artists in the region. As an organisation, we aim to continually develop and grow our model as the needs of artists working and living in Galway evolve. As a cultur al hub, Galway thrives; however, the visual arts in the region need to be nurtured and supported by organisations, community, and government funding bodies. I strongly believe in the power of partnership, partic ularly through the connection of artists and networks of organisations in a small city such as Galway.

One of my aims when I was appointed as director of Engage in 2021 was to maintain good relationships with like-minded spac es, both locally and nationally, to continue to foster partnerships. Thanks to the sta bility of securing a dedicated arts premises within the city, we can now further engage with the programming of exhibitions and events in our space and in collaboration with other organisations, the many festivals in Galway, national cultural programmes, exchanges and collaborations with other studios and galleries. The collaborations we have undertaken, along with our longstand ing dedication to providing workspaces for artists, have allowed Engage Art Studios to develop into a flagship visual art facility and an essential pillar of the cultural infrastruc ture of Galway.

engageartstudios.com

Evolution of Artist-Run

Lindsay Merlihan Director, 126 Artist-Run Gallery & Studios

THE SEASON AND the time of day are indis cernible within the misty wet of anoth er grey day in Salthill. The full moon has brought hightide and you’re feeling auda cious, looking down from Blackrock Diving Tower. The wind has howled a hundred “will I, won’t I’s” but you’ve just publicly emerged from the awkward towel chrysalis of a tog change and find yourself ready to spread those wings…LEAP! Mid-air thoughts go something like: “Weeee!” and “Fuuuck!” then “Sploosh!” into the deep end.

That’s what it’s like to join an artist-run space. There’s no preparation for the plunge that leads innocent creatives into the immersion of artist-run. It’s trial by fire and explosive creativity; it’s investing oneself by means of service to the arts. It’s teamwork, growth, compromise, firefighting; it’s doing tedious admin, and experiencing moments of awe, completion and success. It’s anx ious existentialism of funding applications, and sacrificing time from one’s personal arts practice, whilst gathering the experi ence and knowledge for its success. It’s a 24-hour Whatsapp group; it’s ambitiously bringing into focus the radical, emerging arts that lie on the fringes. It’s brilliant mayhem. You can learn all about it in our book, Artist-Run Democracy: Sustaining a Model (Onomatopee Projects, 2021) edited by Jim Ricks.

126 does not operate like a normal gal lery or museum. We rely on the support of our membership programme and the efforts of a voluntary board of directors, who each serve a two-year term. The organisation, at its very foundation, is always changing. For a brief period, I have the honour of stoking the 126 fire.

In 2013, the winds of Chicago blew me into Galway with a backpack and here I am nearly ten years later. Just another blow-in who chose to stay, contributing to the ever-changing landscape of Galway. My first years were spent adjusting to the wild west, making genuine connections to some whom have come and gone. But, like the tide, my relationship to Galway has changed. The ebb of life’s waters has since withdrawn me from the town centre, and poured me into the edges of Connemara, where my Michigan-born soul is soothed

by nature and where I can (just barely) afford the rent. Engaging with this spe cial place through a mixed-media practice, informed by studies in Depth Psychology and art therapy, has certainly impacted my contribution to 126.

I am one of six directors of the current, unintentional, all-female board. I suppose that for all the boards of men that we’ve seen administrate the world, a few months of women conjuring spells in 126 won’t hurt. It is up to every new wave of direc tors to determine their values. What is the role of the gallery? What is emerging in Irish culture that needs to be seen, heard, or experienced, and who is reflecting that in their practice? How might we ethically play the role of cultural producers while awkwardly navigating our own learning experience? What matters to us and why?

By a stroke of luck, our current board share a lot of the same values in cultur al programming. This is something that anchors us. While writing our 2023 pro gramme, we discussed how the land-based rituals of our Irish ancestors contributed a meaningful culture. We discussed how might we link the ancient past to practices relevant in the digital age. We spoke about ecological biodiversity, racial inequality, threats to marginalised communities, and consequentially, the loss of a soulful life. How can we connect again to this human spectrum through the multifaceted lens of immersive arts?

In extending our view to include art forms that stimulate a wider range of sen sory activation within singular exhibitions, we began to think of the gallery as a place where polarities meet. This alchemical function of the gallery is where we centre our 2023 programme. The current director ship of 126 is here, if only for a moment in time, as a vessel for transformation, and we thank Galway for engaging in this contin uous evolution.

Exterior of 126 Artist-Run Gallery and Studios; image courtesy of 126 Artist-run Gallery and Studios.

Exterior of Engage Art Studios, Galway; image courtesy of Engage Art Studios.

New Directions

Kate Howard Galway City Council Arts Officer (acting)

GALWAY CITY COUNCIL was one of the first local authorities in the country to establish an arts office and is the key agency for the development and support of the arts in the city. Galway City Arts Office has seen some changes and developments since the retire ment of Arts Officer James C. Harrold in 2021 – a position he had held for over 20 years. Gary McMahon took over the reins in the autumn of 2021 and I joined the Arts Office team in July 2022.

My connection with Galway spans over 20 years. I have worked with many of the city’s arts organisations and communities, as producer of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts; producer of Arts in Action – a pro gramme at NUI Galway led by the late Mary McPartlan; as National Campaign for the Arts (NCFA) constituency coor dinator and steering committee member; as arts representative for the Galway City Council Strategic Policy Committee; as Cultural Producer with Galway 2020; and as a founding director of Culture Works.

Galway is a proud city. Its people and culture are a central part of the city’s identity and one of its greatest strengths. Embedded in and enveloped by its county hinterland, Galway has a rich creative scene that provides a distinctive, welcoming, and inspiring environment. The city supports a diverse range of cultural activities with a highly capable and confident arts sector. This has grown over the years in ambition, capacity, and reach, supported by the desig nation of European Capital of Culture in 2020, which was also the impetus for cre ating one of the first cultural strategies in the country.

With my knowledge of the local cultural landscape, I am acutely aware of the chal lenges and the opportunities facing the arts in Galway City. These are clearly outlined in Galway City Council’s New Directions: Strategic Plan for the Arts 2021-2026, which was adopted by the Elected Members of City Council in May 2021. This policy document (itself informed by the Cultur

al Strategy Framework, Everybody Matters 2016-2025) forms the basis for the work of the Arts Officer and Arts Development Officer. It prioritises the engagement of children and young people and supports local communities to access and partici pate in arts and culture, while recognising and supporting the innovative, collabora tive, international and world-class artists, creative individuals, and arts and culture organisations and groups.

Galway City Arts Office engages with contemporary creativity in the art forms of architecture, circus, dance, film, litera ture, music, opera, street art and spectacle, theatre, traditional arts, and visual arts. We work in practices that cross art forms to encompass venues, young people, children, education, arts and health, arts and disabil ity, socially engaged art and artist’s support. The Arts Office is active in its support of engagement, production, and dissemina tion through the medium of the Irish lan guage, recognising that both contemporary and traditional arts are key elements in the diverse culture of our city. The programmes, projects and organisational supports for arts and culture are funded by Galway City Council from its annual budget, and through funding from The Arts Council, Creative Ireland, The Department of Tour ism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, as well as from other government departments and national agencies.

I feel honored to be working with and supporting the Galway City arts commu nity, the communities they work with, and my colleagues in Galway City Council on the implementation of the Cultural Strat egy, the Arts Plan, and the fostering of Galway’s character and culture through the City Development Plan. The Arts Office recognises and understands the principles crucial to its sustainability, and it promises to support its creative citizens and commu nities into the future.

galwaycity.ie

Full Steam Ahead

Anne Marie Deacy Visual Artist

I AM A Galway-based artist and field recordist with a background in music and experimental sound making, as well as in the collective DIY subcultures that are the soul of Galway City. Just before there was any talk of a pandemic, I was awarded a bursary as part of the Galway County Arts Office 2019 Support Scheme. This support was invaluable, and the funding was used to create a sound postcard. On one side, there was an embedded 90 second field recording of church bells; the card was to be posted and played like vinyl on a record player at 45rpm.

Sound as activism is a theme that per meates the work of many sound artists, and I am no different. This sound postcard was my response to the disappearance of regional bus routes, the closing of hun dreds of post offices, churches, and pubs that are a lifeline for so many, with nothing replacing these social hubs that are steeped in connection, community and ritual. The sound postcard has since travelled to differ ent continents and gone beyond anything I could have ever imagined. When played on art radio stations, it has popped up as a social commentary on a much broader scale.

I was then selected by South African curator, Brent Meistre, for the group show ‘Broken Vessels’ in the inspirational setting of Interface as part of the Galway Interna tional Arts Festival 2021 programme. For this I made Eigentone:126.22Hz-221.23Hz (2021) – a multichannel sound installation which took inspiration from Pauline Oli veros’s listening as activism, philosophies on vibration, and sound as a tool to recal ibrate a broken humanity. The composition involved frequencies from Hans Cousto’s tuning forks, of select celestial bodies as they orbit the earth, all permeating through hanging sheets of corrugated steel.

Through this awakening process I was also introduced to the work of poet Lesego Rampolokeng, which led to a collaborative sound piece for Galway Culture Night. This

When collaborations work well, the outcomes are definitely greater than the sums of their parts. This was the case when I recently collaborated with artist Joan na McGlynn on the Galway iteration of The Eco Showboat expedition – a project involving communities, scientists and art ists, steered by the artist duo, Cleary Con nolly. Over months of research at Portumna Forest, Joanna and I developed l a n d // i n g (2022) – an ambitious series of works and walks exploring a sensory connection to place, raising questions around care and preservation.

The collaborative nature of my work and its development necessitates looking fur ther afield and, to this end, we are lucky to have such rich creative supports in Ireland. For the coming year I will be engaging with the National Sculpture Factory and The Guesthouse Project in Cork in preparation for my first major solo exhibition in Gal way’s 126 Artist-run Gallery in 2023.

This need for connection and the ide ology that art can bring about sustainable change may seem naïve, but Galway is on a new wave of makers and thinkers who, through sheer determination, are about to realise this. One of the driving forces behind that has been the appointment of Megs Morley at the Galway Arts Centre. Her recent Array Collective exhibition in the city, inspired not only conversation, but highlighted the need and power of creative, collective action. This momentum continues with the vision of the new all-female board at 126 Artist-Run Gallery and in Engage Studios’ ongoing and forward-thinking programme. It’s been badly needed, now full steam ahead. Gaillimh Abù

annemariedeacy.com

John Gerrard, Flare [Oceania], 2022, pictured at Galway Docks as part of Galway International Arts Festival 2022; photograph by Ros Kavanagh, courtesy of the artist and International Arts Festival.

has evolved into work that has since been shown as part of the Radiophrenia Festi val 2022 in CCA Glasgow, Audio Works Members show at Catalyst Arts, and per formed at The Guesthouse Project.

Anne Marie Deacy, Playing A Soundcard Of Monivea 2020, Flexidisc embossed postcard 7’’x5’’; photograph © and courtesy of the artist.

Galway: A Suburban Perspective

Hilary Morley Visual Artist

GLORIOUSLY RE-IMAGINED BY students in the 1980s, Galway, like many other places, is fighting to preserve its expressive place in the world. Flooded by culture, sponsorships and phone shops, it has no public gallery, and very few city spaces left for creative endeavour. But when you leave it, you want to get back. In some weird way Galway just ‘gets’ it. The city celebrates creative madness and cultivates the spirit.

I live in Knocknacarra, a western suburb of the city, sprawling its way up granite hills at the back of Salthill and the Barna Road. What used to be bog land, with streams and subsistence farms, is now a place where most of Galway lives.

Bachelors who farmed the land here have passed away; their houses lie empty and derelict, their fields knotted with bri ars. Far away relations draw bounty from the lucrative sales of the ‘development’ land. They don’t see little fields ravaged, the fairy trees pulled up, and the rabbit war rens buried under topsoil mountains. They never hear the persistent ‘rat-a-tat-tat’ of rock-breaking machines.

But then the new families come and a community is re-born, house after house, flat after flat. A new sort of joy. Children at play, buggies on Sunday mornings, dogs on leads, a Lidl superstore, and an Irish-speak ing school. The Atlantic remains a constant – breathing in and out, determining our colour, wielding its power – and beyond it, the purple hills of Clare.

This perspective of Galway feeds my work. I make drawings of places and build ings in charcoal and crayon. I build collages and paint in acrylic. I photograph the land scape in good times and bad. I play with photographs to create colourful digital worlds.

My collages cast a playful eye on the contrasts between the old and the new. My paintings in acrylic are detailed depic tions of everyday things; auctioneers’ signs, community buildings, builders’ huts on the site of an old farm. My aim is to provoke thought about how we treat our landscape and how the ravage of heritage is justified

by a desperate need for housing but is done with a lack of imagination and a strong hint of commercial greed.

And the little trees that cling to the hill sides and between the dry stone walls of this place capture my heart. Mostly haw thorn, with their backs to the sea, their limbs, long and ragged, stretched by saltsoaked wind. The single swoop of a build er’s digger and years of endurance are torn away along with late-spring blossoms and autumn-berry feasts.

Knocknacarra is such a contrasting, var ied place, and so too is the approach to my work. I use drawing and photography, paint and collage. Describing my methodology is tricky; I get restless if I use the same tech nique for very long.

Collaboration is also key to how I work. I have shared my ways of working through workshops – some with local transition-year students. Beyond suburban estates, we dis cover farm tracks and buildings, donkeys and wild birds. We find an empty farm house with a cast-iron bed and fireplaces; the stairway has long disappeared and ani mals now use it for shelter. We see the daf fodils in the garden and an old cart against the wall in the shed. We sit on Cnoc na Rásaí to see how past generations lapped up the atmosphere of the annual races across the vista of our city below. And then we create art, using the local paper and photo graphs, maps and place-names. The student works are surprising and thoughtful, playful and inspiring.

Their school building is large and mod ern, so I am now evolving to produce larg er-scale works. A large drawing that I made at Engage Art Studios in Salthill during their ‘Summer Weekly Showcase’ – a resi dency of sorts – shows the drama of swim ming to the 100m buoy near Blackrock, a long held personal goal. The diving plat form at the end of the prom is a distinctive landmark now, so I also feature it in newer works.

hilarymorley.com

Rainy Metropolis of Ambition

Enda Burke Visual Artist

LIVING IN GALWAY you are surrounded by water. Whether it’s the choppy Atlantic Ocean, or the pulsing River Corrib, or the on-average 232 days of relentless, gorgeous, cold, soaking rain, there’s just no way to avoid the water.

The ferocious River Corrib brings a mad kinetic energy to the city. This mixture of beauty and terror from the river and sea, combined with the heavenly but relentless rain, has an effect on the Galway psyche. As a daily swimmer, the sea really has a posi tive effect on my life and my art. My pho tographic portrait of a childhood friend and swimming companion, Deirdre by the Win dow (2021), has recently been shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize at the Nation al Gallery of Ireland. I don’t think I would have my unrequited affection for the ocean if I didn’t have Galway Bay and a healthy dose of ‘vitamin-sea’ on my doorstep.

I started off my artistic journey doing a PLC course in film at Galway Community College. I then moved to Aberdeen in Scot land to do a BA in Visual Arts at Gray’s School of Art. In my art practice I draw a lot of inspiration from Galway, predomi nately photographing friends and family who are all living here and who inspire me. Before I ventured into set design and nar rative photography, I shot street photogra phy. I am heavily inspired by elevated street scenes and the interactions I witness on the streets of Galway, which I combine with the city’s beautiful, colourful environment.

I am drawn to the strange monoto ny associated with home life, exploring humour, nostalgia, kitsch design, and colour. I am interested in portraying how small transient details of colour and play can become marvels in monotonous set tings. In order to portray these motifs through my photography, I keep a sketch book full of research, ideas and inspiration before I pick up a camera or start a photo

shoot. From time to time, my ideas come to me when I’m drifting off to sleep, so I also keep a notepad next to my bed. I scour a lot of second-hand shops, in search of interest ing props or anything that catches my eye to incorporate into the set.

I photograph both digital and film. For the more tableaux style photoshoots, I shoot digital, as it allows me to try out a variety of different compositions. I also find digital is more forgiving than film and generally more economical. I shoot my portraiture style photos with film, such as Deirdre by the Window. I like the vintage, nostalgic look film gives, and how there is no instant grat ification. Film slows me down and makes me think carefully about each frame. I also appreciate its relationship to physicality. Editing my work is my favourite part of the whole process. I treat my photographs the same way a painter would.

Recently I’ve been doing new work with my friend’s greyhound lurcher, Bobo, that I am really enjoying. I think lurchers are really beautiful and unique, but I like that he is also goofy. I would like to do a mix ture of documentary style portraiture and some tableaux style artworks with Bobo. In conjunction with this new series, I plan to shoot a lot more environmental portraiture with film at golden hour.

As previously mentioned, Galway is hailed as being a feast for the eyes. How ever, Galway is not just quaint streets. There is a whole host of talented Irish and international artists who refer to Galway as their home and muse. This city often has a reputation for being called the ‘Graveyard of Ambition’. I’m going to suggest replac ing this outdated slogan with the ‘Rainy Metropolis of Ambition’.

endaburke.com

Hilary Morley, Macnas Boy 2020, digital collage; photograph ©Soft Day Media & Hilary Morley.

Enda Burke, Deirdre by the Window, 2021, photograph; image courtesy of the artist.

Ecologies

Eco Showboat

CLEARY CONNOLLY OUTLINE THEIR RECENT TOUR OF IRISH WATER WAYS TO RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE.

THERE IS A growing awareness in environ mentalist circles that the arts community is uniquely placed to develop conversations around climate change and to generate positive creative action. We began work on the Eco Showboat project in 2019 as an arts initiative aimed at raising awareness of climate change. Our plan was to slowly tour the island’s waterways aboard a zero-car bon riverboat. We wanted to interact with local communities, work with regional art ists and bring thinkers from the scientific world to talk about local and global envi ronmental issues.

We initially received support from sev eral local authority arts offices, and even tually from Creative Ireland and the Arts Council, which allowed us to develop a significant island-wide arts project with events on waterways involving artists across the country. Our aim was to mobilise the arts community to create climate action, but we were aware that any such action needed to be based on science. An SFI Dis cover Award, along with continuous sup port from LAWPRO – the local authority waters programme – allowed us to develop and host a parallel series of scientific work shops and talks documenting biodiversity and explaining some of the issues threaten ing the freshwater environments we would be passing through.

The first challenge we faced was finding and fitting out a boat, suitable to become a zero-carbon floating arts platform. Water ways Ireland offered us a 21-year lease on a heritage barge, the 48M, which, like almost all boats on Irish waterways, was fitted with a diesel motor that we had to remove, along with all the existing wooden interior that was riddled with dry rot. It became clear to us that fitting out a 30-tonne barge as a zero-carbon arts platform was going to be a long and expensive project, not helped by the pandemic, which was slowing produc tion and forcing up prices. In 2021, to keep the arts project on programme, we invested in a smaller boat, the Mayfly, a converted yacht which we fitted out with an inboard electric motor, powered by a battery bank charged by a suspended solar array.

While work continued on the 48M in Tullamore Harbour, we launched the May fly at the Hunt Museum in Limerick on 1 May and began our Shannon-Erne expe dition, a four-month voyage across rivers, lakes and canals that would bring us as far as Enniskillen, visiting 16 ports along the way, which would host our ‘Eco-Sunday’ events – all of this using only solar power.

Navigating on a smaller boat meant that these public events needed to happen on the waterside, rather than aboard the ves sel. We set about designing and building a sculptural pop-up shelter made from repur posed beach parasols – an outdoor projec tion space to be erected rapidly, resist wind, provide shelter, channel rainwater, provide good acoustics and a comfortable setting for small group workshops. The Pango lin Pavilion, as we eventually called it, was designed and built between winter 2021 and spring 2022 at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris.

One of the objectives of this year’s expe dition is to make River Movie, a long video work exploring the beauty of the Shannon and the Erne waterways and reflecting on scientific and artistic ideas for saving this environment from everything that threat ens it today – such as pollution, invasive and endangered species, climate change, and so on.

In 2023 we are planning an extensive programme for Dublin and the east of the country, navigating the Royal and Grand Canals and the Barrow, hopefully aboard a solar powered 48M. We also want to visit towns and cities with their own waterways, sometimes unconnected with the network of rivers, lakes and canals that we call our Inland Waterways, but accessible to the Mayfly on her trailer. The future horizon of the project will involve creating a more perennial programme involving both boats and perhaps developing a more maritime international programme.

Cleary Connolly is an artist duo (Anne Cleary and Denis Connolly) working between Ireland and Paris. connolly-cleary.com

Land-made

PADRAIG CUNNINGHAM OUTLINES HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ECO SHOWBOAT SHANNON ERNE EXPEDITION AT LOUGH KEY.

LED BY THE artist duo, Cleary Connolly, the recent Eco Showboat expedition up the River Shannon, involved the vessel cutting, diving, and sloshing its way northwards, seeing where the prevailing winds (and solar power) would take art and ecology. My contribution to the project was two fold; firstly, Ephemera (2022) a sculptural collaboration with Anna Macleod which centered around the shores of Lough Key in Roscommon and the mayfly’s life cycle. Secondly, Pulse of a Stone examined the mapping of the Shannon cave system and in particular, a section called the mayfly – named by the cavers who first explored it and found mayfly in the stream deep underground.

The mayfly is seen as indicator species of the health of water. With climate crisis and increasing use of pesticides in farm ing, insect populations have dramatically decreased, with the precarious short-lived mayfly being particularly susceptible to environmental fluctuations. The Eco Show boat project’s ecological focus reflected our own concerns and allowed us to follow the mayfly’s struggle, its beauty and resilience as a symbolic paradigm.

A sculpture, consisting of an armature of gunbarrel steel that held an embroidered banner with the word ‘mayfly’, was set out in the lake. Suspended above the surface of the water, its floating and gentle movement was a nod to the insect’s mating dance. A commissioned composition by Shahab Coohe gave voice to a ‘mute-thing’ and set the tone for the film work. These three elements were brought together during the Eco Sunday event, along with a large sculp ture of a mayfly made by fifth and sixthclass schoolchildren, as part of workshops led by Anna.

‘Pulse of a Stone’ brought me to a cave close to the source of the River Shannon itself. The cave entrance is in County Fer managh but crosses the border underground and is mostly located in County Cavan, where it was discovered in 1980 by Ferman

agh-based cavers, the Reyfad Group. One of the members, Rev George Pitt became trapped after a collapse in one of the tight passages. A major rescue attempt ensued, and he was released after ten hours (and the composition of many sermons). After another collapse in 1995, this section was deemed too dangerous to explore. The sub terranean world delves beneath cartograph ic structures, a landscape of another sort and time, where geological forces stretch to unthinkable duration. One intuits a deeper time, suggesting that we are embedded in and of duration – not only man-made, but land-made

One of the sculptures is titled Aven (2022) after a piece of mapping software used to interpret data from cave surveys. Once the data has been inputted to Aven, it creates a simplified 3D model or visuali sation of the cave. The sculpture focused on the model of Shannon cave and the Mayfly section, which consists of 96 vertical paint ed rods corresponding to the ‘stations’ of the cave coordinates.

Exploring the Shannon cave itself requires experience beyond my abilities; however, I ventured to some of the sur rounding caves. One of the cavers described the physicality of caving as a “proper work out… like yoga with rocks”, which makes one aware of flesh against cold stone. In a narrow passage, there is the paradox of feel ing cocooned and safe, while aware of the great mass and weight above you. The three sculptures Fold 1, 2 and 3 (2022) embody these forces. Made from sheet metal that has been crushed with a large crane grab ber, the works have a contrast of weight and lightness. Despite their strength, they have an ephemeral quality, as if they are in motion – a fluid presence, a mobile cutout in the land.

Padraig Cunningham is an artist based in County Roscommon. padraigcunningham.com

Padraig Cunningham and Anna Macleod, Ephemera, installation in Lough Key, 31 July 2022, Eco Showboat Shannon Erne Expedition; photograph courtesy the artists.

The Mayfly pontoon, Eco Showboat Shannon Erne Expedition, July 2022; photograph courtesy Connolly Cleary.

Mesocosm

CHRISTINE MACKEY ASSEMBLES A GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS PERTI NENT TO HER ECO SHOWBOAT RESEARCH PROJECT.

MESOCOSM: ‘medium worlds’

FROM THE GREEK meso (which translates as ‘medium’) and cosm (meaning ‘world’). These medium worlds consist of living components (such as plants, animals, bac teria) and non-human components (like water, rocks, and sand). In a scientific con text, a mesocosm is a “bounded and partial ly enclosed outdoor experiment to bridge the gap between the laboratory and the real world in environmental science.”1

This ‘middle’ term is useful in outlining the parameters of my recent research proj ect, ‘Mesocosm’, and its iterative parts. It involves growing out an experimental eco system closest to the real world that has the capacity to change and adapt according to the material conditions of the landscape, the sites, and its embodied biological struc ture.

AGERE: ‘to set into motion’

The lineage of this project came through a long-term engagement in working with plants, as well as the saving and public dis tribution of seeds. For Eco Showboat I was interested in working with the capacity of plants as indicators of climate change. How they can harvest pollutants from soil and water systems, and heal and nurture dam aged planetary systems, motivated my prac tice into new forms of cultivation with and for the plants.

ARCHEIN: ‘to begin’

Some basic research on the history of floating islands and artificial wetlands –and how artists have contemporised these forms – steered the project towards mul timodal structures. These ranged from chi nampas – artificial floating islands invented by the Aztec civilization – and crannogs in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, which were generally built on lakes and estuaries, to an edible farm on a reclaimed barge by artist Mary Mattingly.

QUAERO: ‘to seek out’

Researching current scientific develop ments in this area of floating wetlands and various forms revealed that the majority, constructed from polyethylene (PE) and polyvinyl foam, eventually degrade and leak pollutants into the water systems.

MATER: ‘to work out stuff’

So what was the alternative to plastic? Dai ly walks around the edge of Glenade Lake drew my attention to an abundance of

mainly willow and reeds. Joe Hogan’s book, Basketmaking in Ireland (Wordwell, 2001), outlines different types of folk structures woven in Ireland. Here the potato skib or ciseog became a form to be reimaged within the constraints of this project. These tradi tional baskets were used to strain and serve potatoes, or in some cases, were upturned and used in place of a table as a communal serving plate for all to eat from. I attended a series of workshops with Ciaran Hogan, learning the basics of willow weaving, in order to construct a series of large-scale cir cular forms – the ‘mother’ baskets.

SOCIUS: ‘to invite in’

Through the Creative Leitrim arts pro gramme, I engaged willow weaver Helena Golden and several artist members of the Corryeolus Women’s Group. Together we wove a series of smaller ‘daughter’ baskets that were structurally linked to the ‘mother’.

CÓLÓ: ‘to cultivate a space’

These temporary islands are currently afloat on Blackrock Pond, where they will attract and provide an alternative habitat for multi ple land and water species. These structures can work in several ways: as bioremediators to purify water; or as nesting stations for other species to rest in and take root. They can become safe shelters for other species due to habitat loss and change for flora and fauna. Comprising complex and unique habitats specific to communities and plac es, this project draws attention to how vul nerable our world is, and how we humans impact negatively on these systems; howev er, it also highlights creative potential that we can act on.2

Christine Mackey is an artist based in North Leitrim, whose research-based practice is rooted in environmental concerns and meaningful participa tion across complex climatic issues iterated through a range of site-spe cific socially engaged contexts pur sued through the subject of the seed and the agency of plant matter. christinemackey.info

1 Eugene P. Odum, ‘The Mesocosm’, BioScience, 34 (9), Oxford University Press, October 1984, pp 558-562.

2 I will be advancing the installation capabilities of ‘Mesocosm’ at INTERFACE this Autumn, as part of an ongoing residency programme, ‘Woodland & Ecology’.

Christine Mackey, launch of ‘Mesocosm’, 4 August 2022; photograph by Cían Flynn, courtesy the artist and Eco Showboat.

Denis Connolly and Anne Cleary onboard the Mayfly, Eco Showboat Shannon Erne Expedition, August 2022; photo graph courtesy Connolly Cleary.

Pangolin Pavilion, ‘Slow Looking’ workshops, Acres Lake, Eco Showboat Shannon Erne Expedition, August 2022; photograph courtesy Connolly Cleary.

Christine Mackey, launch of ‘Mesocosm’, 4 August 2022; photograph © and courtesy the artist.

The Story of Art Without Men

Katy Hessel

Hutchinson Heinemann, 2022, 520 pp.

“Men put me down as the best woman painter. I think I’m one of the best painters” – Georgia O’Keeffe

THE STORY OF Art Without Men by Katy Hessel is the first comprehensive account of women’s contributions to visual cul ture, presented in geographical totality and across history. Why do we need to know about the contributions that women artists have made to the practice and the history of art, and why should these contributions require re-evaluation, re-assessment and re-assertion today? The publication follows the life and work of trailblazing women art ists across culture in general, and the visual arts and visual culture specifically. The read er is taken on a comprehensive, well-re searched, enjoyable, and accessible journey through the story of art, in which women have played critically important roles, yet have been largely overlooked.

The idea for the book came when Hes sel attended an international art fair, where she discovered a poor representation of women artists. Clearly a dynamic and ver satile curator, researcher and ‘doer’, Hessel set out to address the under-representa tion of women in art history by creating a popular Instagram platform that she called thegreatwomenartists; its popularity grew fast and today it boasts 292k followers. Whilst regularly writing about great wom en artists in her blog, Hessel began develop ing ideas for The Story of Art Without Men, which was launched on 6 September at the Victoria Miro gallery in London, alongside an excellent exhibition, curated by Hessel, of selected works by leading artists fea tured in the book. This exhibition presented paintings by Tracey Emin, Celia Paul, Flora Yukhnovich, photography by Khadija Saye, collages by Wangechi Mutu and Deborah Roberts, and multi-media works by Njide ka Akunyili Crosby and Sarah Sze, among others.

Hessel’s book attempts to address the great gender imbalance in the history of art, charting 500 years and spanning from the Renaissance to the present day. Written as an exciting, accessible, and often personal narrative, the publication is a compendium of research, perhaps originating from Hes sel’s work as a columnist, researcher and art blogger in recent years. Apart from offering a comprehensive encyclopaedia of women artists and their work, Hessel’s book also manages to pose urgent questions.

Whilst challenging the male gaze and patriarchal narratives – known to intention ally omit, un-write, delete or mask women’s global contributions to art and culture – the book also strives to empower current and future generations of women artists, not only by giving them a long overdue place in history, but by writing about them from a female perspective. By giving voice to those who have been made voiceless, and more over, by sharing her own relationships with her heroes, through in-depth conversations with the artists, the author makes her own

voice clearly heard.

These sections of the book – where Hes sel’s excitement, admiration, even awe in the presence of great works by women artists –are the most tangible and illuminating. This personal involvement explains the more conversational and less academic style of writing that Hessel adopts, especially in the sections on contemporary women artists who are creating astonishing work today, many of whom the author knows person ally. However, the publication has certain weaknesses. For example, it may have given more weight to the Soviet Avant-garde, the only twentieth-century political and artis tic movement that treated male and female artists with absolute equality; the minimal two-page contribution feels incomplete.

Hessel makes sure we hear her voice in the first person throughout this book. For example, in the chapter entitled ‘The Body’, Hessel writes as if she is narrating in a curious, playful, enthusiastic, and infec tious way. In fact, the reader feels present – virtually in the room with Hessel and her subjects – almost listening into that conver sation and becoming part of the dialogue. This is especially apparent in the chap ters dedicated to the living women artists whom Hessel has, more often than not, met in person, interviewed for her podcast, or written about. The style of Hessel’s writing is consistent throughout the book. Whether talking about historic figures like Artemisia Gentileschi and Elisabetta Sirani, Tamara de Lempicka or Anni Albers, the reader feels her emotional connection, personal commitment, and unequivocal investment in her subjects and their work.

Hessel’s book is complemented by a series of comprehensive interviews with art ists, curators, and art activists, and present ed as a series of podcasts, in which Hessel acts as both content creator and interview er. Listening to the podcasts, dedicated to some of the living women artists featured in Hessel’s book, is a highly rewarding experi ence, as readers can hear their actual voices, thus bringing us even closer to their vitality, urgency, and importance.

Varvara Keidan Shavrova is a visu al artist, curator, educator and researcher. She is currently a PhD Candidate at the Royal College of Art. Born in the USSR, she lives and works between London, Dublin, and Berlin. Shavrova will present her research at the IMMA international research con ference, ‘100 Years of Self Determina tion’ (9-12 November).

varvarashavrova.com

Katy Hessel, The Story of Art Without Men 2022, front cover; image courtesy the author and Hutchinson Heinemann.

Katy Hessel; photograph by Luke Fullalove, courtesy the author and Hutchinson Heine mann.

Critique

Eleanor McCaughey, Learning to smell the smoke, 2022, mixed-media installation; photograph by Ros Kavanagh, courtesy the artist and Hugh Lane Gallery.

Critique

THE INTERGENERATIONAL GROUP exhibition, ‘Bones in the Attic’, at the Hugh Lane Gallery, offers intrigu ing opportunities to explore the recurring and ongo ing oppressions faced by women. Issues such as bodily autonomy, gender-based violence, misogyny, sexism, and ageism are at the forefront of the exhibition. Curated by Victoria Evans, this exhibition brings together works from the Hugh Lane collection and by invited artists; it features works by Sarah Jayne Booth, Myrid Carten, Dorothy Cross, Amanda Doran, Rita Duffy, Jesse Jones, Alice Maher, Eleanor McCaughey, Na Cailleacha (Helen Comerford, Barbara Freeman, Patricia Hurl, Catherine Marshall, Carole Nelson, Rachel Parry, Gerda Teljeur, Therry Rudin), Kathy Prendergast, and Ruby Wallis.

Works in the exhibition turn to archetypal and female figures who do not fit easily into the roles available for women in a patriarchal society. Jesse Jones’s photo col lage Though Shalt Not Suffer (2019) sets a Sheela-naGig mandala against a black background, summoning a space for the power of the sacred feminine. Objects from the Tremble, Tremble (2017) archive, presented in a glass vitrine, evoke how women’s embodied knowl edge might subvert patriarchal law. Three larger-thanlife photographs from Ruby Wallis’s ongoing series A Woman Walks Alone at Night, With a Camera, document experiential walks through the urban landscape, dis puting the misogynistic societal expectation that wom en bear responsibility for the potential harms they may encounter, unaccompanied after dark. Elsewhere, Dor othy Cross’s ambiguous and troubling Shark Lady in a Balldress (1988) is brought into dialogue with Glaoch na Caillí (The Hag’s Call) by Irish language poet Ceaití Ní Bheildiúin.

A famous poster by the Guerrilla Girls, The Advan tages of Being a Woman Artist (1988), inspired Na Cail leacha – an art collective of eight older women – to develop the witty statement, The Advantages of Being a Cailleach Artist, which recognises women’s political agency and calls out the inequalities that ageing and older women face. Their Child’s Play (2021) rag dolls, presented in situ and as black and white photographs

documenting their placement in the Irish landscape in the Irish landscape, address tropes of Irish womanhood while commenting on the untapped power and knowl edge of ageing women in contemporary society.

Recalling the dancehall etiquette of earlier genera tions, Kathy Prendergast’s Waiting (1980) is an obser vation of societal expectations of women’s inherent passivity. Myrid Carten’s moving image work, Sorrow had a baby (2021), with home-movie footage, family photographs, and an ongoing dialogue between mother and daughter, examines how a complicated relationship with the maternal figure and wider societal standards impact the development of a young woman’s sense of self. Watching a poignant pretend beauty pageant, one wonders at the futures that exist for pre-teen girls beyond societal constructs. Alice Maher’s etchings from ‘The Conversation’ explore imaginary worlds and childhood curiosities, centring on the often-invisible figure of the young girl. In Swarm (1994) a girl faces a dress of buzzing bees. Does she understand this as a warning or a challenge? A dancing girl with wild hair in Big Shoe (1994) is oblivious to the oppressive shoe looming overhead, or perhaps she dances in defiance.

Sarah Jayne Booth’s multi-media installation work (for) All Our Grievous Doings (2022) is a dangerous domestic interior. A long, thin cactus protruding from the middle of a plush, red velvet telephone seat or ‘gos sip bench’, alludes to the potential repercussions for disclosing that which happens inside this home. Across an expanse of gold carpet, a medusa-like assemblage stands over a white animal skull like a warning. Cher ished porcelain collectibles atop small wall shelves reveal miniscule subversions. A mother distracted ly holds her child while engrossed in Marie Stopes’s Married Love (1918, Fifield & Co), a book banned in Ireland at the time for its birth control references, while nearby a young girl shoulders her burden, composed of two bunches of penises. There is no reprieve to be found in Rita Duffy’s perilous Sofa (1997). The hairpins protruding through its waxy, rust-coloured skin render it a proxy for body hair, portraying the potential of the female body to provoke disgust. The relational quality

between the abstract framed work with figurative ele ments in Eleanor McCaughey’s Learning to smell the smoke (2022) and the sculptural installation opposite – comprising large swathes of fabrics with drawings, light and sound transcending the two-dimensional –encourages one to delve into the interiority of the work and contemplate embodiment. With vibrant colours and thick brushstrokes, Amanda Doran’s paintings depict body-positive femininities that challenge pre scriptive gender stereotypes. The powerful four-armed, four-breasted woman in God is a Woman (2018), gives birth while her arms occupy themselves with care duties. On a circular canvas, Doran’s Self-Soothing (2021), a mouth inside a mouth, voices an inner self, radiating a certain pleasure of being able to speak frankly.

Ambitious in its remit, ‘Bones in the Attic’ draws important interconnections between the recurring ‘oth ering’ of women in historical and contemporary Irish society. If one of its aims is to stimulate ideas about ‘safeguarding the future of feminism for all’, then rep resentation matters (hughlane.ie). While this exhibi tion is a non-exhaustive point of departure, an inclu sive future of feminism, drawn from women’s plural experiences in contemporary Irish society, cannot be imagined if we do not also recognise vital cross-cutting issues. Not all inequalities are distributed evenly, and to that extent, the inclusion of artists from underrepre sented cultural or ethnic minority backgrounds would have been welcome, to further nuance the different barriers women face in Irish society. No woman is free until all women are free, and given the current interna tional socio-political climate, now is not the time for complacency.

Dr Kate Antosik-Parsons is a contemporary art historian who writes about gender, sexuality, and the body. She is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin on a cross-border project researching reproductive citizenship on the island of Ireland. kateap.com

‘Bones in the Attic’ Hugh Lane Gallery

August

2022

[L-R]: Gerda Teljeur, Childs Play 1 Maedhbh

2021, cotton bedsheets, cotton stuffing, coloured cotton thread, handmade jewellery, chair; Amanda Doran, Selected paintings, 2014-2021, oil on canvas; photograph by Ros Kavanagh, courtesy the artists and Hugh Lane Gallery.

Sarah Jayne Booth, (for) All Our Grievous Doings, 2022, multi-media installation; photo graph by Ros Kavanagh, courtesy the artist and Hugh Lane Gallery.

THE FRENCH TERM mise en scéne is most often associated with cinemaphotography, referring to whatever is pur posefully placed – sets, props, actors, and so on – before the film camera. It’s a term dedicated to the artifice of appearance, and the ways in which the world might be organised to tell a story. As a title for this exhibition of 16 oil paintings – with individual titles like Display, Collection, and Museum – it could refer to the situation of these objects within the distinctive gallery setting, as much as to the interior spaces depicted within the paintings themselves.

Occupying a former Catholic church, the Highlanes Gallery retains a sanctuary at one end, with ornate carvings and two light-lofting angels intact. There are corresponding figures within Jordan’s canvases, carved and cast intermediaries in silent communion. This pre ponderance of inanimate figures, alongside the inev itable anachronisms of historical display, made me think of Jean Cocteau’s, Orphée (1950), a film whose half-dead ciphers reprise the myth of Orpheus in postwar Paris.1 The film’s atmosphere of tainted innocence, of seemingly benign surfaces haunted by death, finds many parallels in the studied equanimity of Jordan’s careful compositions. In one memorable scene from the film, Jean Marais (playing Orpheus) dons rubber gloves to walk through a mirror and into the afterlife. Like the painter, he reaches beyond the seen world, but only so he can come back to it.

Jordan paints from her own photographs, taken, for the most part, in unidentified galleries and museums. Fixed in time, a photograph calls back to us from an increasingly distant past. Working within this poi gnant register, her recent paintings give account of how objects are gathered, preserved and re-presented, using recording and painterly methods that are themselves examples of these processes. Consider a painting like Collection IV (2022), a medium-sized work showing an oblique view of antiquities lined up against a wainscot ed wall. At the centre of the wall, the loose folds of a heavy tapestry echo the cloak draping the outstretched arm of the Apollo Belvedere, standing before it. Not the real ‘Apollo’, but a smaller copy which, along with other ancient figures, makes up a cast of pale charac ters in the room. This deftly painted scene is thick with allusions to different materials and epochs, and most especially, to the enduring value of the hand. It’s how each of these objects was fashioned, not least, the hand made artifact of the painting itself.

In a further complication, the plinth supporting Apollo is painted to resemble marble, and this illusion of grandeur is redoubled by Jordan’s subsequent ren dering. In touching the surface of the linen support – and by reaching beyond it – the painter references numerous ideas of tactility. Though seemingly innoc uous in their period setting, these figures enact a quiet frisson of touching. We might say they are aroused by light – and the artist has gorgeous control of this – but caught, like Orpheus, between two worlds, between warm-blooded life and what Rainer Maria Rilke calls, “the strange unfathomed mine of souls.”2

Not directly represented in the paintings, the human figure appears by proxy, both as sculptural form and within the material traces of the paintings themselves. Jordan’s world is sensuous, but archaic; tactile, yet untouchable. Display 1 (2021) shows a life-sized statue of a figure hugging a cloak around herself. Though not named, for me, she is Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus, and like her, vulnerable to the overly determined gaze. In Rilke’s poem, Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes (1907), as Eurydice is halted along the path from the under world and guided to go back, her cloak envelopes her completely, becoming an unambiguous shroud. In the painting, whether by happenstance or deliberate irony, the paused figure is surrounded by exit signs.

Jordan paints thinly. The brushmark is visible, but discreet, with little sign of revision or overworking. In

Anatomy Room V (2022) the ghostly presence is more visceral – discreetly sheeted bundles within the gently modulating whites and greys. Here and there, the cool palette is punctuated by yellow, the buckets and bins indispensable to the anatomist’s trade. The columns in the painting play peek-a-boo with the support ing columns in the gallery. There are similar, pleasing correspondences throughout. Intelligently curated by Margarita Cappock, this presentation of the paintings brings their inner worlds and outer surroundings to life.

John Graham is an artist based in Dublin.

‘Mise en Scéne, Part I’ was presented at Highlanes Gallery, while ‘Mise en Scéne, Part II’

continues at Crawford Art Gallery (9 September – 4 December).

highlanes.ie

1 Jean Cocteau, Orphée, 1950, black and white film, 95 mins.

2 Rainer Maria Rilke, Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes, first published in New Poems: First Part (Leipzig: Insel, 1907); quote from trans. J.P. Leishman, Selected Poems (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964).

Eithne Jordan, ‘Mise en Scéne, Part I’ Highlanes Gallery

Eithne Jordan, Museum XXV 2020, oil on linen; photograph courtesy of artist and Highlanes Gallery.

Eithne Jordan, ‘Mise en scène: Part I’, installation view, Highlanes Gallery; photograph by Eugene Langan courtesy the artist and Highlanes Gallery.

Critique

O, to have a little house!

To own the hearth and stool and all!

The heaped up sods upon the fire, The pile of turf against the wall!

LOCATION IS EVERYTHING for Michelle Malone’s first solo exhibition. Her multi disciplinary practice draws on her own per sonal experiences and those of her extend ed family, growing up in social housing in Dublin’s inner-city. The LAB is tucked away behind Talbot Street in the historic heart of the city, its modern custom-built gallery space a sharp contrast to the old Georgian Quarter where the tenements once stood. Turning the corner, passers-by are ambushed by a large cut-out of a famil iar statue. It is a representation on a grand scale of the Child of Prague – a religious icon traditionally put outside by Irish mothers for good luck and sunshine on wedding days. The colour and absurd size echo the appearance of a shop window dis play, but the sturdy plywood cut-out holds a poignant sense of human absence that sub verts any advertising potential.

Malone’s installation in the main gal lery space is angled towards the enormous windows and is presented to the public in the form of two ‘rooms’. The ‘good room’ is complete with a familiar 1970s carpet with a pattern of brown swirly leaves; there is a staircase with the same carpet, while a large tapestry of a domestic interior hangs on the wall. The ‘garden room’ contains a matching tapestry and newly dug soil, suggesting the possibilities of a garden or vegetable plot. A pile of neatly folded tea towels sits on a cosy wooden chair. The optimum view from the street outside brings to mind a stage set for a Seán O’Casey play.

Upon entering the gallery, visitors walk around the installation as the ‘rooms’ have their back to the white walls, and seemingly force us to almost press against the win dows or walk across the freshly laid carpet. This smell evokes strong memories of the excitement of moving house. A woman’s voice recites the poem An Old Woman of the

Roads by Padraic Colum, evocative of fam ily parties, where everyone prepared a ‘party piece’ to entertain relatives and friends.

In a witty refusal of the white cube, the upstairs gallery space has floor-to-ceil ing white net curtains. This traditionally gendered domestic space shows pride in a new home, through the carefully chosen furniture, the chair and the dresser with matching blue and white delftware. Visi tors discover that the installation is in fact a personal interrogation of home. The artist’s grandmother moved from the tenements to the inner-city flats and eventually to her own home in Finglas. The artist found photographs in her grandmother’s archive of the interior of the new house. In a clev er appropriation, Malone has reproduced these photographs as tapestries.

The focal point of the exhibition is the staircase. In the tenements, where large families often shared one room, the stair case was an important place to have pri vate conversations. This habit of sitting on the stairs to chat is central to the action in Malone’s installation. A sense of com munity through suggested conversation is inherent in the staircase, emphasising the disenfranchised voice. Here, the women do all the talking.

The back gallery space screens an RTÉ documentary about the move from Dublin’s tenements into the suburbs. A young wom an with a buggy is pleased that her children sleep much better in the peaceful suburbs. According to the exhibition press release, Malone aims to “enter authentic work ing-class symbolism into the (artistic) can on” (dublincityartsoffice.ie). Indeed, we find plenty of symbolism here, from the mate riality of the swirling carpets to the giant Child of Prague. By including personal nar ratives, Malone goes beyond stereotypes of the witty working-class Dubliner (courtesy of writers like Roddy Doyle) to bring an intimate and embodied understanding of the working-class experience to new audi ences.

Beatrice O’Connell is a multidisci plinary artist based in Dublin.

Michelle Malone, ‘O, to have a little house’ The LAB Gallery

September – 5 November 2022

– Padraic Colum, An Old Woman of the Roads

All images: ‘O, to have a little house’, installation view, The LAB Gallery, October 2022; photography by Louis Haugh courtesy of the artist and The LAB Gallery.

IN 2017, CAOIMHE McGuckin graduated from NCAD, and in 2019 she received Kildare County Council Arts Service and Riverbank Arts Centre’s Emerging Visual Artist Bursary Award. This September saw the open ing of her first solo show, presenting a series of 40 art works on the theme of measurement – though the year in which each artwork was made was not disclosed. Whilst disabling any chronological reading of her practice, careful and at times delicate installation sug gests that this was a deliberate sidestep. The exhibition statement refers to the intervening years (including the Covid-19 pandemic) as an inspiration, with measure ment serving as an “ordering principle […] in the face of uncertainty and powerlessness”, out of which the artist sought to construct her own “personal system of measurement as filtered through an imperfect metric”. An accompanying text offers individual descrip tions for this body of work, pointing to historical eras as diverse as twelfth-century Europe, pre-Christian Ireland, and pre-Islamic Middle Eastern trade routes, while exploring size, weight, length, and various sup positions made between the body and its relationship to the material world. With all of the works situated in one room – from handcrafted and repurposed objects, to castings, dioramas, and looped screening – one is never too far from curious allegory. The source of each work is the rich heritage of human invention. Whether ancient, academic, or folk in nature, these roots offer added dimension to McGuckin’s work, as they do to

the human story.

As standardisation of measurement arose from trade, forming the basis of agreements and cultural exchange, power predictably remained with those who set the scales. In King’s Reach for example, we learn that a yard is the measure of King Henry VIII, from his nose to his outstretched hand. A disembodied plaster cast nose, linked to a thimble by a simple chain, ably illustrates the tale. Knowing the king first-hand would appear to provide a category of proof in all matters where the yard measure was applied. With calculations related to trade and land tax settled in this way, clergy and noble men gained particular advantage over lower subjects, who could only trust what they were told.

Comprising distinct and evolving practices, rang ing from the exact, but no less poetic, to the practical and irreverent, ‘Fathom’ assembles a picture of people in dialogue with the world as they find it. So, while we learn of a group of twentieth-century Harvard students employing one of their fellows to measure a public bridge, we are also told how 12 thumb lengths was the size of an Irishman’s ‘foot’, and how a ‘geansaí load’ is the number of apples that can be secreted away in an upturned jumper. Presumably none of these are conceived with trade in mind, language and discourse serving instead to fix their anecdotal method into living use.

Throughout the work, linguistic markers appear as starting points, from which the artist has made devic

es suited to her own needs. McGuckin’s works present a visual language whose character is often personal, as outlined in Blink of an Eye and Crow’s Feet, A Privi lege – each common language terms for the appearance of time. Where the former is represented through a grandfather clock, whose face has been replaced with mirrored glass, the latter repurposes a fishing net to function as a wall hanging, upon which cards and enve lopes are attached. Encountered through reflection and memory alike, the personal is re-established in forms that evoke trust. Through a daughter’s closed eyes, pho tographed and placed to meet the viewer’s gaze from behind glass, or the close friend whose laughter lines did not have long enough to develop, the passing of time appears as an elusive but inescapable fixture of life.

The ancient Greek mathematician, Euclid, postulat ed that a straight line can be drawn between any two points. Although not directly referred to, this expres sion shadows McGuckin’s Unreliable Rulers. While space may be linear, experience is less so. With numbers replaced by emoji transfers, the line drawn between ‘happy face’ and ‘sad face’ seems to playfully mock our attempts to measure emotion. Altogether, ‘Fathom’ is a kind of wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities; it shows how measurement connects, but also why it is connection and not measurement that we ultimately seek.

Darren Caffrey is an artist based in Kilkenny.

Caoimhe McGuckin, ‘Fathom’ Riverbank Arts Centre, Newbridge 9 September – 28 October

Caoimhe McGuckin, Blink of an eye 2022, Grandfather clock, treated mirror, image, tags, negatives; photograph by Brian Cregan, courtesy of Caoimhe McGuckin and Riverbank Arts Centre.

Caoimhe McGuckin, Rate of knots, 2022, Riverbank Arts Centre, September 2022; photograph by Brian Cregan, courtesy of Caoimhe McGuckin and Riverbank Arts Centre.

Caoimhe McGuckin, The wind out of your sails 2022, wood, aluminium, silk, small accordion book; photograph by Brian Cregan, courtesy of Caoimhe McGuckin and Riverbank Arts Centre.

Critique

THE GROUP EXHIBITION, ‘Braid’, is a col laboration between four artists, developed during the Covid-19 lockdown. Samir Mahmood, John MacMonagle, Edith O’Regan, and Amna Walayat all live in Ireland but have different cultural back grounds. South Asian aesthetics are blend ed here with a western visual lexicon, and this activates the space in unsettling ways. There is solidarity and friendship in the enterprise, made palpable by the common theme of loss, which is felt and treated dif ferently by all.

Amna Walayat shows three self-por traits in the style of modern neo-miniature – a traditional Pakistani painting practice1 revivified by modern artists, who eschew historical rules to fabricate their own nar ratives. In Self-portrait with Lock, a veiled Amna in profile holds a tiny padlock; her wrist is tethered by a ribbon that drifts out of the picture frame. In Building a Home With Thread, Amna is in a sumptuous setting, but is enmeshed in a cat’s cradle of thread, sug gesting domestic entrapment. In the final portrait, Amna has a luxurious moustache, no veil, but holds up a long, sharp, thread ed needle. Standing back from the work, it is clear that the threads have significance – they expand each painting into three glass jars of formaldehyde that lie beneath the works and below the normal line of sight. The result is disconcerting. What is lost here, and what is preserved? Walayat’s work is about gender, race, tradition, migra tion, identity and belonging. By employing self-portraiture and triangulating between herself, the frame, and the symbolic objects that she holds, she is foregrounding the loss of agency felt by minor categories in every culture, conjuring a model of cross-cultur al empathy. These paintings are intriguing, arresting, and exquisite.

Edith O’Regan utilises gold leaf, gold wax, gold, dyed thread, and blown glass. Her visual language is abstract and spare – a contraposition to the neo-miniature style. Like Walayat, she has made a cage of thread. See how the unknown merges into the known, is a wooden, hand-dyed indigo silk and gold thread sculpture. The artist’s inten tion is to document and to invoke memory. She is interested in the unconscious human mind and how this affects perception. In On a day when the wind is perfect, she echoes some of the decoration of neo-miniature by inscribing personal symbolic markings onto a gold circle, thus thrusting the viewer into a state between reading and looking, there by transcending the limits of convention al language. The work conveys something ineffable. Final Breaths (a requiem) is com prised of 22 suspended blown glass orbs. The amount of air in each orb correlates to the quantity of air in a human breath. This commemorates the last breath of 22 health care workers who sadly died as a result of Covid-19.

Samir Mahmood is a multidisciplinary artist who exhibits digital collages, and art works that incorporate photographs into Indo-Persian miniature painting through acrylic image transfer. Using traditional methods on panel and canvas, the paint ings are full of symbolic motifs. The result is complex and intriguing but also incen

diary. The subject of the queer male body would never have been acknowledged in traditional miniatures, and so this work calls out the broken narratives of patriar chal and homophobic societies. It mourns the resulting loss of agency and personal sovereignty. It critiques cultural, legal, and moral fictions, and yet the work is sumptu ous and beautifully crafted – these images are objects of contemplation and objects of desire.

John MacMonagle’s mixed-media sculp ture and paintings invoke the tree from Waiting for Godot, which symbolises a world that is meaningless. This is existential nihil ism – a painful feeling familiar to anyone who lost a loved one in a care home or hos pital during the pandemic. MacMonagle works in acrylic on canvas and paper; his marks are broad sure lines made with a thick scratchy brush, very different to the tiny brushes of miniature painting. He repeats the same imagery in the same colourways and style, evoking repetitive prayers – three small black plastic bags tied with red rib bons, the sum of a life. MacMonagle seems to support a defiant and important voice: power is illusory in the face of a pandemic.

Jennifer Redmond is an artist and writer based in Cork.

1 Miniature painting is characterised by tea staining and layering of colour and gold, methodically applied to handmade wasli paper. The colours are luxuriant, the work is highly decorated, and lines are made with pur pose and meditation.

‘Braid’ Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, Cork September – 1 October 2022

Samir Mahmood, Ewer Issues, 2022 [detail] image transfer on panels, acrylic paint, crinoline tubing; photograph by the artist, courtesy Sample Studios.

Amna Walayat, Self-Portrait as Bride 2, 2022 [detail] 24 gold, tea wash, pencil, watercolour, gouache, neem rung (half tone), thread, on wasli paper; photograph by the artist, courtesy Sample Studios.

John MacMonagle, Three Bags On a Beckett Tree 2022, mixed-media sculpture; pho tograph by Sinéad Barrett, courtesy the artist and Sample Studios.

Unseen

Nick Miller: I’m starting with a simple question: what does the title of the recent show ‘UNSEEN’ mean for you?

Philip Moss: I suppose it has meaning on a number of levels: firstly that I feel that people don’t really know my work and that I’ve remained hidden from the art world because of 30 years living and working in Donegal; and secondly that it refers to experienc es, particularly childhood experiences, that I have never publicly addressed before, that are referenced in some of the works.

NM: You have described yourself definitively as a conceptual art ist who paints, and that the idea that comes to you is the most vital moment of the creative process, envisioning a work in intensely awake periods of night-time thinking.

PM: I think that used to be more of the case, and that like Francis Bacon described, an image would drop into your brain like a slide into a projector. These days however, the idea forms the seed of the painting rather than the finished image, otherwise the process of painting would become somewhat tedious, as I’d be leaving noth ing to chance. I have always been a planner and tended to work in series. I can tell you now that the next two subjects that are fixating me are Kate Bush’s album, Aerial, and views from behind, of char acters from literature. I already have my next show planned out.

NM: I’m trying to tease out some contradictions I find between you as a conceptual artist/painter but also as somebody who ener gises paint and material with some deeply visceral responses to the world – and that for me is definitely not an ‘idea’.

PM: I think that there has always been an element of the political in my work and, in order for that to happen, there has to be an idea – so whether it’s an atrocity or injustice that I feel the need

Philip Moss, ‘Unseen’, installation view, Regional Cultural Centre; photograph by Eugene McGinty, courtesy the artist and RCC.

NICK MILLER INTERVIEWS PHILIP MOSS ABOUT HIS PAINTING PRACTICE AND RECENT EXHIBITION AT RCC.

to record or address, that is the beginning. But I find the actual physical nature of putting paint on canvas incredibly exciting and I can guarantee that if you see me in a gallery, I’m going to be close to the painted sur face looking at the individual strokes an artist makes. In my case, I had to use DIY fillers in works like Oestro gen (2021) because I ran out of paint during Covid, an example of what I would describe as a lucky accident. So yeah, I mean what actually keeps me painting is the joyous process of applying any material to the canvas.

NM: Yes, even in Lullaby (2020), that is so conceptual in its use of the bed headboard, text and colour, it just opens the door for me; after that, it is the materiality and presence that transfixes.

PM: The headboard wasn’t really brutal enough, com pared to the one I actually remember from hospital; it was quite delicate, but I wanted to have something there that would not repel you – to kind of drag you in with beauty. I think I surprised myself seeing my own show, particularly how I was able to use colour and whatever material to do that – to draw you in, even if the idea or ‘subject’ might possibly be uncomfortable.

NM: I wonder how you understand the relationship between your very highly developed ‘realist’ painting skills and your stated lack of excitement in conven tional painting. I guess you could probably have had a comfortable career as a more traditional painter?

PM: Well, to drop back into realism is my default set ting. Occasionally I use it, and invariably it’s for the wrong reasons. I have a modest collection of other peo ple’s work and I can’t think of one painting that is real istic. I am much more drawn to artists like Philip Gus ton or Rose Wylie, who just look like they’re having fun in the studio. You have to ask, who are you painting for?

NM: So along with maybe being ‘unseen’, that brings me to your audience. In the Haiku piece, amongst other texts, you literally ask Cornelia Parker to be an audience.

PM: Yes, I suppose that’s rather a frantic plea. I feel like someone who has missed the last train leaving town and is desperately reaching out. Cornelia Parker is a big hero of mine, as is Marcel Duchamp; they both enable one to make art out of anything. That gives you a tremendous freedom. In this exhibition I definitely felt that I was doing plenty of screaming but that’s important when you live in such a remote part. Luckily

some of my cries have been heard and that gives me enthusiasm to plod along. So even if the reality of the audience in Donegal and Ireland is small, for a moment at least, my imagination and ambition can place them in another context.

NM: Let’s go back to your relationship with other painters. You are pretty unique on this island for the time you spent in London during the eighties assist ing Lucian Freud, while working for his agent James Kirkman, and meeting the likes of Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach in the process. I am guessing such ear ly encounters with serious icons of painting implanted something in you. You have two paintings in the show that address those painters’ work, which could be pas tiches, but to me despite the risks, you somehow pull them off and put the artists to bed with your own voice. I like that you take huge risks with subject matter and respond with a mixture of darkness and humour – it is somewhat unsettling.

PM: Thanks Nick, that is very generous. Strangely, those paintings referencing Bacon and Freud were the least important to me in the show. I guess I just wanted to have fun and show off a little. I always wanted a Bacon painting of my own, so I just said, “fuck it, I’ll make one”. The Freud painting was less fun to do, but I felt that I needed to move the monkey off my back. Freud was my inspiration in art college and by bizarre coincidence or good karma, I ended up working for his dealer. I used David Dawson’s photo of Freud on his death bed. The piece is called Cremnitz White (2022), which was the name of the lead-based paint that he used without gloves, and I often wonder if it contrib uted to his demise. I suppose one of the things that I admired about Freud was his drive to paint right until the end of life, something I aspire to. The last thing I would say to anybody who happens to read this: you should always wear gloves when painting with oils!

Nick Miller is an artist who lives in Sligo. @nickmiller_studio

Philip Moss is an artist based in West Donegal. @philipmossart

‘Unseen’ ran at the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny from 25 June to 3 September. regionalculturalcentre.com

Exhibition

Philip Moss, ‘Unseen’, installation view, Regional Cultural Centre; photograph by Eugene McGinty, courtesy the artist and RCC.

Philip Moss, Boys from the border, 2022, oil on linen, 120 x 150 cm; photograph by Eugene McGinty, courtesy the artist and Regional Cultural Centre.

Philip Moss, Étant Donnés, 2019, oil on linen, 150 x 150 cm; photograph by Eugene McGinty, courtesy the artist and Regional Cultural Centre.

Profile

To Ashes

MAXIMILIAN LE CAIN REVIEWS EVGENIYA MARTIROSYAN’S RECENT EXHIBITION AT GOMA WATERFORD.

‘TO ASHES’, EVGENIYA Martirosyan’s solo exhibition at GOMA Waterford, has a ring of finality about it. Beyond the point of death, ashes. Decomposition by fire into dust. On entering the gallery, even before set ting eyes on the first piece, the flicker of flames, reflect ed on the white walls, strikes an ominous note.

This leads into a moving image installation con sisting of two large projections of close-up details of a bed burning in a field at night. The charred pieces of the bed are arranged on the gallery floor. The projec tions extend from the floor up, which means that the shadows of the bed fragments are cast across the low er section of the projected images and become part of them. The scale of this installation in proportion to the space creates a powerful effect. It is at once imposing and intimate, arranged in such a way that viewers are always within the installation and unable to distance themselves from it.

The second space is contrastingly minimal. Two video pieces play side by side on small wall-mounted monitors. These monochromatic loops show ghostly hands sifting through ash, and ash raining down from darkness, cascading over a pair of hands feebly closed against its falling. The exhibition is completed with a series of eight photographic prints of hands in ashes that are grouped together on an adjacent wall.

The thematic starkness of the work is what impress es first. Confronted with fire and ashes, there seems to be nowhere for the mind to go but into the most sombre contemplation of annihilation. Thoughts of personal mortality, of war, of a world pushed to the

brink of destruction, crowd forward from the dust. The sense of fragility that permeates Martirosyan’s work is immediate and haunting. Placing a bed at the centre of her installation is a particularly unsettling strategy. Steeped in dreams, sleep, sex, and sickness, this highly charged domestic object is the site of our most intimate communion with ourselves. Seeing an old bed eaten by flames is second only to seeing a lifeless body burn, in conveying a life devoured by flames. But the absence of a body allows us to project our own experiences and anxieties directly onto this universal object.

The images of hands in ash seem no less despair ing. Ashes are the ground in which hands search and find nothing in their sifting. For viewers willing to stare down this bleakness, its finality can come to seem less definitive. Patterns of transformation and even renewal start to emerge. This might be more immediately appar ent to viewers familiar with Martirosyan’s ongoing con cerns with the transformation of familiar objects into sculptural forms, thus liberating them from their asso ciated uses. Nevertheless, the existential stakes have never been this high in her work; it hasn’t previously confronted complete destruction so directly. Yet even in ashes, she suggests, destruction is never truly complete but part of an ongoing cycle of impermanence. There is nothing overtly spiritual, ceremonial or ritualistic in this process. Her focus remains unwaveringly on mate riality. Yet this detached focus also avoids imposing an explicit point of view on the work. It is open enough to allow viewers to explore whatever personal resonances this highly charged imagery might evoke in them.

In one of the videos, hands are seen clawing through the ash. But they also emerge from it and are again absorbed by it. They might find nothing remaining to grasp in the ash, but they are not separate from it either. Even if we are unable to fully understand the purpose of the ash, it is endowed with a mysterious, ghostly vitality that encourages us to look beyond our assump tions of use associated with forms and objects. The bed burning video starts in darkness, implying an interior location. But then grass gradually becomes discernable, surprising us with the vision of a bed displaced into a field. Finally, streaks of the white ash that the bed has been reduced to harmoniously striate a now day-lit grassland. The life that the bed embodies is absorbed by the ongoing rhythms of nature.

Maximilian Le Cain is a filmmaker living in Cork City. maximilianlecain.com

‘To Ashes’ ran at GOMA Waterford from 25 August to 1 October. gomawaterford.ie

Evgeniya Martirosyan, Evanescence 2022, video diptych; photograph by Jed Niezgoda, courtesy the artist and GOMA.

Evgeniya Martirosyan, To Ashes 2021, installation with video projections; photograph by Jed Niezgoda, courtesy the artist and GOMA.

Exhibition Profile

Kurnugia NOW!

CELINA MULDOON OUTLINES HER RECENT RESEARCH AND CURRENT EXHIBITION AT THE DOCK.

THIS SUMMER, RECORD-BREAKING heatwaves spread across Europe, North and South America, Australia, and the rest of the world. While some enjoyed the ‘beautiful’ weather, the terrifying reality of climate change cannot be ignored. I am afraid of what the future holds. I have learned that Climate Change con versations elicit responses that range from exasperation and hopelessness to shame or even absolute denial.

My recent research project and exhibition ‘Kurnu gia NOW!’ arose from a desire to explore identity in the human brain. I wanted to investigate how identity is formed – how biological and environmental factors shape and mould one’s sense of self – and to unpick the specific social and political issues which may contribute to the development of the human brain. I am fortu nate to know Dr Clare Kelly, Associate Professor in the Trinity Institute of Neurosciences in Trinity College Dublin, as we went to school together in Ballyshannon, County Donegal. I had just finished an exhibition series and was considering potential collaborations around behavioural science. At our 20-year school reunion in 2018, myself and Clare almost immediately began discussing these ideas. Since then, we have grown an interdisciplinary project involving multiple collabora tions, which includes working with production com pany Sixbetween to develop the film piece Kurnugia NOW! (2022) and with German composer Moritz Fas bender to create the sound piece, Istar’s Planet (2022).

What has been revealed, through our collaborative research, is the need to examine the recurring links between climate change and anxiety, and how these influences shape our identity and understandings of ourselves in relation to time and place. In particular, we have been investigating how we might bring about behavioural change by accessing, drawing out, and exploring narrative identities. This has led to a com bined collaboration with Dr Francis Ludlow and PhD candidate Rhonda McGovern in the Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities (TCEH) at Trinity Col

lege Dublin.

Rhonda’s research is centred around reconstructing the climate of ancient Babylonia for the years 65261BCE, based on extracts from the Babylonian Astro nomical Diaries. Because of my interest in re-imagining mythological stories and how this may link to climate change, I have been fascinated with her research for several years. Rhonda, Clare, and I believe in the power of storytelling in shaping our identity. We seek ways to affect behavioural change that would promote agency and unify the public.

Over a period of two years, we engaged in lengthy conversations on psychology, art, culture, and the envi ronment. These conversations became the bedrock of our research, and we mobilised around areas which required further exploration. The project has become a platform for academic inquiry and collaboration, but it has also thrived as a space for solidarity and connection.

I have created a cross-disciplinary exhibition of mov ing image, installation, sculpture, and live performance at The Dock (10 September – 12 November 2022). The gallery spaces have been transformed into sites for col lective engagement around what has become the most critical issues of our time: the climate and biodiversi ty crises. ‘Kurnugia NOW!’ re-imagines mythological narratives from ancient Babylonian, with the Goddess Ištar becoming the archetypal force around which the first part of this story unfolds. To accompany the exhi bition, my collaborators and I have developed a publi cation which documents the interdisciplinary research project to date. This includes essays by Clare, Rhonda, and Dr Áine Phillips, articulating knowledge and expertise from their respective fields, in response to and in collaboration with ‘Kurnugia NOW!’.

Celina Muldoon is an artist based in Northwest Ireland. ‘Kurnugia NOW!’ continues at The Dock until 12 November. thedock.ie

Celina Muldoon, ‘Kurnugia NOW!’, installation view, The Dock; photograph by Paul McCarthy, courtesy the artist and The Dock.

Celina Muldoon, ‘Kurnugia NOW!’, installation view, The Dock; photograph by Paul McCarthy, courtesy the artist and The Dock.

Celina Muldoon, ‘Kurnugia NOW!’, installation view, The Dock; photograph by Paul McCarthy, courtesy the artist and The Dock.

Profile

A Dormant Light

IN W.G. SEBALD’S final novel, Austerlitz (London: Hamish Ham ilton, 2001), there is a remarkable moment in which we are told of one Andre Hilary, a secondary school teacher, who presents the Napoleonic battle of Austerlitz to his young students in such incredible detail that they could see “the disposition of the regi ments in their blue and white, green and blue uniforms, constantly forming into new patterns in the course of the battle like crystals of glass in kaleidoscope.” But for all the multitude of local colour and detail he might offer, Hilary laments that he could never supply enough to do justice to its reality because “it would take an endless length of time to describe the events of such a day properly, in some inconceivably complex form.”

A similar entanglement of time, complexity, and detail is at play in Lucy McKenna’s recent solo show, ‘A Dormant Light Resides in The Eye’ at Solstice Arts Centre (20 August – 22 October). It’s a varied and ambitious presentation spread across numerous rooms with forms, materials, motifs, and methods colliding, subtly impli cating each other, and moving toward a cumulative effect, that of a set of works without clearly defined boundaries, orbiting around each other, pushing and pulling, while not settling into any kind of stability or fixed significance.

The exhibition title ‘A Dormant Light Resides in the Eye’ is drawn from Bright Colors Falsely Seen (Yale University Press, 1998), a history of synesthesia by Kevin T. Dann. Synesthesia is a neuro psychological trait in which the stimulation of one sense causes the automatic experience of another sense. This seems to offer McKen na both a starting point and a kind of modus operandi to explore the manner in which not only the senses but all kinds of phenomena can become implicated, intertwined, and bleed into one another.

Upon entering the gallery space, the viewer encounters a single

Lucy McKenna, Plantae Novae Ursinum Herba Salutaris: 1.8,

2022, archival ink on Hahnemühle photo rag; photograph by Lee Welch, courtesy of the artist and Solstice Arts Centre.

AENGUS WOODS REVIEWS LUCY MCKENNA’S SOLO EXHIBITION AT SOLSTICE ARTS CENTRE.

Exhibition

photographic print, a jagged clash of purples, greens and yellows; an amalgamation of plant life and inorganic material that seems both natural and unnatural, hovering somewhere between photograph and photogram. We then encounter in the first gallery a set of 16 framed carbon prints of plants with medicinal properties, hung in diamond form. These are juxtaposed with a separate, serial arrange ment of hand-folded origami research notes. The notes themselves follow a paratactic, associative logic, running from Umberto Eco through quantum physics, evolutionary theory, folklore, and the colonisation of space. Directly opposite is a large-scale work com posed of coloured, laser-cut plexi-glass shapes, arranged, overlaid, and reminiscent of the labyrinthine geometrics of microbial forms. From these beginnings the show proceeds and grows, taking a vocabulary established in these initial offerings and expanding it, combining, recombining, and adding strategies and motifs in a manner suggestive of the complex connections between sense and affect, mind and body, space and time, nature and culture. A very beautiful set of works named Transients (2022) consists of a replay of the plexi-glass shapes already seen, but this time laid out on transparent shelves through which light is shone to create a kind of shadow writing on the walls. A nearby digital video work, The Cosmic Repeater (2022), consists of kaleidoscopic imagery, set to the disembodied voice of Google’s AI text-to-speech applica tion, reading Carl Sagan’s The Cosmic Connection (Knopf Double day Publishing Group, 1973), which seems to embed McKenna’s process within a recursive, vertiginous awareness of the infinitely expanding universe.

In the final room, a sculptural assemblage, Lentical I-IV (2022) throws some light upon the imagery and processes seen in the photographic works that punctuate the show. An arrangement of dichromatic plastics, torqued and crumpled using wire and steel then illuminated with spotlights, takes on a curiously plant-like form. Shot through with multicoloured hues, gentle reflections and refractions, the overall effect is that of an ethereal, three-dimen sional instantiation of her photographic compositions.

Lentical I-IV shares space with a number of framed works on paper and a wall-hanging sculpture of lit globes that brings to mind the mutating topography of foam and bubbles. But the room is ultimately dominated by Holographus 1-5 (2020), a striking set of works spread out over five pedestals. On each pedestal is pre sented one small glass plate illuminated by a single adjustable light. Upon examination, each reveals a miniature universe, a holograph ic world of coloured points and stars with a depth of field distinctly at odds with the flat physicality of the plates themselves.

A particular strength of the show is the manner in which the individual works resonate with each other, deepening their sig nificances and multiplying their points of reference until each is entangled in a web that seems to refer far beyond its own extrem ities. But such virtue also begs the question of how well the works stand up in isolation. Taken individually, a slight unevenness pres ents itself, with some pieces doing more conceptual spadework than others. But it’s a minor quibble at the end of the day; the show presents itself as a multi-stranded and multi-faceted unity, and it is best taken as such.

At all times within these works, McKenna seems most con cerned with making sure that no single thing remains simply ‘what it is’. Sight becomes sound, color becomes shape, movement and stasis become in the end, barely distinguishable. The challenge that she sets herself in this show is to somehow present these processes in two registers simultaneously: that of the subject, and that of the universe.

As such, in these smooth elisions between light and material, the embodied and the intangible, we see something akin to the synesthetic process at work in real-time. However, in the synes thetic process so presented – with all its slippages and ambiguities, and its refusal to be pinned down by any discrete sense or concept – we also see the faint intimations of a kind of Heraclitean flux that implicates the viewer in a vast mutating reality.

Aengus Woods is a philosopher and critic based in Meath.

Lucy McKenna, Lenticel I, II, III & IV 2022, steel, acrylic, dichromatic plastics, wire, light; photograph by Lee Welch, courtesy of the artist and Solstice Arts Centre

Lucy McKenna, A Dormant Light, 2022, acrylic, steel; photograph by Lee Welch, courtesy of the artist and Solstice Arts Centre.

Lucy McKenna, Transients 2022, acrylic, dimensions variable; photograph by Lee Welch, courtesy of the artist and Solstice Arts Centre.

Profile

Staggering Verisimilitude

VIEWING RON MUECK’S current show at The MAC (29 July – 5 November) I find myself grasping for reference points. Firstly, from art history: from seventeenth-century Spanish polychrome sculpture to the mutated and mutilated figures of the Chapman brothers; and then beyond, from the ‘plastinated’ bodies of Gun ther von Hagens to the latest humanoid robots paraded in science fairs. Even childhood visits to the National Wax Museum in Dub lin come to mind. However, in terms of uncanny hyperrealism, nothing comes close to Mueck’s rendering of the human form in all its uncompromising detail.

Early in his career, Rodin was accused of ‘casting from life’ to create his life-sized figure, The Age of Bronze (1875). Similarly here, one wonders what sorcery is at play. Insights into the artist’s metic ulous and laborious processes are provided via Gautier Deblonde’s photographs and a video of Mueck at work in his studio, that bookend this presentation of seven of the artist’s major works.

Youth (2009/11) is a diminutive, barefoot, black teenager in low-slung jeans and white t-shirt, which he lifts up to display a bloody stab-wound to his abdomen. The blood has spread, seeping through his raised garment. As he strains to see his exposed flesh below, his expression – mouth open, eyebrows raised – is less of horror than of incredulity; he is simultaneously Christ and Doubt ing Thomas. Again, I’m struck by the lack of reference points, such as the dearth of ethnic minorities represented in sculptural form in museums, galleries, and public sculpture. I’m also reminded of the spate of stabbing-related mortalities in London, which reached record heights in 2008, one year before the piece’s completion.

The first and most obvious reaction to the artwork in this extraordinary show is simply to marvel at their staggering verisi militude and attention to detail. This draws you in and really can

Ron Mueck, Woman with Sticks, 2009, painted silicone, polyurethane, steel, wood, synthetic hair, 170 x 183 x 120 cm, installation view, The MAC; photograph by Simon Mills, courtesy of the artist and The MAC.

JONATHAN BRENNAN REVIEWS RON MUECK’S ONGOING SOLO EXHIBITION AT THE MAC IN BELFAST.

Exhibition

not be overstated. Skin can be mottled and babylike, or scratched and weather-beaten; hair can be stubbled or wispy, limp or wiry. Some figures show traces of dirt in pores or under fingernails and toenails. In Mother and Child (2003), the even sheen of amniotic fluid that drib bles from a new-born and pools on its mother’s chest is subtly differentiated from the specks of perspiration on her brow, arising from the efforts of labour. This latter piece depicts the moment where a baby has been placed on the still-swollen belly of its naked mother, before the umbilical cord has been cut. It is usually represent ed, in film and television, as a moment of exasperated joy and relief. Here, however, the mother’s arms remain clamped to her sides, her expression inscrutable; is it bemused or sinister, melancholic, or simply exhausted? In any case, the usual cultural portrayal – itself unreal istic – has been subverted.

Woman with Shopping (2013) is the same ‘person’, now fully clothed and upright. Her arms are still pressed to her sides, this time weighed down with plas tic shopping bags, filled with mundane grocery items. The baby still gazes upwards in the same position, this time harnessed inside her bulging overcoat. The woman is still the carer and the bearer, her hands still unable to cradle, her expression still enigmatic.

The second constant in Mueck’s work is his play with scale. His breakthrough piece, Dead Dad (19967), depicts the naked corpse of the artist’s own father, resting heavily on its greyish flesh. This sculpture is half life-size, while the reclining female figure of In Bed (2005) is a vast 6.5 metres in length. With Dead Dad, diminution bring pathos to a stark and clinical form, the bleakness of the subject matter ironically magni fied. The emotional impact of enlargement however is harder to pinpoint beyond the initial sense of awe. For example, Dark Place (2018) is a 1.5-metre-tall, dis embodied head, which verges on menacing. However, this could be due to its contrived setting in a black, narrow-apertured room and a single spotlight. The mountainous figure of In Bed, with knees raised, and one hand pressed to her cheek, is melancholy and lost in thought. Here the exaggerated scale suggests some monumental inner turmoil, as if she were incapable of leaving the bed, powerless to follow her far-off gaze. With almost all of the figures in this show, includ ing the fairy tale-like Woman with Sticks (2009), it is tempting –perhaps even inevitable – to attempt to read the expressions of the figures or to position oneself deliberately in their lines of sight. When I do so, there are flickering moments where I feel I’m the one being observed. An invigilator recounts the different reac tions to Dead Dad – from the tittering of children to a woman who immediately burst into tears. I witness a group expressing a desire to bundle the new-born baby up in their arms. It would seem that this human impulse to imagine narratives says as much about us as viewers as about the works themselves.

Jonathan Brennan is a multidisciplinary artist based in Belfast.

Ron Mueck, Youth 2009/11, mixed media, 65 × 28 × 16 cm, installation view, The MAC; photograph by PressEye, courtesy of the artist and The MAC.

Ron Mueck, In Bed 2005, mixed media, 162 x 650 x 395 cm, installation view, The MAC; photograph by PressEye, courtesy of the artist and The MAC.

Art

Live Art Ireland

AS A CHILD I had a recurring fantasy world where I lived alone in a large stone house surrounded by high stone walls and guarded by lions and tigers. Come Brexit in 2016, myself and my partner MJ Newell decided to look for a building that would be suitable to create a residency programme for artists working with perfor mance and time-based practice. As an adult, I had faced the trauma that made me feel unsafe around people and I was looking to forge new connections here in Ireland. I have been involved in several artist-run initiatives in Sydney and Melbourne in the 1980s and 90s and was director of Elastic Residence in London between 2004 and 2012.

We looked at buildings in Kerry, Clare, and Limerick, and even tually found a derelict Georgian mansion in Tipperary. In April 2020 we moved over from London. Milford House had been emp ty for 15 years and had become a home for birds and long-eared bats. Fortunately, there was a more recently occupied cottage on site, giving us a comfortable space from which to start the process of renovation. The main job was to get the valley roof and secret gutters replaced, as well as lime rendering the immense chimney stacks.

Meanwhile we spent time making the space viable for artists to live by restoring the original sash windows and glass. We collected Georgian period furniture from local online auctions to house my reference library. This provides invaluable research opportunities for our artists while they are here. The house also needed extensive rewiring and plumbing, as all the pipes had blown in the winter of 2012 when the house was unoccupied. We now have a space for up to eight artists in residence at a time, with access to workspaces in the house and the many stone barns and lofts which are repurposed as studios and performance spaces. We also have 17 acres of rewil

Analía Beltrán i Janés, Conservative Style 2022, with Áine Phillips and Brian Paterson at ‘Convergence 2022’ in Milford House; photograph by Jordan Hutchings, courtesy of the artist, Bbeyond, and Live Art Ireland.

DEEJ FABYC OUTLINES THE RENOVATION OF MILFORD HOUSE AND THE FOUNDING OF LIVE ART IRELAND.

ding land in which to imagine.

By summer 2021 we were able to invite our first test space residency and the artist Amanda Case Millis came and stayed in the house for two months. Mil lis helped us start to figure out what worked and what did not as far as the residency programme. Since then, we have hosted 26 artists in residence from 15 coun tries. The inaugural open-call residency on the theme of ‘House’ was juried by Francis Fay from Livestock, Lucy Day, now executive director of Phoenix Artspace in Brighton, Kate Walsh from Damar House Gallery, and me.

Among those selected were artists Niamh Seana Meehan and Day Magee. Confronting the colonial connotations of the ‘Big House’ in Ireland’s social his tory, Magee performed under the imposing portrait of Countess Markievicz, that I had printed out in a metal lic tone with a gold frame. In Eat the good of the land (2021), Magee superimposed their queer, disabled body onto the trauma of their forefathers who fought in the Irish Civil War. Sheehan on the other hand, in Is it safe to float (2021), performed the brief in exile by taking twice-daily winter swims in nearby Lough Derg. In this Beckettian deconstruction, she questioned the role of Milford house as an institution of performance art and the expectation of her expression, creating a com pelling sound monologue of lapping water and utter ances. Similarly on our most recent residency, titled ‘Oppression and Compression’, Emma Brennan con tinued her core practice of performance and research

with dough, evoking this symbolic material with what could constitute Irish femininity.

This research continued in July with ‘Convergence 2022’ – our first micro-festival, held in collaboration with performance art organisation Bbeyond. ‘Conver gence’ is modelled on the experimental Supernormal Festival in Braziers Park, Oxfordshire (supernormal festival.co.uk). Bbeyond founders Brian Patterson, Alastair MacLennan, and director Sandra Breathnach Corrigan visited Milford House earlier this year and lent their significant artistic wisdom to Live Art Ire land. Curated by Sandra and myself, ‘Convergence’ was held over three days including performance workshops in Borrisokane and a group performance in Clough jordan. The artists we commissioned for live perfor mances at Milford House were Analía Beltrán i Janés, Béatrice Didier, Helena Walsh, Kane Stonestreet, Kel vin Atmadibrata, Olivia Hassett, and Verónica Peña.

To contextualise a few of the performances, Analía Beltrán i Janés’s participatory practice involves smash ing artworks and imbuing meaning to random objects to create a more direct experience for the audience. For ‘Convergence’ Beltrán i Janés conducted a compara tive dialogue with the colonial symbolism of Milford House and Spain’s era of national socialism by invit ing audience members to hold nude drawings from her classical art education. Janes then disfigured the draw ings with her teeth and cut free a suspended hammer to smash a replica foot of Michelangelo’s David Continuing the theme of structural transgressions,

UK artist Kane Stonestreet’s performances revolve around the biopolitics of gender. Their durational per formance under a melting block of ice created a rural fetish scene, yet unavoidably referenced the urgency of rising global temperatures and sea levels. Recreat ing anti-heroes in anime and personas in video role play, Indonesian artist, Kelvin Atmadibrata, contests the masculine constructs of Southeast Asia. For ‘Con vergence’ he shone a torch through the lens of plastic cups to create a shadow puppet theatre, then created a portrait by grinding carrots against the wall with his mouth. ‘Convergence 2023’ is already being organised with Bbeyond and we are increasing our capacity to include sound artists, contemporary dance, and live music.

And there it goes again. There are strange noises outside as I write this, not unlike the lions and tigers I spoke of earlier. The rewilding of the fields and woods have encouraged near extinct and exiled species like corncrakes, nightjars, and barn owls to arrive and take up residency here, as word spreads through the hedge rows.

Deej Fabyc is an artist, curator, and lecturer liv ing in Tipperary. This text was written in collabo ration with artist and writer, MJ Newell. live-art.ie

Kane Stonestreet, Holding (Open), 2022, at ‘Convergence 2022’ in Milford House with Alastair MacLennon observing Kane’s work; photograph by Jordan Hutchings, courtesy the artist, Bbeyond, and Live Art Ireland.

Verónica Peña, The Enchanting Wild and the Mascaron, 2022, at ‘Convergence 2022’ in Milford House; photograph by Jordan Hutchings, courtesy the artist, Bbeyond, and Live Art Ireland.

Helena Walsh, Rewilding Territory, 2022, at ‘Convergence 2022’ in Milford House; photograph by Jordan Hutchings, courtesy the artist, Bbeyond, and Live Art Ireland.

Art

Ritualistic Repair

DAY MAGEE REFLECTS ON ‘PERFORMANCE ECOLOGIES’ AT INTERFACE.

IN THE LATE 1980s, on the shores of Derryclare Lough in Connemara, a salmon hatchery was built. Commis sioned by the cigarette company Carrolls, it was con ceived as the most advanced facility of its kind. The word ‘facility’ extends from the word ‘facile’, which means “the ignorance of an issue’s true complexity.” Built too high above the lake, the circulation of water to contain the salmon proved too costly to maintain, and it was decommissioned. A modernist industrial shell was left nestled in the hills of the Inagh Valley. It has since been re-conceived by the Inagh Valley Trust as Interface – a shared base of aquacultural scientific research, and a studio and residency programme, lov ingly hosted by Irish artist, Alannah Robins.

‘Performance Ecologies’ was a series of performance works commissioned in response to this placed history, and ecological futurity in the wake of climate change. The event took place during the last weekend of August and was curated by Robins and leading Irish performance artist, Áine Philips. A group of artists spanning Ireland, Sweden, and America, convened for the week end in this storied place.

In The Microecologies of the Inagh Valley (2022), art ist Eileen Hutton led participants in a kick-sampling workshop. Using a net to dig beneath a riverbed, Hut ton demonstrated the collection and identification of tiny marine life as a means of gauging a river’s ecolog ical stability. The specimens were placed onsite under a stereomicroscope, whose contents were reproduced as images on acetate. The process entrusted individuals with a creative means of inquiry into their respective environments, with curiosity posed as a methodology of ecological rejuvenation.

Swedish artist Gustaf Broms conducted the dura tional work, There Is No There There (2022), throughout the afternoon. The artist donned a denim uniform, imbuing the environment with his body. At one point this body was tied to a stake in the ground, which it circled in a clocklike formation, pointing at everything and declaring “I am that; I am that; I am that.” At

another point, the body fixed numerous dead roots to its head and extremities, walking backwards out of the valley at a pace akin to the roots’ growth in life. The unfurling work evoked the words of Cézanne: “I am a consciousness. The landscape thinks itself through me.”

My own work, A Fish in the Shape of a Voice (2022), took place inside one of the former salmon tanks –large, cylindrical fibre-glass structures now empty of water. Reclining naked, invoking Magritte’s The Collec tive Invention (1934), I spoke through a microphone, the tank amplifying the sound upwards towards the sky. The words, a product of my mind and hands, returned to the body optically and aurally in a feedback loop. The words detailed the valley’s history in a stream of consciousness, linking the salmon’s reproductive cycle with the fish’s place in mythology, and addressing mythology itself as a reproductive cycle, with sounds hopping across time and space from one human vector to another.

In the darkness of the main facility, where salmon eggs once hatched, were two film screenings. First was Polypropylene II (2022), from American artist Elizabeth Bleynat. The frame gazed through the perforations –the eyes, one might say – of a commercial fishing net underwater. From there, the net emerged from the sea, clinging to Bleynat’s body, which walked towards the camera – towards land – interspersed with geometric arrangements of the fishing plastic. Next was Coming Full Circle (2021). A drone aerially documented the long-term disrepair of UK land artist Richard Long’s Circle in Ireland (1974), a stone circle on Doolin Point at the Cliffs of Moher. Through these shots, we follow a group of the Burren College of Art’s students and staff, clad in grey, mirroring the landscape they traverse as they begin the gradual, ritualistic repair of Long’s intervention.

Over the course of the day, Noel Arrigan performed the durational Healing Point (2022). As one entered the grounds, a trapezoidal metal frame overlooked the lake, a diagonally angled bed of nails chained to

the structure. Over the course of two hours, Arrigan’s body, clothed in plain linen, reclined upon the nails. His hands gradually pulled at the chain which looped beneath his groin, so as to draw the bed down horizon tally and back up again, slowly, centimetres over time, a metronome executing a single, prolonged swoop. The work functioned as a living timepiece, the organism and the product of its labour meeting in pain.

In the cool of the evening, the crowd was gatheredin the largest of the salmon tanks for Tadhg Ó’Cuir rín’s I Hear Voices (2022). A karaoke machine was sta tioned in the middle of the tank, the microphone and the vocals it mediated passed from body to body. The artist surrendered the work to his audience, who each surrendered themselves – each body sharing the role of spectacle, each imparting the intimacy of singing its favourite song. It can, after all, be just as vulnerable to be joyful before an audience as it can to be in pain. ‘Per formance Ecologies’ was brought to a close the follow ing morning. Artists and audience alike sat and broke their fast together, in a mutual generosity of thought and food among nature. The art theorist and perceptual psychologist Rudolf Arnheim once described space as an “image of time”. The spatial image that Philips and Robins composed, together with the artists, the land scape, and the audience as their medium, was one of hope.

Day Magee is a performance-centred multime dia artist based in Dublin. daymagee.com

Gustaf Broms, There Is No There There 2022, durational performance; image courtesy the artist and Interface. Noel Arrigan, Healing Point, 2022, durational performance; image courtesy the artist and Interface.

Alive and Picking

I GREW UP in Ireland during the recession of the 1980s, when workers lived in poverty as beef and butter mountains sat in ware houses. At the same time, millions of Ethi opian people were dying from starvation and drought. Confusion, injustice, famine, and war were central themes in my paint ings.

My family managed a pub for many years, so I worked there at weekends. A working-class background served me well in the formation of the discipline needed to sustain a lifelong practice as a visual art ist. Home was near a cluster of oak trees, inhabited by acrobatic red squirrels. The River Suir, an orchard, and an overgrown Victorian greenhouse were also close by. I worked with layers of paint, collage, and found objects to make nature-inspired works. Commercial galleries did not inter est me; they felt elitist and most retained 40-60% on sales, so I avoided them and opted instead to sell my paintings in cafes and libraries.

Becoming a mother had a massive impact on my practice when I woke up to the realities of pollution. The internet was new, but it would be many years before Ireland would have reliable online sourc es for ecological research. When the dan gers of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were publicised, I stopped using oils, thinking (wrongly) that acrylics were less polluting. My ecological curiosity grew throughout my son’s childhood, and by the 90s I was mostly using watercolours. Then I met a childhood friend who introduced me to mandala art.

I moved to Galway and added rich layers of movement, poetry, theatre, drumming, and singing to my visual arts practice. In 2005, in protest at the refusal of a certain institution to stop using polystyrene cups in their canteen, I created a mandala over ten hours, using hundreds of plastic bottle tops. That was followed by ‘Planet Palette’ – an environmental art exhibition that fea tured over 55 artists, students, and school

children.

Throughout the next 15 years of activ ism and socially engaged art, I reduced my production greatly, then studied sociol ogy at postgraduate level in 2019. Other recent projects include ‘Magical Moments’ (music-inspired writing by a mutigenera tional group), ‘The Pollen Pages’ (a collec tion of my short stories and poetry) and ‘Fur, Feather, Pen’. This latest collaborative chapbook of photography and writing was printed on recycled paper using plantbased inks, and I continue to learn about sustainability. This year I was commissioned to write about my art practice by the Neth erland’s Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science, and I reflected on my work for the first time in many years.

Creativity is part of everyday life for me, and I aim to continue sharing as I learn, while maintaining strong bound aries between my private life and public life (I also work as a tutor). After wading through lots of greenwashing while seeking Earth-friendly art materials, I wrote Alive and Picking, a book about making art in a way that is kinder to the environment. The idea came to me while making art from old PVC yoga mats. Currently I cut up old clothing and sew it by hand as an anthe sis to fast fashion. This work highlights the toxicity of the industry and the plight of textile workers globally. I also make man dala and nature art, which I first began to explore in 2001. Fuchsia flowers fall from the shrubs in our garden, and they are incorporated along with rose petals, twigs, weeds, and leaves. Season to season, these meditations help me to feel grounded, calm, and limbered up. The work is physical, and it also provides me with fresh air and an intoxicating dose of colour on grey days.

Kathryn Crowley is an artist, writer, and tutor based in Kerry. artyshe.com

Remotely Radical

ARTISTS CHARLOTTE BOSANQUET, Sally O’Dowd, and Grace McMurray (all VAI members) came together through a shared interest in contemporary drawing to give us ‘Remotely Radical’, an exhibition of new work in Vault Artist Studios in East Bel fast. The artists visited Rathlin Island on the north coast, where Bosanquet is Har bour Master, to rekindle their emotion al and artistic ties, and create drawings in response to the wild times of the last two years – Covid, insurrections and more.

There is a lightening of spirit in the show, that may have come from their collective relief at not co-creating via Zoom, the joy of interpersonal interactions, or just the experience of making spaces together that can elicit new considerations of patterns, of place and of time. Each artist experienced the grind of the pandemic’s induced isola tion and the invisible labour of caring and planning for an uncertain future in their respective families, and each has a unique link to the rural landscape and culture of the North of Ireland.

“Resilience is used to describe people making their own histories (and geogra phies) but not under conditions of their own choosing.”1

Our present cultural and political ter rain is seemingly always urgent and reac tive, leaving little space for rumination, for careful looking, or even for the kind of daydreaming that can make another world seem more possible. ‘Remotely Radical’ is a reminder to engage in a purposeful con struction of meaning for places that might prefigure a feminist/queer intention to abandon chronological time and ordered space. The work invites wildness.

“Wildness is where the environment speaks back, where communication bows to intensity, where worlds collide, cultures clash, and things fall apart.”2

Through pencil, charcoal and paint on paper and cardboard, ‘Remotely Radi cal’ requests our interaction with the psy cho-geography of sites of care and of rural space, with the invisibilisation of contin uous unpaid labour. The wiggle of lines, twisted curving paper, and the freedom of cardboard and paint, bring an energy, the force required for radical resilience. There

is the lively contrast of Bosanquet’s colour ful boats from open, family-friendly draw ing sessions, alongside the monochrome but windswept large-scale drawings of O’Dowd, against the modernist optical ulu lating of McMurray’s surfaces. In all three, we encounter a playful resistance through an emergence of unpredictable identities. Against the backdrop of the rural idyll, the shadow of which is remote alienation, we can sense the self-determination of three people remaining expressive against some odds.

There is a simplicity to all of the works in the exhibition which harnesses them together, a deft touch to the overriding feminist psychogeography and subjectivity that leads us towards what American geog rapher, Cindi Katz, refers to as ‘counter-to pographies’.3 An important addition to resistance and resilience is the re-working that art offers us. In the space in Vault, itself an urban island of resistance and potential, we are included in their dialogue of reimag ining.

This exhibition was supported by Cavan County Council Arts Office, the Esme Mitchell Trust, and Vault Artist Studios, Belfast.

Emma Campbell is completing her practice-based PhD at Ulster Univer sity, addressing photography as an activist tool for abortion rights. Emma is a member of the Turner Prize-win ning Array Collective and has exhib ited in international solo and group shows. Emma is co-convenor of Alli ance for Choice and core campaigner since 2011.

emmacampbell.co.uk

1 MacLeavy et al., ‘Feminism and Futurity: Geog raphies of Resistance, Resilience and Reworking’, in Progress in Human Geography, 45 (6), Dec 2021, p 1568.

2 Jack Halberstam and Nyong’o Tavia, ‘Introduction: Theory in the Wild’, South Atlantic Quarterly, 117(3), 2018, p 454.

3 Cindi Katz, ‘On the Grounds of Globalization: A Topography for Feminist Political Engagement’, Signs Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 26(4), Febru ary 2001, pp 1213-34.

Kathryn Crowley, mandala in progress, 2022, leaves and flowers; photograph courtesy the artist.

‘Remotely Radical’, installation view, Vault Artist Studios; photograph by Simon Mills, courtesy the artists and Vault Artist Studios

Profile

Augmented Auguries

BRENDA MOORE-MCCANN CHATS WITH CLAIRE HALPIN ABOUT HER PAINTING PRACTICE AND RECENT EXHIBITION AT OLIVIER CORNET GALLERY.

Brenda Moore-McCann: I am struck by the dyna mism and ambition of your painting practice in deal ing with difficult content that condenses contempo rary political events through multiple perspectives. How and when did you decide to address issues of war and conflict in your work?

Claire Halpin: Around 2008, I made the shift from using family photographs as source material in my paintings to newspaper photographs, particularly sites of conflict. I was drawn to media images that echoed the composition of biblical, Renaissance, and Byzan tine painting. In 2010 I did a residency in Georgia where my training as an icon painter solidified this new direction in my work. I was visiting sites of the Rus sian invasion of Georgia in 2008, which I had painted from newspaper images, and was now visiting in real ity – a very real and present history. I had been con cerned about personal memory; what is remembered or recorded in family photographs. However, this new work expanded to consider collective memory and history, including the ‘unknown knowns’ and asking: What is true or false? What has been left out?

As the world becomes smaller with globalised media, surveillance, and efforts to control the narratives surrounding events, these concerns become ever more urgent. I have been preoccupied with major interna tional conflicts, the wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and now Ukraine, and the impact they have had, not only on their own populations but on ours too, and how this plays out in global politics. As an art ist, I see it as my responsibility to bear witness to what is happening in our own time and to question why it occurs.

BMMcC: Your work seems to concern the inherent instability of history and how this is presented, with regard to community, citizens, and human beings. Would you agree?

CH: Yes, but I am conscious that I am also following a line of enquiry. The media and images I am reading inform the content and form of my paintings. As an

artist, I am consciously questioning the history, the nar rative, through the crucial act of painting and image making.

BMMcC: The great historian E.H. Carr once observed: “There is no such thing as history, only his torians.” What sources do you look to in your research?

CH: I look at news media, documentaries (Adam Cur tis, Noam Chomsky…), podcasts on current political thinking, old National Geographics, historical maps, bible stories, and ways of relooking at history (real, imagined, or myth). Sometimes it can be a singular event or image within a conflict, or a controversary that gives me a starting point for a painting.

BMMcC: In your recent solo exhibition, ‘Augmented Auguries’ at Olivier Cornet Gallery (8 September – 9 October), you are dealing with issues closer to home, like the pandemic and the conflict in Northern Ire land. Is it your first time to do that?

CH: The Towers That Be are two key paintings in this exhibition. I am really struck by the tower building for the annual 12 July celebrations across Northern Ireland – the biblical scale, monumentality, theatrics, pageant ry, and effigies. Within the context of falling statues and cultural wars, we consider the futility of building a tower only to burn it down. These paintings reference Bruegel’s Tower of Babel (c. 1563) in which, according to the origin myth, a united human race speaking a single language migrated eastward to Babylon, where they built a towering city with its top in the sky. God, observing the settlement, confounds their language so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the world. So yes, these paintings bring us right up to date.

BMMcC: It’s interesting that you are drawn primarily to the Early Renaissance, adapting both the diptych format and predella panels in your work. Perhaps these formal devices extend the narrative beyond the imme diate present to convey historical, political, and cultur

al complexities rather than singular points of view?

CH: I find Early Renaissance paintings interesting from a compositional perspective; how narrative ele ments from different times and spaces can converge within the same picture plane. In some ways, it echoes our current means of consuming media or news feeds across multiple screens. Within the modular format of the diptychs, there is the potential to rearrange, recon figure, or change the dominant narrative.

BMMcC: Has the rigour and discipline of your train ing been deployed in your own painting? Can you dis cuss the shift in technique for this exhibition?

CH: My training as an icon painter definitely made me a better painter of fine detail. I found that slow ing down the process, and the practice of building up image and surface through fine brushwork using tiny sable brushes, helped a lot. With the recent paintings, I have attempted to respond in a more immediate way through a loosening of the handling of the paint, allowing a movement and blurring on the gessoed sur face – a slight shift from the heavily worked and com plex compositions of my previous ‘Jigmap’ series. The ever-evolving process of painting, applying brush to surface…mark-making.

This is an abbreviated version of conversations recorded at Talbot Studios, Dublin, in summer 2022. ‘Augmented Auguries’ ran at Olivier Cor net Gallery from 8 September to 9 October. oliviercornetgallery.com

Claire Halpin is a visual artist, curator and arts educator based in Dublin. clairehalpin2011.wordpress.com @clairehalpinartist

Dr Brenda Moore-McCann is an art historian, author and art critic, based between Dublin and Tuscany. @brendamooremcann

Claire Halpin, The Towers That Be – Belfast, 2022, oil on gesso, 30cm x 40cm; image courtesy of the artist. Claire Halpin, The Towers That Be – Larne, 2022, oil on gesso, 30cm x 40cm; image courtesy of the artist.

GRANTS, AWARDS, JOBS, OPEN CALLS, COMMISSIONS

Jobs / Funding / Awards / Commissions

Public Art Feature for PEACE IV

Newry, Mourne and Down District Coun cil, as part of their PEACE IV Shared Spaces and Services programme, wish to appoint an artist to design a piece of art which commemorates Tom Dunn and complements the associated Tom Dunn Walkway and Hedge School Project. The commission is for a strong, site-specific art work. The location is the centre of Rostrev or a village in Newry, Mourne and Down.

Experienced and suitably qualified com petent suppliers are required to design, pro duce and erect a Public Art Feature. The artwork is to be situated at Common Space, The Square Rostrevor, Newry, BT34 3AZ. and is part of the PEACE IV Shared Spac es and Services Programme.

The contract period is expected to com mence in January 2023 with completion by March 2023 (subject to extension approv al).

CQAF Creative Bursaries

CQAF have established four creative bur saries to support and encourage new work by visual artists, comedians, musicians and theatre practitioners based in Northern Ire land.

This project has funding support from Perspective Economics and the Arts & Business NI Investment Programme.

The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival Visual Arts Bursary is designed to support the presentation of a visual arts exhibition or project at the 23rd Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival (27 April – 7 May 2023) or Out to Lunch in January 2024. This can be a new or existing exhibition or project.

They wish to invest £2,000 in an idea for an innovative visual arts production. Please forward a synopsis of no more than 500 words outlining your idea, ideal loca tion, and how you would use this money, and a separate budget breakdown and short biographies of your proposed creative team. They want to hear from artists currently working in Northern Ireland.

Director of The Dock

The Dock, a dynamic multi-disciplinary arts centre in Carrick on Shannon, County Leitrim, is seeking an outstanding and tal ented individual for the position of Direc tor who will lead the centre with passion, imagination and dedication in the next exciting phase of its development and artis tic achievement.

A 5-year contract will be offered to the successful candidate with a salary in the region of €60,000, commensurate with experience.

Application is via the online submission portal, to include a comprehensive CV and cover letter, outlining why you are an ideal candidate for this brief. This is a full-time position with duty at weekends and at night (as required). The position is not suited to remote working.

Suitable applicants will be shortlisted and called for interview the week of Mon day 5 December 2022. As part of the inter view, candidates will be invited to give a 10-minute presentation on their vision for The Dock for the next 5 years.

Opportunities

Residencies

European Media Art Platform

With the support of the European Union’s Creative Europe programme, for the next two years the European Media Art Plat form expands its residency programme to residencies in 16 countries. They offer resi dencies for artists, artist duos, collectives or other artistic collaborations working in the fields of digital art, media art, and bio-art. Applicants are expected to include a pro posal for a collaboration in their applica tion.

The residency includes a grant of €4000 for the applying artist(s) including subsis tence costs, a grant of €2000 for collabo rating artist(s), a project budget of €4000, free accommodation, travel expenses up to €1000, and free access to technical facilities and/or media labs of the host institution.

It also includes a professional presentation and the option to participate in exhibition tours at members’ festivals/exhibitions in 2023-2024, plus the option to get exhibited by EMAP partner institutions.

Deadline Tuesday 8 November

Web newrymournedown.org

Email peace@nmandd.org

N81 Knockroe Bends Art Commission

Wicklow County Council would like to invite proposals for a site specific Per Cent for Art commission for the N81 Corridor at the realigned Knockroe Bends. The N81 Knockroe Bends is located on the N81 south of Hollywood Cross at the junction with the local road L8314. The project consists of a realignment of the N81 over a distance of 0.85km, in County Wicklow, Ireland.

This project is being commissioned by Wicklow County Council’s Arts Office and is funded by the National Roads Authority through Transport Infrastructure Ireland and the Department of Housing and Local Government. Artist(s) are asked to respond to this scenic and elevated site which is nes tled in the tree lined roadside surrounded by rolling hills. Unlike many roadside Pub lic Art sites, the location of this particular site offers vantage points for passing vehic ular and recreational traffic to experience the work at a close proximity to the road itself.

Deadline Wednesday 23 November, 4pm

Web wicklow.ie

Email karan@ktcl.ie

Deadline Friday 11 November, 5pm

Web cqaf.com

Email emma@cqaf.com

Golden Fleece Award 2023

The Trustees of the Golden Fleece Award invite applications for the 2023 Golden Fleece Award.

The Golden Fleece Award provides funding for artists working in all forms of visual, craft and applied arts. It is the larg est prize open to both artists and makers in Ireland, and it aims to provide resourc es for creative practitioners to innovate and develop their work at a critical point in their careers. Emerging, mid-career, and established artists and makers currently resident in or originally from the island of Ireland are eligible to apply.

The Golden Fleece Award normally consists of one or more main Awards, to which may be added smaller Merit / Com mendation / Special Awards. The size of the total prize fund is usually in the region of €20,000. How the fund is divided among recipients in any given year is at the Trust ees’ discretion. In recent years, Awards of €12,000, €10,000, €5,000, €4,000 and €3,000 have been made. As a guide, artists are generally advised to apply for funding in the region of €5,000 to €10,000.

Deadline Friday 25 November, 5pm

Web goldenfleeceaward.com

Email info@goldenfleeceaward.com

Deadline Friday 18 November, Midnight Web thedock.ie

Email pdelamere@leitrimcoco.ie

Artist-Initiated Projects at Pallas Pallas Projects/Studios announce the open call for applications for their 2023 Art ist-Initiated Projects. They are inviting pro posals for funded 3-week exhibitions from artists working across all contemporary visual art forms. Submission guidelines are now available from their website, and the deadline for submissions is 5pm Tuesday 13 December 2022. Visual artists are invited to apply, especially emerging artists, recent graduates, and early/mid-career artists with solo or collaborative projects. The applica tion procedure is free and simple to com plete, projects will be self-directed, with an artists fee/production budget and other valuable supports from PP/S. Exhibitions will run from March-November 2023, and they welcome projects/bodies of work that are completed/near completion, or work in progress with clearly-expressed outcomes. Please note the ability to turn around in a short time may be required. The Artist-Ini tiated Projects programme at PP/S is kind ly funded by The Arts Council.

Deadline Tuesday 13 December, 5pm

Web pallasprojects.org

Email info@pallasprojects.org

Deadline Wednesday 30 November

Web call.emare.eu

Email info@emare.eu

Parenting Artist Residency 2023 Cow House Studios, with the support of Wexford County Council is pleased to offer an annual two-week residency designed specifically for parenting artists. The Par enting Artist Residency makes it possible for awarded artists to dedicate time to their work by offering all of the support nec essary to do so. They recognise many art ists discover they must drop or drastically curtail their creative practice while having children, leaving a cultural gap. This resi dency will support parenting artists at this key stage in their lives, assisting them to have productive and rewarding careers as they rear their families.

The Parenting Artist Residency is designed specifically for parenting artists with dependants under 18 years of age; chil dren and partners are welcome. Through an open call, this residency will make it pos sible for participating artists to develop new work, progress existing projects, or get back to their practice after taking time out to have children. This residency will offer childcare, a stipend of €500, accommoda tion, and meals.

Deadline Sunday 8 January 2023

Web cowhousestudios.com

Email info@cowhousestudios.com

To keep up-to-date with the latest opportunities, visit visualartists.ie/ adverts

THE SWINGING PENDULUM

THE LAB GALLERY

OPENING RECEPTION

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 18TH, 6-8PM

NOVEMBER 18TH TO DECEMBER 17TH, 2022

A SOLO SHOW BY ARTIST JOANNA KIDNEY

Gallery opening times: Monday to Saturday 10am to 6pm Admission Free

The LAB Gallery Dublin City Arts Office, Foley Street, Dublin D01 N5H6

Tel: (01) 222 5455

Creative Places and Create Networking Event 2022

Hosted in 2022 by Creative Places Tuam

Thursday 10 November 4.30 - 8pm

Friday 11 November 9.30am - 5.30pm

Keynote speaker: Pablo Helguera

This

Curated

Book your place now www.create-ireland.ie

© Eithne