Visual Artists' News Sheet - 2010 September October

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet ISSUE 5 2010 September – October Published by Visual Artists Ireland Ealaíontóirí Radharcacha Éire

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

Contents

Introduction

Introduction

September – October 2010

Contents 1. Cover. Mark O'Kelly Mariah (oil on linen) 40 x 56cm (exhibited as part of the artist's solo show –

Welcome the Sept / October edition of the Visual Artists News Sheet.

This issue includes details of the new programme of professional development training workshops, jointly initiated by Visual Artists Ireland and the National Sculpture Factory that will take place in Dublin and Cork (see page 33). The workshops which commence in early September cover a wide range of

'Unconscious' at Black Mariah Cork 2009)

3. Roundup. Recent exhibitions and projects of note.

3. Column. Mark Fisher. Strange Loops.

4. Column. Mark Caffrey. Crossing and Arrival

essential skills and issues, including: documentation; accounts and other money matters; writing and

5. Column. Jonathan Carroll. What is Waiting Out There.

talking about your work; developing critique; preparing proposals; artist-led projects; working with

6. Column. Chris Fite-Wassilak. Beyond Collective Desire.

galleries; residencies; copyright. In addition there are number peer critique sessions covering painting and

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

public projects; along with a master-class with Nigel Rolfe. Our Northern Ireland programme of

10. Regional Profile. Visual arts resources and activity in Roscommon

professional development workshops will be announced later in the autumn.

12. Focus. Like Bread, Drink and Religion? Marianne O’Kane Boal reflects on recently developed gallery and

museum buildings accross Ireland and the challenges faced in running these facilities.

Information can also be found about the call for applications for Workspace Minor Capital that VAI is

13. Conference Report. Learning & Sharing. Sylvia Grace Borda Reports on a roundtable discussion on

managing on behalf of the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport and in partnership with the Arts

Council. Applications are invited for grants towards the cost of equipment and/or improvements to the

14. Project Profile. Meeting Expectations. Naomi Sex discusses the DL 5 – 8 project.

quality of artists’ workspaces. This scheme has been informed by the Arts Councils recent policy document Visual Artists’ Workspaces – A New Approach which outlined capital grants to visual artists’ workspaces as a priority. The scheme will award capital grants of up to€15,000 to purchase / maintain essential equipment for the benefit of artists and/or to undertake improvements to the quality of the artists’ workspace. The total fund available is up to €140,000. Further details can be found on page 28 and application forms and comprehensive guidelines can be downloaded from the VAI website – just go to the links on our homepage (deadline 30 September @5.30pm).

collaborative photography organised as part of her projects at Belfast Exposed.

15. Institution Profile. Unhinged & Contradictory. Jason Oakley speaks to Ian McInerney of The Black

Mariah about the organisations one-year tenure at Triskel.

16. How is it Made? Doctors & Patients. Gemma Anderson discusses her project ‘Portraits: Patients and

Psychiatrists

17. Art in the Public Realm: Focus. Enlightenment. Belinda Quirke discusses the meaning and implications

of the recent spate of light-related public art events and artworks.

18. International Event. Film at the Centre of Film. Treasa O’Brien reports on the Oberhausen Film Festival

We also welcome on board a new VAI regional contact person – Eamonn Maxwell, Director of Lismore Arts. Eamonn will be working as the VAI contact for the southeast region, encompassing Carlow, Kileknny, South Tipperary, Waterford and Wexford. Eamonn introduces himself on page 32 in our regular 'regional contacts' section. Also contributing is our West of Ireland contact Aideen Barry, reporting on

19. Project Profile.Out of the Box. Brian Connolly profiles ‘Art Rebels’ at Catalyst Arts, Belfast.

23. Opportunities. All the lastest grants, awards, exhibition calls and commissions.

27. Project Profile. Resurrection. Joanne Laws discusses ‘Sacred’ a cross-border exhibition and semimar

project.

developments in Mayo, Galway, Westmeath and Roscommon. Damien Duffy our Northwest contact

28. Problems. The Problem Page. Our consierge / curator of agony responds to artworld dilemas.

reflects on what he describes as a "momentous summer" for the region, in light of the publication of the

28. Laughism. Laughism. Cartoons by Borislav Byrne.

Saville report on Bloody Sunday and announcement of Derry's success in its bid to become as UK City of

29. International Event. Time of the Zines. Sarah Bracken reports on the sixth annual London Zine

Culture in 2013.

Symposium

30. Studio Profile. Creativity Inclusion Development. Kathy Maria Marsh reports on Conways Artists Studios.

And as well of this, elsewhere in the publication there is – as ever – the proverbial "all this and more"!

31. Art in the Public Realm: Roundup. Recent public art commissions, site-specific works, socially

engaged practice and other forms of art outside the gallery.

32. Regional Perspectives. Regional Perspectives. Visual Artists ireland's Regional Contacts – Aideen

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

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September – October 2010

COLUMN

Mark Fisher Strange Loops

Roundup

Roundup

AT GAC

Joinery events

On the surface, Christopher Nolan’s Inception seems to be a very Escheresque film. At one point, one of the characters, Arthur, instructs another by using the example of “the Penrose stairs” which have the same impossible structure as Escher’s famous Ascending and Descending.

work by Carlos Garaicoa

Cora Cummins – research image Dead Tree

Work by Ferran Garcia Sevilla

Mark Clare Remote Control Technologies

Inception has many merits, but ultimately it isn’t actually very Escheresque.

In Gödel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter argues that the defining characteristic of most of Escher’s signature images is the “strange loop” or “tangled hierarchy”.

This is where a distinct hierarchy of levels is set up, only to be disrupted – as in Ascending and Descending, we appear to go up and down levels but eventually find ourselves back at the same point.

In Inception, the different levels are constituted by dreams – which, in the reality of the film can be invaded by spies trying to raid the subject’s mind for business secrets. Blogger Carl Neville argues that each of these dream-levels corresponds with a different film genre: “Level one dream is basically The Bourne Identity … rainy, grey, urban. Level two is The Matrix, zero gravity fistfights in a modernist hotel, level three, depressingly, turns out to be a Seventies Bond film.”

In the ordinary phenomenon of the dream within dream, typically we appear to wake up, but in fact are still dreaming (it is worth noting here that this structure is somewhat stranger than its description makes it appear in that it is the first dream that retrospectively becomes the dream embedded within the second dream.). These dreams within dreams are a question of narrative sequence. One dream succeeds another, but then produces the (narrative) illusion of a different ontological level. This is analogous with the logic of what media theorists call “ret-con”, or retroactive continuity. Continuity is achieved

Brian Hegarty - work from 'The Pattern of Purpose

Recently on show at the Joinery, Dublin was Brian Hegarty’s exhibition ‘The Pattern of Purpose’ (30 June – 6 July). The show featured collage based wall works and sculptural pieces composed for an “archive of collected materials, found objects and printed matter”.

The following shows in the venue included Annie Atkins photography exhibition ‘To the left of the Midwest’ ( 22 – 25 July); Mocksim’s “Mocey Ah’ show of animation and film loops (27 July – 1 August); a showing of new photography

by Kirsty O’Keefe (4 – ( August) and installation work by Justin Larkin (12 – 17 August). www.thejoinery.org

by retroactively changing the status of what was previously taken for reality.

(It’s no accident that the most famous example of ret-con – one whole season of Dallas being retroactively redefined as a dream sequence - involved dreaming.)

Bluewall

Far from the second dream being really contained within the first, its whole existence depends upon the dissolution of the first. The appearance of different levels is a narrative effect generated by the retroactive continuity of the dream state. There is only one level of ‘real’ physical-causal dependence - the dream relies upon the body of the dreamer remaining asleep. (Which is partly why Lacan claimed that the goal of dreaming was to keep the dreamer asleep.)

But the dreams within dreams in Inception differ in at least two respects from this. Firstly, there is no time when someone wakes up from a previous dream and remembers it as a dream. Rather, the subjects just leap into another dreamspace. Nolan includes a scene explaining that this is how dreams work – we are always thrown into the middle of them. Secondly, Nolan produces a dream architecture in which there are multiple levels of real rather than apparent dependence.

In Inception, each dream within a dream depends upon the dream one level

Niall Walsh – work from 'Form' at the Bluewall Gallery

Nolan’s proliferation of virtual catatonic bodies means that this translation

‘Immersed’ at Bluewall Gallery, Cavan (24 Sept – 4 August) showcased the works of four young Cavan-born artists – Sally O’Dowd, Laura O’Connor, Annie O’Reilly and Harriet Browne. As the press release outlined “spanning a diversity of media, from live-art to painting, these four artists are immersed in their work, dedicated to the development of their respective practices”. The artists’ participation in the show was assisted by Cavan Co. Council Arts Awards.

The previous show at the venue was ‘Form’, (26 June – 21 July) a group show featuring Niall Walsh, Vanya Lambrecht and Louise Rice.

of physical stimuli into dreamwork also proliferates, with each level acting as a

www.bluewallgallery.com

up continuing in the background. To go down a level - to pass, for instance, from Bourne Identity level-1 dream to Matrix level-2 dream - the characters have to fall asleep in the first-level dream. In other words, Nolan expands what in ordinary dreaming is a two-tier structure (the sleeping body and the dream) into a potentially infinite regress. As they go down a level, each character acquires a new dream-body, but this avatar depends upon a virtual catatonic body one level up. The dream avatars at “Bond movie” dream level-3, then, can only continue to exist while the virtual catatonic bodies at level-1 and level-2 and their real physical bodies all remain asleep. In ordinary dreams, the physical body is effectively a level 0, and when something happens in/to the physical body, these physical/ neurological events are re-motivated by the dream as narrative shifts (hence the well-known phenomenon of alarm clocks becoming sirens in dreams and such like).

quasi-physical level cause for what lies beneath it. The most obvious example of this in the film is the way that the tumbling of the van off a bridge at level-1 becomes converted into zero gravity at level-2.

So Inception has a well-formed hierarchy. But what stops the film being properly Escheresque is that the hierarchy is never disrupted. By contrast with David Cronenberg’s films Videodrome and Existenz, in which ostensibly embedded realities start to affect “ontologically superior” higher levels, the different reality levels in Inception remain securely delimited. Causality only runs one way downward - from the higher to the lower levels. No doubt it is the linear demands of the action film that militate against the eerie impasses and uncanny topographies of the strange loop.

At IMMA Carlos Garaicoa’s exhibition at IMMA, Dublin (10 June – 15 September) brings together new and recent works comprising sculpture, installation, drawing, video and photography, which explore the themes of architecture, urbanism, politics and history. Since the early 1990s Garaicoa has developed his multi-faceted practice as a means to critique modernist utopian architecture and the collapse of 20th-century ideologies using the city as his point of departure. The exhibition was

curated by Seán Kissane, Acting Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions, IMMA and is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue documenting Garaicoa’s work since 2006. The publication includes essays by Seán Kissane; Okwui Enwezor, curator, writer and critic; and Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Director of the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City.

Also on show is an exhibition some 42 paintings by the Spanish artist Ferran Garcia Sevilla, curated by Enrique Juncosa, Director, IMMA. The works in the show draw on influences as diverse as his travels in the Middle East, philosophy, Eastern cultures, comic books and urban graffiti.

The exhibition was co-produced by the Irish Museum of Modern Art and Patio Herreriano, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Espanol, Valladolid, Spain, where it will be shown from 2 October 2010 – January 2011.

Previously on view was ‘Altered Image’ (17 June – 15 August) an exhibition, designed to stimulate engagement with the visual arts by people with disabilities.

'Altered Image' included work by Thomas Brezing, David Creedon, Alice Maher, Caroline McCarthy and Abigail O’Brien, with specially commissioned works by Amanda Coogan and Daphne Wright. www.alteredimages.ie www.imma.ie

Exchange / Exposed

Aisling O'Beirn – work from exhibition at Belfast Exposed

Daniel Jewesbury and Aisling O’Beirn’s show at the Exchange Gallery at Belfast Exposed (2 July – 13 August) presented a series of ‘micro-geographical enquiries’ that the artists have been conducting over recent months. O’Beirn’s work comprised of digital animations drawn over images sourced from archival and contemporary images of the city, along with a sculptural work based at Waterworks Park in Belfast.

Jewesbury presented a short 16mm film entitled NLR, which documented a walk along the New Lodge Road. www.belfastexposed.org

Alice Maher – still from The Godchildren of Enantios

Galway Arts Centre recently presented solo shows by Mark Clare and Cora Cummins (12 Aug – 4 Sept).

Mark Clare's show 'Folly' comprised a body of work ulitising sculpture, photography, and video that dealt with "the things we accept as symbols of how we live and the times that we live in, mixing elements of historical tradition and social trends, such as the world enthusiasm for ping-pong in the 1970’s, monumental public sculpture in former communist states, and the contemporary prevalence of surveillance of public space through CCTV|" .

Cora Cummin's ‘Himmel und Hölle’ (Heaven and Hell) a showing of new print works and paper sculpture pondered "the various significances of sites of escape and isolation, be they voluntary or forced, conscious or unconscious – touching upon notions of regrouping and re-gathering resources; as well as temporary or permanent ‘time outs’ from worldly concerns".

Previoulsy on show was Alice Maher’s exhibition ‘Godchildren of Enantios’ (12 – 25 July) that featured a series of animated video works including a work specially commissioned for the exhibition. As the press outlined “Godchildren of Enantios is the world of the Hybrid, where bulls, birds, bells, bath chairs, teddy boys, headless women and legless men, all disport themselves to a wonderful soundtrack by composer Trevor Knight” www.galwayartscentre.com

IMOCA The Irish Museum of Contemporary Art (IMOCA), Dublin recently presented the ‘2010 New Living Art Exhibition – NLA’ (2 July – 1st August). The exhibition organised

by Claire Feeley featured works by Sam Aldridge, Cormac Browne, Alice Butler, Sean Campbell, John Coll, Mark Durkan & Eilis McDonald, Geraint Evans, Niall Fallon & Rory Grubb, Gillian Fitzpatrick, Benjamin Gaulon, Gemma Geraghty, Carl

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

September – October 2010

Roundup

Column

Mark Caffrey

Crossing & Arrival Billed as an international border-crossing programme of theatre and dance, the inaugural BE (Birmingham European) Festival based at AE Harris industrial spaces in the Jewellery Quarter (29 June – 3 July) offered 16 performances over four days; a showcase for work that aims to cross language barriers and explore connectivity ‘beyond words’.

Featuring a large Spanish contingent (one third of the artists showcased were Spanish), BE invited both new and established companies to present 30 minute performances in a quick-fire turnaround of up to five pieces a night with the BE Festival Award up for grabs. The award, the opportunity to develop a work in residency at the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), was won by Theatre Ad Infinitum, a prolific international ensemble (yet to perform in Ireland) under the artistic direction of Lecoq-trained George Mann.

The winning piece, Translunar Paradise, used physical storytelling and mask to expand on a precarious dance across the frontier of life and death in a journey shared by an elderly couple. A lifetime of intimacy serves as the gel that enables a grieving husband to cross a confusion of bittersweet memory and forgotten words; a silent courtship re-imagined to a live accordion accompaniment. Mann’s (controversial) decision to leave a gap between the performer’s face and the mask was a conceit that served both the piece and a lively post-show discussion well. By forcing emphasis on the space between that makes any crossing necessary, Mann encouraged his audience to experience the daunting liminal landscape negotiated by the couple as they reconnect across confused emotions that resist words.

An equally deserving recipient of the MAC residency would have been Melógamo Mínimo by Spanish company Angélico Musgo. A masterful journey further and further into a miniature world, Melógamo Mínimo is the story of a character trying to find his place; a simple tale of longing softened by innocent laughter that creeps up on and gently transforms its audience. The piece features a disarmingly expressive hand puppet made of a white glove and a wooden ball – Ros – who seeks connection in a black box world full of brief encounters. Ros spends all his time waiting: waiting for inspiration; waiting for a butterfly to arrive with his baggage, or a red balloon to take him away; waiting on a train station platform that swells with potential connection, and empties.

When a young boy at the front of the audience stood up and craned his neck to get closer to this endlessly inventive world of openings and transformations he bridged in an instant the gap between an audience of adults on a gentle journey back to childhood wonder, and their miniature enabler.

While full to capacity, the BE Festival audience largely consisted of festival artists and students from Birmingham School of Acting participating in the daily workshops. The richness of the programme as a ‘challenge to change’ arguably played to those who already share a passion for the hybridisation of form, conflicting with the message that Birmingham could be the home of international performance when the audience reach was largely limited to the familiar culture of festival artists and participants; a safe audience, happy to celebrate their diversity across boundaries of form and nationality established by the BE Festival directors. If they are mindful of cultivating as much variety in their audience as they strive for in their programming, the second BE Festival might affect some very exciting domestic border-crossings.

‘Arrivals’, co-curated by Ciara Hickey and Feargal O’Malley at the Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast (29 July – 11 Sept), focuses on “emerging artists from, or living in Northern Ireland” and features the work of 18 artists working across the visual and performing arts - the programme to include five live performances in the gallery space during the exhibition run. The performances are a curatorial decision designed to highlight the vitality of this new generation of emergent artists.

As the opening performance, Battle Drums Galactica by Keith Winter offers the suggestion of two sets of drums railing against each other signalling the arrival of a wildly unpredictable creative energy in the gallery setting. A procession through the packed gallery in trippy space age costume imaginings and day-glo make-up set the scene for an exhilarating sonic odyssey that delivered on energising the crowd, yet felt more like a carefully orchestrated gig than spontaneous performance art.

A confused and troubling ordering of digital noise into visual sequences were found in the work of John Macormac: five works on black card overloaded with an assortment of found fragments and synthetic desire, pages from a restless dream diary puncturing the anxious white walls like wormholes.

In the Mouth Chamber, an installation by Michael Hanna, familiar language patterns were momentarily collapsed by darkness. Up a ladder and into a dark cocoon away from the crowds, an escape into inky silence was immediately threatened by slippery guttural attack, as slices of the International Phonetic Alphabet spat at me from all angles began a slow blend with the gallery murmurings below.

Infused with a little uncertainty and with the laughter of recognition to guide me back to the familiar, ‘these moments in the dark’ – both literal and figurative – spent at ‘Border Crossings’ in Birmingham and at ‘Arrivals’ at OBG spoke of the benefits of habitual border-crossing and healthy resistance to accepted norms as vital in arriving at connectivity beyond words. www.befestival.org www.ormeaubaths.co.uk

Giffney, Fiona Hallinan, Daragh Hughes, Ramon Kassam, Barbara Knezevic, K Bear Koss, Nicky Larkin, Maximilian Le Cain, Ruth Lyons, Dave Madigan, James Merrigan, Clive Moloney, Lorraine Neeson, Joseph Noonan Ganley, Meadhbh O’Connor, Oh Francis, Francis Quinn, Ben Readman, Bern Roche Farrelly, Fintan Ryan, Alex Synge, Tu Me Tues, SuperMassiveBlackHole.

As part of the exhibition an event entitled ‘Best in Show’ (11 July) was conducted by artist / curator Katie Strain, which comprised of an afternoon of dog agility training which offered “a day of fine art and dog appreciation” Previously on show was ‘Silent Vibrations’ (2 – 9 June), a solo show by Ella Burke, the IMOCA 2009 Graduate Residency Award recipient. The press release notes that Burke’s new body of work “replayed space-age aesthetics with a series of inflatable structures and technospiritual machines”. www.imoca.ie

Norbert Schwontkowski

work explored the territories of “the real and the imagined, the explained and the unexplainable, a re-entry into the vistas of childhood from an adult standpoint”.

Making Nature

www.southtipparts.com

Liebesglück

Rowena Dring Joshua Tree Early Evening

The Rubicon Gallery, Dublin presented ‘Making Nature’ (9 June – 10 July), a group exhibition, curated by Gemma Tipton, in which Irish and international artists explored the themes of nature, landscape and artifice. The artists featured in the show were Rowena Dring, Blaise Drummond, Anita Groener, Katie Holten, Caroline McCarthy, Barbara Novak, Nadin Maria Rüfenacht, Jennifer Steinkamp, Robert Voit, Yuken Teruya. Previously on show was ‘Bihotz’ a new series of paintings

by Patrick Michael Fitzgerald (5 May – 5 Jun). www.rubicongallery.ie Karin Brunnermeier work from ‘Liebesglück’

Scalar

Norbert Schwontkowski, Unsere neuen Hotels (3 Hotels in Holland), 2010, oil on canvas 150 x 150 cm

The Kerlin Gallery, Dublin recently presented an exhibition of new paintings

by Norbert Schwontkowski (11 June - 17 July). Entitled ‘Dirty’, the show was described in the press release as presenting “rich atmospherics … shadowy landscapes, rudimentary domestic situations and sundry improbable scenarios are tinged with the wry humour of a particularly downbeat surrealist and memorably suffused with his unique variety of semidetached romanticism”. www.kerlin.ie

KING RAT

Sam Keogh – preparitory / research image.

Curated by Sean O Sullivan, the exhibition ‘Scalar’ At Ormond Studios, Dublin (24 – 30 June), presented works by Matthew Slack, Sam Keogh, Jackie Gray, Gavin Murphy and Joseph Noonan-Ganley. The exhibition publication described the show as “a multifaceted study of topics surrounding cultural production within the studio context” and included critical texts expanding on this subject matter by Rebecca O Dwyer, Martina McDonald, Nicky Teegan and Sean O Sullivan.

www.projectartscentre.ie

Walkers’ 10th

Work by Ciara Murray

Paolo Tamburella Capital Forwarding Solutions

Project Arts Centre presented ‘King Rat’ a group exhibition featuring work by David Bennewith and Joseph Churchward (WS/ NZ), Heman Chong (SG), Matthias Bitzer (DE), Isabel Nolan (IE), David Noonan (AU) and Pae White (US) (9 July – 4 Sept).

Curator by Tessa Giblin explained in the press release that the show was devised as “an environment or entanglement of art – each artist and artwork inhabits their own universe of complications, with form and aesthetics resting easily beside history, context and imagination”.

www.kevinkavanaghgallery.ie

http://www.ormondstudios.com/

Paolo Tamburella

'King Rat' – Installation view

The Kevin Kavanagh Gallery presented ‘Liebesglück’ by Karin Brunnermeier from (10 – 26 June). Brunnermeier, the press material notes examines societal roles and the dynamics of relationships with a “critical, but humorous eye, her imagery is infused with a curious visual poetry where waking and dream states are blurred”.

The following show was ‘Regarding Painting’ – an exhibition exploring “painting as a place to see things differently and see different things” (1 – 24 July).

Artists included were: Diana Copperwhite, Sarah Dwyer, Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Paul Nugent, Axel Sanson, Esther Teichmann, curated by Elaine Byrne & Kevin Kavanagh.

‘Capital Forwarding Solutions’ was the first solo project of the Italian artist Paolo W. Tamburella in Ireland (opened 24 June), developed while the artist was International Artist in Residence at The Model in Sligo. The project was curated by Aoife Tunney. Tamburella created a sitespecific video installation for The Paper Store, a warehouse built in the 1900s in the Dublin Docklands to store paper for the Irish Press newspaper. www.tamburella.net

The World of Wonder The South Tipperary Arts Centre in Clonmel recently presented The World of Wonder (22 July – 27 August), a multimedia installation by Sue Morris. The

The Sarah Walker gallery, Castletownberre recently held an exhibition marking 10 years of the gallery (31 July – 21 August).

The show featured works by graduates from Limerick School of Art and Design, the Crawford College of Art, Cork and NCAD, Dublin – Ciara Murray, Kallum Hillary, Gemma Marie O’Shea, Luke Deignan and Lucille Bonne. www.sarahwalker.ie

Scarred Landscape Mill Street Studios, in conjunction with PhotoIreland, presented ‘The Scarred Landscape’, an exhibition of photographs

by Irish photographer Debbie Castro (2 July – 11 July). As the press release noted, the show documented “how the construction of a motorway has negatively impacted on the lives of over 300 landowners, their families and their livelihoods in rural Ireland”. www.millstreetstudios.ie www.photoireland.org www.debbiecastro.com

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

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September – October 2010

Roundup Angela Fewer

Mermaid Activity

Angela Fewer – work from 'Transcapes'

Angela Fewer`s exhibition of large scale paintings and drawings, entitled ‘TransScapes (a view between)’, was on show at Alley Arts and Conference Centre, Strabane, Co. Tyrone. (5 – 25 June). The show featured works by the artist spanning from 2006 - 2009. The press release outlined that the works “fall between categories, eg. landscape and embodiment; architecture and map making; writing, painting and drawing ”. www.alley-theatre.com

Shortlisted

Jane Fogerty Installation

Gina Forde Waiting for Summer

The Talbot Gallery, Dublin presented ‘Shortlisted’ (8 – 22 July) a group exhibition showcasing the work of recent art graduates from NCAD, IADT Dun Laoghaire and DIT. The exhibition also inaugurated the galleries Most Promising Graduate Award. A call for entries was made to graduating students from Dublin’s main art colleges. The artists featured in the show were Andrew Carson, Aoife Woods, David Lunny, Gina Forde, Jane Fogerty, Leah Hewson, Maria Makrai, Nadia Shah, Oscar Fouz Lopez. www.talbotgallery.com

Fractured Self

Skatulski & Snow Dying Gladiator (work for Unbuilding')

The Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray recently presented a range of visual arts events and exhibitions. Choreographer Fearghus Ó Conchúir’s dance / film work Match was show throughout July (1 – 31). The work was described as “a duet that takes place on the pitch in Croke Park”. The film was originally commissioned as part of RTÉ’s inaugural Dance on the Box season, a partnership initiative with An Chomhairle Ealaíon/The Arts Council of Ireland assisted by Filmbase to stimulate the creation of dance for screen in Ireland. The film was directed by Emmy award-winning director, Dearbhla Walsh with music by Julie Feeney.

Also tackling sport related themes was Julie Henry and Angela Fulcher’s exhibition ‘Game-Play” (4 June – 24 July).

The exhibition comprised of projected works alongside collage, assemblage and sculptural work on the subject of football.

As the gallery notes outlined the artists works were concerned with “exploring social spaces and our participation in society”. Earlier in the month the venue presented ‘Magnum Photos Screening’ 5 – 9 July) a presentation of photographs by renowned international photographers on the Mermaid’s cinema screen.

Currently taking place is the ‘Unbuilding’ project (21 August – 17 October) a curatorial initiative which was launched in spring 2009 with a curator-inresidence programme led by Clíodhna Shaffrey. Over the last year the group has evolved their ideas to create a platform showcasing new work in a specially designed event for Mermaid Arts Centre.

‘Unbuilding’ includes off-site projects, an architecturally designed space at Mermaid, over 12 exhibitions rotating weekly, House on Fire (an anonymous group experiment) and a programme of weekly talks, presentations, and screenings. Artists and curators include Pauline Cummins, Felicity Clear, Damien Flood, Cliona Harmey, Mary Kelly, Eilís Lavelle, Rosie Lynch, Bea McMahon, Sinead Ní Mhaonaígh, James Merrigan, Kate Minnock, Clíodhna Shaffrey, Tamsin Snow & Kate Warner. More information about up coming ‘Unbuilding’ events can be found at www.unbuildingproject.com www.mermaidartscentre.ie

Fragments ‘Fragments from a Broken World’ an exhibition featuring works by Sean Hillen and Peter Kennard & Cat Phillipps (kennardphillipps) was presented at the National Photographic Archive, Temple Bar, Dublin 2. (2 July – 2 August) as part of the PhotoIreland Festival. As the publicity material explained the artists shared an approach, seeing “archived images as inherently unstable and open to manipulation to generate new meanings”.

A broadsheet newspaper was produced to accompany the exhibition, with contributions from John Berger, Mic Moroney, John Slyce and Doireann Wallace. www.photoireland.org. www.kennardphillipps.com www.seanhillen.com

A New Bridge

Zoe O'Reilly – work from 'A New Bridge'

Riverbank Arts Centre, Kildare presented ‘A New Bridge’, an exhibition highlighting the experiences of migration and asylum seekers in Ireland (12 – 16 July). The photographs and stories presented in the exhibition were the result of a four-month collaboration between visual ethnographer Zoë O’Reilly and a group of eight individuals from different corners of the world, living in the town Newbridge and seeking asylum in Ireland. www.riverbank.ie

Surface & Reality

Willie Doherty – work shown at Kilkenny Arts Festival

The visual arts programme of this year’s Kilkenny Arts Festival, entitled ‘Surface and Reality’ (6 – 15 August) was curated by Oliver Dowling. The show featured works

by Declan Clarke, Ciaran Walsh and Eoghan McTigue, Susan Philipsz. Stephen Loughman, Dennis McNulty, Fergus Martin, Michael Coleman, Willie Doherty, Eithne Jordan and William McKeown. The show utilised five venues and presented a pathway of works – including film, paintings, photographs, installation and sound – across the city. www.kilkennyarts.ie

Cecilia Bullo – work from 'The Fractured Self'

Cecilia Bullo’s installation ‘The Fractured Self’ at The Market Studios, Dublin (28 May – 13 June), drew on the life of theorist, philosopher and playwright, Antonin Artaud, in particular his journey to Ireland in 1937, made in the hope of returning what he believed to be St. Patrick’s crosier to its homeland. The works in the show were also inspired by Bullo’s participation in an artist’s residency at the foot of Saint Patrick’s resting place, Croagh Patrick. themarketstudios.wordpress.com

Maria McKinney Maria McKinney, the recipient of The Red Stables Irish Artist Residential Studio Award Recipient 2008 – 2009, recently presented ‘Somewhere but here, another other place’ at The Lab, Dublin 9 July – 28 August), The show featured new drawings, sculptures and installation works exploring the subjects of boredom and pass-time activities. As the press release noted McKinney’s work used “commonplace materials, drawing influence from both conceptual art and folk art”. www.thelab.ie

Public / Pirate ‘Public Gesture: Pirate Capital’ a four-day programme of projects and events was presented by the MA in Visual Arts Practices (MAVIS), IADT at The Lab, Dublin (4 – 8 June). ‘Public Gesture: Pirate Capital’ explored a range of contemporary interpretations of the current economic and political crisis to initiatives motivated by historical perspectives including the history of Ireland’s pirate queen Granuaile (Grace O’Malley). Projects included performance, installation, photography, drawing, sculpture as well as incorporating

Column

Jonathan Carroll

What is Waiting Out There “Let’s talk about the self-deceptions where reality becomes too painful. Let’s talk about the fictional arsenal of the mass media and consumerism, about rhetoric of distraction and appeasement. Won’t that ultimately lead us to question contemporary art, and its relationship to reality?”(1) What is so comforting about attending a Biennale is the lack of a need for a city guide or plan. An itinerary is laid out for you. This itinerary promises to be a lot different from your regular guide and brings you into contact with places and people you would otherwise struggle to encounter in a matter of days. If you are a member of the ‘art scene’ you can arrive unannounced (but expected) at the opening and be greeted by all those familiar faces from the art circuit. Some you haven’t seen since Venice 2009, others don’t waste time in letting you know that they are in a hurry to see everything as they are off to Art Basel in a matter of hours, the Berlin Biennale is already done. But this Biennale’s mark will travel with you, nagging at your consciousness long after you have left for the next party.

The 6th Berlin Biennale (11 June – 8 August), curated by Kathrin Rhomberg, is very clear about its intentions and the position it takes in relation to other tendencies present in the contemporary art world – “the works presented in the show reject the tendency-increasingly observable in art – to turn away from reality and toward art-immanent and formal problems. They counter this tendency by insisting on a stringent view of our present and its reality”. (2) The main conduit for this serious intent is housed in one building (with 33 of the total of 44 artists represented) with the central core being a series of video works featuring some form of conflict you have never heard of or have forgotten, much like the selection of artists chosen, a selection that works as a collective wake up call. In your face work that visibly riles some of the viewers and leads to some audible breast-beating and in some cases disgust “how can you praise a work that exploits the suffering of others!?”.

This response is in reference to Renzo Martens Episode 3 a 90 minute video that baits the viewer into a debate about the decorum of the subject matter and the content of art. I had seen this work several times before (recently in Manifesta 7) where the work was anomalous, a lone frenzied voice trying to shout above the crowd (like one of those egg throwing bank shareholders). Here in Berlin however, the shocking nature of the work finds fellow voices that temper the viewer’s reaction to the work which now becomes the highest note in a chorus of protest.

As you move from room to room in the exhibition you are battered with images of protest from Mexico (Minerva Cuevas, Dissidence v 2.0) Niger Delta (Mark Boulos, All That is Solid Melts into Air ), Paris (Bernard Bazile, Les Manifs –Protest Marches), Israel (Nir Evron, Echo and Avi Mograbi, Details 2 & 3), the Congo (Renzo Martens) and then when you rush on looking for some relief you find yourself in Marie Voignier’s Hearing the Shape of a Drum, a behind the scenes view of the media frenzy surrounding the Josef Fritzl trial.

Lest you think the curator is just a shock jock, there are many more subtle responses to the chosen theme. John Smith’s humorous Frozen War (Hotel Diaries # 1) features a relaxed voiceover of the artist as he reacts to the frozen image of a newsflash relating to the invasion of Afghanistan. Ferhat Özgür’s Metamorphosis Chat features the artist’s mother as the protagonist who swaps clothes with a teacher of modern dress in order to humorously remove her ever present headscarf. Here the obvious religious connotations and symbolism contained in the headscarf are gently buried in the fun the amateur actors get from the task.

Meanwhile those yearning to see some non-video art are rewarded with the deceptive inclusion of Sven-Åke Johansson’s charcoal and pencil drawings of helicopters. Are these children’s drawings depicting military helicopters buzzing overhead the playgrounds in Gaza, Iraq or Afghanistan? No, they have no relationship to war but demonstrate how context can influence perception.

There are plenty more red herrings in this exhibition (as well as live chickens) that don’t need to be captive to the reality check mentioned in the title.

The curator has lived with this idea for long enough to pick out those gentler notes that, rather than dilute the overall message, add tonalities to what is a very detailed picture of several realities through a variety of artists eyes.

What is different here is the focal point taken by these artists, from the anthropological to the Swiftian, the behind the scenes observer to the feigned naive inquisitor.

The inclusion of a mini exhibition of Adolph Menzel (1815–1905) curated

by Michael Fried in the Alte Nationalgalerie adds a slight historical perspective to realism in art. Menzel’s Two Fallen Soldiers Laid out on Straw, 1866, reminds us of the history of conflict while his Unmade Bed, ca. 1845 may remind us more of the trivial reality contained in one female British artist’s own unmade den.

The ability of the Berlin Biennale to focus on such a concentrated theme and to risk alienating an unsuspecting audience is facilitated by having all aspects of other art available in the considerable amount of museums in Berlin.

Those who prefer the art of spectacle can visit the Martin-Gropius-Bau and see Olafur Eliasson’s ‘merry-go-round’ exhibit curated by Daniel Birnbaum –last year’s Venice Biennale curator.

(1) Berlin Biennale press materials – www.berlinbiennale.de (2) Berlin Biennale information guide – www.berlinbiennale.de

6

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

Column

Chris Fite-Wassilak Beyond Collective Desire

Why are there no truly anonymous artistic gestures in the art world? Perhaps that sounds like the opening line of a joke, but there are no good (let alone funny) punch lines. If there was one it might go along the lines of emphasising the extent to which the concept of ownership has come to dominate meanings in the art world – that a work must be attributed and its authorship claimed before it can have any significance.

Of course there is slew of artists working under pseudonyms, acronyms, and assumed collective identities. However the ‘collective’ has become much less a medium for attempting alternatives than simply a cool signifier, that expresses nothing more than the desire to appear collective; rather than actual collectivity. As Ben Davis recently wrote in the Model Niland’s Anti-Catalogue #1. “In the 00s, collectivism, as often as not, appears simply as a trope to be playfully exploited, taking its social value more from a kind of hipster tribalism and celebration of subcultures, and less from premises of art-as-political-alternative,” (1) We seem to have reached a level of irony and elasticity in referencing and using notions of socialism and

Roundup a moving image programme in a specially designated screening area; along with talks, interviews and discussions in the LAB gallery space. The project participants were Bdellatif Abdeljawad, Sinéad Aldridge. Tinka Bechert, Emma Betts, Sarah Roche, Sharon Murphy, Jennifer Brady, Andrew Carroll, Enagh Farrell, Veronica Forsgren, Carl Giffney, Rachael Gilbourne, Janet Healy Matthew Hellett, Liz Crow and Sean Hamill, Kevin Holland, Simon Keogh, Laura Kelly, Joanne Laws, Chiara Liberti & Colette Lewis, Anne Lynott, Judy Carroll Deeley, Monica de Bath, Siobhan McDonald, Ann Murphy, Aoife O’Toole, Padraig Parle, Paul Regan, Kate Strain, Maria Tanner.

provincial spheres of fashion and High Street vis-à-vis the daily reality of Palestinians living in Gaza”.

The Artlink New Art Award projects were selected from an open competition in 2009 by a selection panel comprising of Dave Beech Art Critic & Artist, UK; Maoliosa Boyle Manager, Void Derry; Brian Duggan Artist and Founder of Pallas Heights, Dublin; Elaine Forde Former Director, Artlink Donegal: Adrian Kelly Curator, Glebe Gallery Donegal: Mark Wallinger Artist, UK www.jimricks.info www.eaf.ie

Difference Again

http://www.mavis.ie/publicgesture

Finnish Jobseeker

collectivity, and toying with the conceptual death of the author but without delving beyond that.

What I’d like to start to idealistically suggest here, then, is the possibilities and mechanisms of a sort of truly anonymous collective; a form that could have the energy and multiple possibilities of group action, while furthering critiques of artistic

Installation view – 'The Difference Engine'

identity (2). Collectives do, on a general level, provide some degree of individual dissolution, but still seem to bank on a destabilization or inversion of ‘name’ usage.

When we start to look for models of anonymity, though, they are not easy to find - remaining nameless inevitably poses problems of traceability and documentation.

But a few brief near-misses are ready to hand: The Guerrilla Girls since the mid-80s have never revealed their individual identities, but the obvious fact of wearing gorilla masks has done a fair job of marking them out; we can find an earlier version of their brand of anonymity in The Residents, a still-active rock ban who since the 70s have made all live appearances sporting large, head-sized eyeballs. More potent is the openuse style monikers, used in Mathematics from the 30s, such as ‘Nicolas Bourbaki’ ; or the ‘Alan Smithee’ name used in Hollywood since the 60s for directors wishing to distance themselves from projects, and the more recent Luther Blissett name. Anyone can use the name; so far, the Blissett umbrella has spawned a punk band, a prank involving exhibiting a chimp’s artwork in a gallery, as well as an amazing novel, Q (3).

The practice of sharing or even disregarding authorship is simply par for the course in areas like open-source software and any number of scientific research projects, but its trickle-down possibilities into more apparently conservative practices like literature and visual arts is slow and still evolving.

The best model for this ‘anonymous collectivity’, I can currently find in practice, you might have noticed in passing during the summer. It’s an event, or rather a series

Pii Anttila – gallery view 'Situations Wanted'

‘Situations Wanted – Applying for a Job in the Underground Economy’ was an installation presented at PS squared, Belfast (5 – 24 July) by Finnish artist Pii Anttila. For the project Anttila placed ads in the situations wanted section of local newspapers and websites, beginning with the line “Finnish girl is looking for a job…”. The press release for the show described the work as “a self help initiative and a model to escape isolation as the jobseeker, drowning deeper and deeper into the muddy grounds of capitalism”. www.situationswanted.wordpress.com www.piianttila.com www.pssquared.or

Holding Pattern

The touring group show ‘Difference Engine: Manifestation II’ at The Black Mariah, Cork. (9 – 26 June) presented works by Mark Cullen, Gillian Lawler, Wendy Judge, Jessica Foley & Gordon Cheung. The exhibition’s first incarnation was shown at Cake Contemporary Arts, Kildare. As the press release noted, the show “was an installation of disparate and individual works that undeniably riff off each other, opening up a space wherein the audience can begin to generate connections and meanings that are unique to themselves, engaging in a kind of immersive and active storytelling; becoming players, or tourists within the zone of exhibition, in an encounter with the limits of their own imagination”. www.differenceengine2010.wordpress.com http://www.triskelart.com

Mart Tour

of events under one banner, but one that juggles individual and collective goals, brought together under elongated, durational frameworks that defy immediate reward or visual pleasure. I’m speaking, of course, of bicycle races, most prominently the Tour de France.

But bear with me, as I’m aware that it is a competitive race, that an individual is striving to win – and I want to avoid all analogies of artists with marathon-type struggle. It is, rather, the accumulative tone and medium of the races that is insightful.

Over 150 riders, almost identical in their helmets and spandex outfits, riding over three weeks and hundreds of kilometres, each with their own efforts and nearinvisible ‘style’ of riding, create a sort of organism beyond themselves. Similar to swarming of bees or starlings, the body of the race becomes its own biomorphic entity, with correspondingly different physics and movements. Each team of riders carries its own specialists: sprinters, hill climbers, and support men, and teams take turns keeping up the pace of the entire race. Each day of the race is a thing in itself, but the action, the event, being made of the entire body of racers, is always elusive, always simultaneously elsewhere and shifting. As a result, the immediate spectacle of cycling is distinctly boring, as if nothing is ever happening, though it is brought meaning embedded in a wider sense of history, strategy, geography and relativity.

For me, the politics of the péloton provide a particular version of collectivity, where difference and skill can be incorporated into a larger, shifting entity that has no agenda apart from movement and whose ongoing end is simply to test its participants to reveal their own process and practice to themselves. The desire to appear collective, and named as such, has to be dissolved into an organic, thoughtless wider grouping that could then point to the unnamed and unexplored directions of new possibilities.

NOTES 1. Ben Davis, Collective Clarity, in Anti-Catalogue #1, guest-edited by Amish Morell, published by The Model Niland, Sligo, 2010, as part artist-collective fair-cum-exhibition Dorm, p. 30, which as a pocket-size book does a good job of trying to break apart some of the current idealisations of artists’ collectives.

2. I’d like to suggest this on a provisional and creative-practice based level without at this point going into which subdivision of socialism or anarchism this might belong to.

3. Not to mention the ‘original’ Luther Blissett, a football player in the 80s for Watford and A.C. Milan. The four Italian writers who created Q then went on to re-name themselves Wu-Ming (Mandarin for ‘No name’), and authored the book 54.

September – October 2010

Jon Sasaki – work from 'Holding Pattern' 126 Galway.

‘Holding Pattern’ a showing of works by Canadian artist Jon Sasaki was recently presented at126, Galway (14 July – 14 August). The exhibition featured works incorporating performative video, found objects and installation pieces. The gallery notes outlined how the exhibition addressed the subjects of “stasis, irresolution, expectations both dashed and pending, and the unsustainability of indecision”. http://www,jonsasaki.com www.126.ie

nothing to do with us Jim Ricks’s exhibition of new work ‘We will say it has nothing to do with us’ was shown as part of the Earagail Festival at Fort Dunree, Buncrana, Co. Donegal (15 July – 11 August). The show was part of Rick’s winning of an Artlink New Art Award in 2009. The works in the show were based a collection of Associated Press images dated from 14 January 2009, the time of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. As the press release explained the resulting sculptural objects “negotiated an uncomfortable compromise between the

MART - 'The Instructional' installation view

MART an artist collective based in Ireland and UK recently initiated a touring exhibition project entitled ‘The Instructional’. Curator Matthew Nevin and Ciara Scanlan described the show being concerned with “re-inventing the exhibition format with a unique interplay between artist, curator and artwork, challenging each role”. The show featured video, installation, sound and performance work by Irish, British, European and North American Artists.

Recent stops on the exhibitions tour have included Bergen, Norway; Bratislava, Slovak Republic; Berlin, Germany; and at the Bounce Cube venue in Dublin.

Further information is available from the Mart website. www.mart.ie

Shiel @ TBG&S Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, Dublin re-launched its gallery programme with ‘Bran New Brains’ an exhibition of work

by Sonia Shiel – (16 July – 28 August).

The show featured the construction of an installation during the course of the shows duration, comprising an evolving series of works. An exhibition talk and book launch took place on 19 August, the publication on Sheil’s work was produced by the Royal Hibernian Academy and featured contributions from Mark Hutchinson and Chris FiteWassilik. www.templebargallery.com

I&E ‘WAFER – Wired for Ear and Retinas’ an exhibition / festival event at Soma Contemporary Art Space, Waterford (9– 24 July) “celebrated the extraordinary creative production and cultural influence of technological culture”. The show featured works by Irish and international practitioners of technology based art, including from Linz Austria Time’s Up – Laboratory for the Construction of Experimental Situations; Irish sound art practitioners, Anthony Kelly and David Stalling along with Bernard Clarke, presenter of the NOVA music show on RTÉ lyric fm, who coordinated interactive sound posts for the duration of the show.

The previous show in the venue was ‘Glasimile’ (4 – 26 June) a presentation of works by Ruth E. Lyons and Carl Giffney members of the Good Hatchery collective. www.somacontemporary.com www.thegoodhatchery.wordpress.com

Red Stables To mark the fifth year of their Irish Residential Studio Award, The Red Stables, Dublin hosted an exhibition (15 July – 21 August) by the four awardwinning artists who have each spent a year living and working at The Red Stables. Curated by Patrick T. Murphy, Director of the Royal Hibernian Academy, the show brought together for the first time work made in a variety of media by Tadhg McSweeney (2006 - 2007), Paul McKinley (2007-2008), Maria McKinney (2008-2009) and Niall De Buitléar (2010).

The exhibition showcased work made on-site in the Irish Residential Studio and aimed to highlight the value of the Award as a catalyst for the subsequent development of the artists’ practices at an important point in their careers. www.dublincity.ie

Close to Hand The group show ‘Close to Hand’ at Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (23 July – 9 October) features work by Lorraine Burrell, Gary Coyle, Cleary + Connolly, Katie Holten, Nick Miller, Collette Nolan and Nathalie Du Pasquier. As curator Dawn Williams outlines in the press release, the show focuses on investigations and processes of artists “ who continue to invoke the personal and physical relationship of their surroundings within their practice. Exploring and exposing the blurring or ‘entanglements’ between life and its environs, the exhibition celebrates the creative impetus that is the familiar and the overlooked within our everyday context and thereby prompts the viewer to look again at the relationship with one’s immediate surroundings”. crawfordartgallery.ie

7

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

September – October 2010

news

News Access UPDATE Artist and arts organisations across the Republic of Ireland have been keenly aware of cuts and reductions in public funding, be it Arts Council or local authority monies. However, there has not been much discussion on the impact of cuts on major capital projects, that have been planned or in train for some time.

In the current economic climate, it seems inevitable that some of the planned museum, studio, and gallery new builds and refurbishments, supported by The Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport’s ACCESS (Arts and Culture Capital Enhancement Support Scheme) scheme, could now be under threat or face indefinite delays.

The reason being that the scheme works on the basis of augmenting matching funds provided by local authorities – who are currently having to cut all their capital expenditure in light of budget cuts from central government.

The arts are of course not a special case in terms of local authority spending cuts. As has been widely reported, many core areas such as public housing, healthcare and education have all experienced budget reductions. However, the situation in relation to ACCESS supported projects seems particularly frustrating in the sense that a considerable amount of money is potentially available from central government; but it cannot be drawn down due to shortfalls in matching funds. As well as this, this situation threatens the success of the governments ‘brand Ireland’ and strategies – in terms of compromising some of the key cultural infrastructure and facilities that are required to ensure the arts positive contributions to driving the Irish economy.

The Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport describes the aims of ACCESS as assisting in “the provision of high standard arts and culture infrastructure, thereby enhancing access to the arts throughout the country and is intended to provide a further impetus to the development of arts and culture facilities, thereby enhancing the quality of life for our citizens”. A total of 77 projects nationwide received capital funding of €42m under the most recent ACCESS II scheme (ran from 2007 – 2009). The objective of the scheme is to prioritise the enhancement and maintenance of existing facilities, and accordingly 70% of the funds available under the scheme are directed towards the enhancement and/or refurbishment of existing facilities, with 30% for new facilities. Projects supported by the ACCESS scheme included the provision of new integrated art centres, theatres and studio space and the refurbishment of existing performance spaces. It has been widely acknowledged as a significant intervention in the provision of quality cultural space throughout the regions. (1) Visual Artists Ireland has contacted The Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport in relation to this issue. In response, the department stressed that is was

working in a supportive and flexible way with recipients of ACCESS funding who now found their matching fund reduced.

In terms of information on specific projects under threat of delay or complete cancellation, the department was unable to supply details as key decisions and discussions were still taking place at local authority level. However they did note that all projects in receipt of ACCESS funding are listed on The Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport’s website.

We also asked whether any ACCESS monies that now were not going to be allocated to capital projects remained ring-fenced for the scheme or redeployed elsewhere in the arts and cultural supports. Declan Brennan of Department of Tourism, Culture & Sport replied “the department will be striving to ensure that any funding allocated to the ACCESS Programme, that for whatever reason is not going to be spent on its intended project, would be used for other projects in the arts / culture area. However, cognisance has to be taken of the current economic situation and any government decisions that may be made around budgets and estimates for next year and future years”.

Lucina Russell, Arts Officer for Kildare County Council and Chair of the Association of Local Authority Arts Officers has noted that the association exchanges “information amongst its members on an ongoing basis about the capital development programme for the arts in Ireland. While we are aware that a number of ACCESS projects have been postponed, a number of important projects are progressing including artists studios and gallery, rehearsal space, kiln and living accommodation in Stradbally, Co Laois and a new arts facility in Tullamore, with a dedicated gallery space which will certainly enhance the visual arts repertoire in Ireland” (2).

Russell also emphasised the support and appreciation of arts officers for the ACCESS scheme, “ACCESS funding has assisted in the transformation of the arts infrastructure across Ireland in the last 15 years. Much of the current ACCESS funding was targeted at refurbishment of existing facilities, rather than new building projects. We take a strategic approach to capital development and remain committed to its realisation, in the long term. We welcome the Department’s flexibility in its funding terms and conditions in relation to current ACCESS projects, to encourage local authorities in this regard.”

In terms of ACCESS projects in Russell’s own county, she noted that while “an ACCESS application for a Municipal Gallery in Naas has been postponed, Kildare County Council remains committed to this important project in the long term. In fact, we have invested over €200,000 in the acquisition of new works in the last two years. In the short term, our priority is to support existing arts infrastructure in the county, such as CAKE Contemporary Arts and the Leinster Printmaking Studio”.

On another positive note, Westmeath local authorities recently announced that it has secured further grant aid funding of €1.45 million towards the Athlone gallery and studios development. This funding was granted through the BMW Gateways and Hubs /

ERDF grant scheme. This will be added to the existing grant of €650,000 already secured through the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism ACCESS scheme.

More details can be read elsewhere in the news section.

Further developments relating to the ACCESS funding programme will be reported on in subsequent editions of the VAN. In the meantime, we welcome correspondence on the issue in general or responding specifically to this article.

(1) http://www.dast.gov.ie/arts/access_projects.html (2) All quotes from email correspondence with VAI 20 July 2010.

LIVING & WORKING CONDITIONS The average professional artist living in the Republic of Ireland earns just €14,500 a year from his or her art, despite having a higher level of formal education than the wider labour force, new research shows. The data, published by the Arts Council and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, reveals how many artists are

CLYNE GALLERY The Clyne Gallery is a brand new gallery located in the Old City area of Temple Bar and is run by artist and art project consultant Patricia Clyne-Kelly. De Blacam and Meagher Architects, when designing the award-winning Wooden Building in Temple Bar, included a retail unit at its base. Vacant until now, the space has been totally renovated under the guidance of architect Mark Price. It has been fitted out to create an elegant art gallery, which is accessed at street level and leads down a timber staircase to a space dug into the foundations of Dublin’s Old City, creating amazingly high walls. The gallery is described as "a welcoming intimate space in which to browse at leisure".

The inaugural exhibition at the gallery, Debut, showcased the work of several contemporary artists, some of whom graduated in recent years, others are mid career and some are established professional artists. www.clynegallery.com

now working on the island, and the challenges they face as they pursue their chosen professions.

In the most comprehensive study for a generation, the two arts councils have shed critical new light on what it means to be an artist, writer, painter, musician or performer in modern day Ireland, north and south. The Living and Working Conditions of Artists in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland shows that artists are an exceptionally highly educated group, with over two-thirds having attained a university degree.

They are also hard working, putting in more than 55 hours per week and frequently holding down extra jobs to support their creative endeavours.

In stark contrast to their academic achievements and evident commitment, however, the overwhelming majority of artists still earn just two-thirds of the average income for all others workers.

Lack of provision for pensions also spells financial hardship ahead for the current generation of artists. The findings of the report will influence how the arts councils continue to provide support and the measures they take to improve conditions for artists on the island. http://www.artscouncil.ie/Publications/LWCA%20 Study%20-%20Final%202010.pdf

DC2011 launcheD Culture Minister, Mary Hanafin T.D, launched 'Dublin Contemporary 2011' at the Merrion Hotel on 1 July. 'Dublin Contemporary 2011' will be a major new exhibition of leading Irish and International contemporary art which will be showcased across a number of sites in Dublin city over a period of 8 weeks, from 6 September to 31 October 2011. The project aims to bring together key cultural institutions across the city

TBG&S FRANKFURT AIR AWARD Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (TBG&S) has announced Irish artist Stephen Gunning and Turkish artists Ozlem Gunyol & Mustafa Kunt, as the recipients of the pilot, International Exchange Award between TBG&S and the Cultural Department of the City of Frankfurt. The award also represents the second international partnership for Temple Bar Gallery and Studios in its expanding programme of international visual arts residency exchanges. Artists will participate on the exchange programme between 1 October – 31 December 2010.

For 2010, Frankfurt City’s International Artist-in-Residence Programme selected Stephen Gunning to undertake a three month residency in the city, based at the “Kulturbunker” in the Harbour, accommodates two guest artists simultaneously and three local.

The City of Frankfurt will provide a residential studio and a monthly grant to Stephen Gunning and Temple Bar Gallery and Studios will host the two artists, Ozlem Gunyol & Mustafa Kunt on reciprocal terms. Strategically, the purpose of the international exchange is to support artists based in Ireland and in Frankfurt City to gathering and artistically develop new impressions and experiences from working in a different environment. In addition, the visit is intended to establish new contacts for the artist and the facilitating organisations that could be beneficial for creative achievements in the future.

The TBG&S and Frankfurt City Artist-in-Residence Award is supported by the Goethe-Institut Irland, The Culture Department of the City of Frankfurt and the private sponsorship of Therry Rudin and Patricia Hurl, Founder Member artists at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios. www.templebargallery.com

to create a city wide event. It is expected that exhibitions will be held in various locations including the Hugh Lane, IMMA, RHA, various spaces in Temple Bar and Thomas Street as well as alternative visual art spaces such as music venues and libraries. www.dublincontemporary.com

UAC Membership Drive The United Arts Club, Dublin is undertaking a membership drive. The club which is “central to Dublin’s cultural heart”; is located within walking distance of the National Gallery, National Concert Hall, Temple Bar, cinemas, theatres and commercial galleries. The club is unique

as a meeting place for people from all sections of the arts; writers, poets, actors dancers, musicians, and visual artists; since 1907 it has been Dublin’s cultural hub.

Artist Membership brings a range of benefits: the subscription of €345 will cover your membership until January 2012; the opportunity meet other artists; inclusion in two group shows annually; and possibly to show in a smaller group or individually –15% commission is as low as it gets in Dublin; you could also join the two life drawing classes and the painting class held every week.

The club has a wide range of facilities including: fine dining; accommodation; function room and a lively bar. The membership fee includes a €100 voucher which may be spent in the restaurant. In addition the club has regular exhibitions, guest dinners, a book club, music nights, and lectures.

There are also outings to the theatre and elsewhere. It is an excellent venue for parties, book-launches and meetings.

The Shaw and Byron societies and Irish Pen Association, among others, are hosted every month. There are also a weekly Bridge club on a Tuesday (beginners’ classes will be introduced this autumn) and Dublin’s oldest chess club is very much a part of the United Arts Club’s Thursday scene. A vibrant monthly book club has much to discuss...

The club has affiliation with many other clubs overseas; from Madrid to Madras, dropping in to the Players Club in New York on the way.

The United Arts Club will be open to all visitors on Culture Night on Friday 24 September Application forms can be requested from Sarah Leahy on 01 6611411 or office@dublinarts.ie Phil Kelly Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1950, Phil Kelly lived in Mexico City since 1983 where he was one of that country’s most highly acclaimed contemporary artists.

His vibrant, fauve-like paintings have captured the imagination of a series of dedicated collectors and supporters around the world, including, his old schoolfriend Jeremy Paxman, fellow artists Barrie Cooke and Eddie Kennedy, poet Seamus Heaney, rock group Franz Ferdinand, celebrity chefs Colin O’Daly and Rick Stein (for whose Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, Kelly created a mural and designs for linen, tableware etc). His work continues to be the subject of regular gallery and museum exhibitions and publications in Mexico, Europe and Ireland.

Phil Kelly’s work is represented in a number of private and public collections including – Centro Cultural de Arte

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

8

September – October 2010

News Contemporaneo, Mexico; Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, Ireland; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico; Office of Public Works (OPW), Ireland; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca, Mexico; Museo de la SHCP, Coleccion Pago en Especie, Mexico; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Ateneo de Yucatan, Mexico.

Though he settled with his wife Ruth and two daughters in Mexico, Phil was a regular visitor to his native Ireland and as Irish Times art critic Aidan Dunne remarked “Although seduced by the color and chaos of Mexico, the work of artist Phil Kelly retains a distinctly Irish style”.

After a brave struggle with illness, Phil sadly passed away at his home in Mexico City 3 August, 2010.

Flood For Moores 2010 Damien Flood has been shortlisted for the John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize 2010. The John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize attracts a broad spectrum of artists and no preference is given to levels of experience or particular practices of painting. The works are selected anonymously from an open submission by the jury, who also award the main prizes.

In 2010 a first prize of £25,000 will be awarded along with four further prizes, each of £2500. In addition, the winner of the popular visitors’ choice prize of £2010, will be announced towards the close of the JM2010 exhibition. The exhibition for JM2010 will run from 10 September 2010 – 3 January 2011 in the Walker Art Gallery, William Brown Street, Liverpool. Damien Flood was also short listed in 2008. www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/

Dowling Wins RDS Taylor The RDS Taylor Art Award worth €5,000 was won by Laura Dowling from Bray, Co. Wicklow. Dowling’s winning entry was a DVD animation titled Storytellers of Ireland created to “promote the tradition of storytelling in Ireland”.

The 2010 Student Art Awards, which are part of the RDS Foundation Art Programme, co-incide with the RDS celebrating the 150th anniversary of the RDS Taylor Art Award. Since its inception in 1860 following an endowment in the Will of Captain George Archibald Taylor, the Award has continued to recognise excellence and creativity in the work of young Irish artists working in a diverse range of formats including multimedia, fine art photography, painting, printmaking, and installation work. Many of Ireland’s most eminent artists have received the Award; from Walter Osborne and Sir William Orpen to contemporary artists such as James Hanley, RHA and Eamonn O’Kane. www.rds.ie

Corban Walker for Venice Culture Ireland recently announced the appointment of Emily-Jane Kirwan as Commissioner for Ireland at the 54th Venice Biennale International Arts Exhibition in 2011. Working with curator Eamonn Maxwell, Kirwan will present the work of Irish artist Corban Walker. Currently based in New York and represented by the Pace Gallery, Corban Walker is acclaimed for his

installations and sculptures that utilise industrial materials such as aluminium and steel and for his glass works and drawings that relate to perceptions of scale and architectural constructs. The selection of the Commissioner was made following an open call by Culture Ireland, which manages Ireland’s representation at Venice, in partnership with the Arts Council.

Of his selection, Corban Walker stated “I am honoured to represent Ireland at the next Venice Biennale and look forward to the challenge of presenting a body of work that deals with architectural scale in a city known for its incredible architecture.” Eugene Downes, Chief Executive of Culture Ireland, commented on the selection: “The number of strong bids for Venice 2011 reflects the strength of the Irish visual arts sector. This is an impressive team with extensive international experience, and we are delighted that Ireland will be presenting an artist of Corban’s calibre in Venice next year” Claire Doyle, Head of Visual Arts and Architecture, the Arts Council said: “The Venice Biennale provides our visual artists with an opportunity to platform their work in front of the most important curators, critics and gallerists in the world. We believe this international exposure is critical to the artistic progression of our country’s visual artists. We are proud to be associated with this team, who will represent the quality of our artists and arts practitioners to an international audience.”

The 54th Venice Biennale International Arts Exhibition takes place from 4 June – 27 November, 2011.

play host to a dynamic temporary exhibition programme by inviting works by leading local, national and international contemporary artists and to host some of Ireland’s foremost collections of modern and contemporary art. The gallery also aims to stage historical and retrospective exhibitions, particularly of Irish art and other loans from prestigious permanent collections. www.westmeathcoco.ie

Buckley for Converse / Dazed Laura Buckley has been selected as one of 5 finalists for the Converse / Dazed Emerging Artist Award in London. The award is designed to offer an exciting platform to emerging artists, offering a first prize of £6,000 and an exhibition at Stephen Friedman Gallery. The show opens on the 29 July and runs to 21 August. Tim Marlow (White Cube), Sadie Coles, Isobel Harrison (curator), Francesca Gavin (writer), Mark Titchner and Tom Morton (Hayward Gallery) made up the judging panel. Laura Buckley is an Irish artist (born Galway, 1977) currently based in London. She is currently showing work at Highlanes in Drogheda, and will be presenting a solo show at Mothers Tankstation in Dublin in November. www.laurabuckley.com www.dazeddigital.com

TBG&S Studio Awards Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (TBG&S) has welcomed eleven new artists to the organisation over 2010 – 2011. These artists are recipients of annual awards for three-year membership studios and project studios of up to one year. In total, three membership studios for a threeyear period were awarded to Anita Delaney, Damien Flood and Jesse Jones.

One-Year Project Studios were allocated to five artists, David Beattie, John Beattie, Niall de Buitlear, Alan Butler and Fiona Mulholland also three Project Studios for shorter periods were awarded to artists Barbara Knezevic, Sofie Loscher and Fiona Reilly.

New BA at DIT A new BA in Visual and Critical Studies, School of Art Design & Printing, Dublin Institute of Technology has recently been announced. The BA in Visual and Critical Studies is a three Honours Degree programme (level 8). The progamme will provide up-to-date histories and theories of visual culture; methods of research; practical skills of documentation in new media and; real-world experience in sectors that cater to the public mediation of art and design. Taught in the practice-based environment of the School of Art Design and Printing, students will acquire a deep understanding of the contemporary processes of art and design. They will develop excellent skills in the academic articulation of visual and textual research, and gain the understanding and professional competencies necessary to promote visual culture today. The programme starts September 2010.

Information Session: Wednesday 25 August 3 – 4 pm, Room G6, School of Art Design and Printing, Dublin Institute of Technology, Mountjoy Square.

www.templebargallery.com

http://bavacs.blogspot.com

Athlone Gallery & Studios Westmeath local authorities recently announced that further grant aid funding of €1.45 million towards the Athlone Gallery development has been secured.

This funded was granted through the BMW Gateways and hubs ERDF grant scheme. This will be added to the existing grant of €650,000 already secured through the Department of arts, sports and tourism ACCESS scheme. The new flagship, purpose built gallery and studio development will be located in the centre of Athlone town in the former fire station. The development, due to open in late 2010, represents a major development in the provision of cultural infrastructure in Athlone and the Midlands region.

The gallery development aims to

No Venice for NI The Arts Council Northern Ireland issued the following statement on 17 July. “In the current financial climate, the Arts Council Northern Ireland regrets that it is not in a position to commit the funds necessary to support the six-month representation at the 2011 Venice Biennale of Visual Art. The Arts Council Northern Ireland, in partnership with the British Council, has supported Northern Ireland’s representation at the past three Venice Biennales, with a group exhibition in 2005 and solo exhibitions by Willie Doherty and Susan MacWilliam in 2007 and 2009 respectively.

This difficult and disappointing decision has been reached in light of the

www.irelandatvenice.ie www.cultureireland.gov.ie www.labiennale.org/en/art/exhibition/

reduction to the Arts Council 2010/11 budget of £1.1 million and the Chancellor’s Budget Announcement of 22nd June 2010 which provides a broad indication of how the public spending cuts will be applied to the spending departments in Britain: in real terms, 25% reduction over four years.

At this stage we do not know what part of the cuts will be borne by the devolved administrations and, while we will not know the definitive position until the GB Spending Review is completed and announced on 20th October, this sets the tone and context.

Undoubtedly the Arts Council will have further difficult funding decisions and priorities to establish, and consequently cannot commit the funds necessary to deliver an exhibition at next year’s Venice Biennale.”

Tulca Curator Artist and curator Michelle Browne will curate the 2010 programme for Tulca.

Browne received a first class honours degree in Sculpture and History of Art from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and a distinction in her Postgraduate Diploma in Arts Administration from University College Dublin. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally, most recently taking part in ‘The European Performance Art Festival’ (Poland), ‘Trouble’ (Belgium), ‘A lens With a Conscience’ (USA), ‘Unfamiliar’ (USA & Ireland) ‘The National Review of Live Art’ (Scotland), ‘Urban Wasanii’ (Kenya), ‘Documenta Urbana’ (Germany) and ‘The Performance Collective Group Show Belfast’ (Northern Ireland).

Michelle is the founder of OUT OF SITE, a festival of live art in public space in Dublin, presenting performances by over 40 national and international artists in a variety of locations across Dublin city from 2006 – 2008. In 2009 she curated Vital Signs an exhibition of Arts in Health in Context as part of a programme for The Arts Council and Create. www.tulca.ie www.michellebrowne.net

O’Connell For Location One The recipient of this year’s Location One Fellowship award is the artist John O’Connell. Location One is a not-forprofit art centre in New York devoted to convergence between visual, performing and digital arts. It operates an international residency programme where emerging and established artists can experiment with new forms of artistic expression. The Arts Council offers an annual fellowship to one artist to facilitate his/her participation in the international residency programme at Location One for 10 months, in order to develop his/her practice and create new work. In addition to the studio space, support and resources provided through Location One, the fellowship includes accommodation and a monthly stipend.

The overall value of the award is in the region of €40,000.

John holds an MA from the Royal College of Art, London and a BA from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. He has exhibited extensively in Europe, Ireland and in the USA employing a variety of working methods

from drawing to sculpture and film. John O’Connell’s recent projects include: ‘The Visitor’, Riverbank Art Centre, Newbridge (2010); ‘Material Worlds-Contemporary sculpture from Ireland and the UK’, F.E. McWilliam Gallery, Northern Ireland (2010); ‘Clear Skies Above’, SIM House, Reykjavík, (2010); ‘Nothing Matters When Your Dancing’, Stiftung Starke, Berlin (2009); ‘Futures 09’, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2009); ‘Big Pink’, Goethe Institute, Dublin (2009); and ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’, Berlin (2009). www.artscouncil.ie www.location1.org

AC Touring Fund Recently announcing grants of over €1 million specifically for touring and dissemination, the Arts Council said that the funding would enable 44 individual artists and organisations to take their shows on the road to all corners of Ireland. The scheme follows the success of the Arts Council’s ‘Touring Experiment’ in 2007 and 2008 and is designed to encourage arts organisations to take their best shows to audiences in every county. In the visual arts, the Lewis Glucksman Gallery in Cork was awarded a grant for ‘Wishful Thinking’: a curated programme of 16mm artists film. To view the full list of artists and organisations in receipt of funding, go to the ‘decisions database’ on the Arts Council website. www.artscouncil.ie

AC Bursary Winners The Arts Council has awarded individual grants of up to €15,000 in funding to 111 artists working across the range of art forms. The grants are part of the Arts Council’s first round of Bursary Awards for 2010. The Arts Council received over 650 applications and has offered funding totalling €892,295. The purpose of an Arts Council bursary is to support professional artists at all stages in their careers and in the development of their arts practice. The aim of the award is to allow artists, working in any context or in any artform, to buy space and freedom to concentrate on a body of work and provide the equipment, facilities and third party expertise to develop practice.

To view the artists and organisations in receipt of funding – go to the decisions database on the Arts Council website. www.artscouncil.ie

Red Stables, Studio Award Dublin City Council Arts Office is delighted announce James Merrigan as recipient of the Irish Artists’ Residential Studio Award, 2010-2011, in The Red Stables, St Anne’s Park, Dublin 3. The Irish Artists’ Residential Studio Award is intended to support an emerging visual artist at a crucial stage of their professional practice and includes studio and living accommodation at nominal rent and inclusion in exhibition programme at The LAB, Foley Street, Dublin 1. http://jamesmerrigan.blogspot.com www.redstablesartists.com

Michael Warren will discuss his work with Patrick T. Murphy, Director of the RHA Gallagher Gallery on Wednesday 3rd November @ 7.30pm in VISUAL. VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art & the George Bernard Shaw Theatre

In addition to this lecture VISUAL is delighted to present a special contextual performance of Actions by IMDT. Admission for both events is €5.00 Booking through the Box Office

059 9172400.

Michael Warren

UNBROKEN LINE

New Work & Retrospective

September 24 2010 – January 13 2011

VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art

& the George Bernard Shaw Theatre

Accompanied by a full colour catalogue.

Old Dublin Road, Carlow

Tel: 059 917 2438 Fax: 059 9141503

info@visualcarlow.ie

www.visualcarlow.ie

Looking into the Light of Dark Matters

A multi media installation by James Hayes 3 September – 4 October 2010

Until the End

An exhibition of mixed media work by Magnhild Opdøl 13 October – 20 November 2010 Droichead Arts Centre Barlow House, Narrow West Street, Drogheda, Co.Louth.

T: + 353 041 9875140 F: + 353 041 9842055 www.droichead.com

10

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

September – October 2010

Regional Profile

Visual Arts Resources & Activity Roscommon Self-Initiated Collaboration

Highlights

Carol Anne Connolly’s Definitive Exercise (part one & two)

Carol Hummel Wee Shoppe of Global Dysfunction.

Anna Macleod’s installation Access all Areas: Water Optics,

Stefan Koppelkamm – work from 'Ortszeit / Local Time ' at Black Hole Studios

As I write this, I’m sitting at my sister’s dining table in Vermont. I come back to the US every summer for a few weeks to visit family. I will always love aspects of where I grew up: the self-assurance; my high-volume, talky compatriots who are never short on opinion or optimism; the ferment of ideas and cultures in New York, my home city. But when the plane lifts off from Logan Airport every August and points east over the Atlantic, I know I am heading home to a country and a county where artists and writers are viewed with humanity, where culture is valued intrinsically. That’s why I live in North Roscommon.

When I think of what is happening in the arts for my US counterparts living rurally – folk interested in poetry, film, visual art – the possibilities for seeking support to make chancy work and the opportunities for hooking up with others to make something happen are really difficult. I was reminded of this recently at a panel discussion I attended at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

American director Debra Granik (who was there with the terrific, feminist feature Winter’s Bone) reminded us in Europe that the idea of statefunded commissions for any sort of art was, to her, pure luxury. She had to fight tooth and nail through largely private sources of funding to get her film – a feature about the lives of poor people in the Ozarks – financed.

From this perspective, I am of the glass-is-full frame of mind when I look at what’s been happening in the arts on my doorstep. Of course, the economic crisis threatens, and we artists have to step up more than ever to articulate our rightful place in a civilised society. Nevertheless, here is a shortlist of highlights of what’s been happening around here in recent years, the watery Boyle/Carrick-on-Shannon axis of North Roscommon.

The Forge-In. A posse of skilled blacksmiths landed in my village (Cootehall) for a weekend last autumn.

We housed and fed them in the newly built respite centre for the visually-impaired in Oakport. Publican Paddy Regan set up an impromptu forge in a shed beside his Watersplash Lounge, and the blacksmiths set to work making a piece that will belong to the village. The ringing of their hammers on the anvil made a rare, lost noise in these parts. But it was the process-of-making revealed, all the people of Cootehall coming out in their numbers to watch the smithies, to cook for them and house them,

which was really great. The local community development group, the Roscommon arts office and the Irish Artist Blacksmiths Association put their heads together for this event– an example of creative thinking in an economic downturn.

Trade. This has been, since its inception in 2004, a vibrant and centripetal force in the region, bringing disparate artists and thinkers together for a genuinely various programme of activities: exhibitions, residencies, seminars. Cliodhna Shaffrey, when she was curator-in-residence for Leitrim, was the impetus for it and the arts offices in Leitrim and Roscommon stepped up, expanded it and have kept it going. www.roscommonarts.com/artsoffice/programmes/trade.htm

Home University Roscommon Leitrim. Cooked up by artists Natalia Beylis, Carol Ann Connolly, Stephen Rennicks, Dominic Stevens and Willie Stewart, this is a grassroots learning entity that has functioned in a variety of guises and is essentially a learning exchange of soft knowledge from participants and invited speakers. They pitched a circus tent and gave talks throughout this year’s Flat Lake Literary & Arts Festival in Monaghan. www.hurllearning.wordpress.com

Tyrone Guthrie Bursary. A first-class facility rivalling any in the world, the place where I first made my decision in 1996 to give up a professorship at an art college in the US and live in rural Ireland.

To be in Annaghmakerrig is to know what it is like to live a dream-come-true: time to work – fantastic. www.roscommonarts.com/artsoffice

Mantua Arts Project. For a time, this artists’ residency centre (Carol Ann Connolly was the driving force) in a defunct nursing home in rural Roscommon was a vibrant gathering place, which brought together artists from the locality and from afar. It served to energise the idea of a rural-based art life during the Tiger years.

Douglas Hyde Conference, Ballaghadereen, County Roscommon. The conference has been focusing on creativity these last few years. Last year it hosted a lively talk with space for many sides of the arts and the economy argument, and it was attended by a real cross section of Irish society. www.roscommonarts.com/artsoffice

Alice Lyons

Roscommon Arts Centre In assisting Averyl Dooher, Director, Roscommon

The upcoming year will see the accomplished

was to create an exhibition programme that would

art of Gavin Hogg along with work by Orla Whelan

make the Centre a significant venue in a young

and new work by Bennie Reilly, James Merrigan and

artist’s career. Also we wanted to include

Magnhild Opdol. And a group show with Peter

established artists into the mix and to when

Burns, Mary Noonan and Anne Hendrick.

possible include artists working in the region both emerging and established.

David J, Work from 'Earthlings' – Black Hole Studios exhibition.

individual exhibitions and one three-person show

Arts Centre, over the past four years our, objective

It has become more and more obvious that access to see younger artists work requires travelling

A venue gains reputation by the quality of

greater distance. Most central Dublin venues are

the artists that it shows. So we are indebted to the

simply under too much pressure to respond to the

likes of Brendan Earley, Sonia Shiel, Martin Healy

extensive demands for exhibitions. For my own

and to more established artists like Cathy Carmen

curatorial research it is now necessary that I travel

and Paul Mosse for accepting an exhibition in the

to district or regional venues, be those within the

programme.

realm of the city such as Draiocht, Red Rua or the

This year there were over 40 applicants for

Mermaid, or further afield such as Ballina Arts

2011 schedule, the shortlist came down to 16 and

Centre, Kinsale Arts Week, Claremorris Gallery or

of those 16 one could have easily programmed out

Soltice Arts Centre, Navan.

the next two years so high was the standard of submissions. We made a very difficult cut to five

Patrick T Murphy

Alter / native, set up in 2009, comprises Daniel Chester, Carol Anne Connolly, Padraig Cunningham, Alice Lyons, Anna Macleod, Stephen Rennicks, Linda Shevlin and Niall Walsh. The catalyst for creating such a group was a shared desire to explore the potentialforcollaborativeandlobbyingopportunities, in order to counter the isolation generally experienced by artists working in rural contexts.

While each member maintains their individual practice, the alter / native project also stages multidisciplinary visual arts events; and recently presented our second exhibition in Boyle, with the assistance of some minor funding from Roscommon Arts Office.

Through building up a relationship with the local chamber of commerce and local businesses, we secured the disused retail units to install the exhibition in –– eponymously titled ‘alter / native project’, (22 – 25 July) – and the only costs being for services used. We’ve also been very fortunate in terms of access to equipment and materials and have over the years borrowed a range of equipment from from both The Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon and Roscommon Arts Office – without this type of support our venture would be extremely difficult to realise.

Through Arts Council minor capital funding we have purchased much-needed audio-visual equipment, which is now being used by each of the members of the collective.

'Alter / native' featured work by project members along with a piece invited artist Carol Hummel. Dan Chester presented a drawing installation that investigated issues within the framework of social, political and economic conditions within contemporary Ireland. Carol Anne Connolly’s Definitive Exercise (part one & two) installation, comprised a wall text and exterior shop signage, and commented on the problematic use of the concept of ‘sustainability’ and the subsequent failure to commit to this term, in relation to the built environment and the landscape.

Circadian, a single channel video and sound installation by Padraig Cunningham and Linda Shevlin, considered at the impact of industrialization on the natural environment. Padraig Cunningham also had a solo piece on show entitled The Burning Tree. This work examined our engagement with the natural world, humanities role as the guiding hand of nature, how this is defined as a cultural artefact and the conflict between it and the man made world.

Anna Macleod’s installation Access all Areas: Water Optics, combined sculpture and drawing to explore the ethics of distribution, access and utilisation of water resources. Stephen Rennick’s installation How to disappear used sound, photography, text and found objects to explore and document the lives of an elusive North Leitrim tribe that all started from one person, a wigwam and the desire to disappear.

Niall Walsh’s interactive installation New Republic provided the audience with the opportunity to contribute to the drawing up of a new constitution for a ‘new republic’ based in Leitrim. Invited artist Carol Hummel responded to the commercial setting of her installation by creating the Wee Shoppe of Global Dysfunction. She collected 500 dysfunctions from people around the world, bottled them up in quaint jam jars, and offered visitors the option of contributing to, trading or buying new dysfunctions.

Working in this self-initiated way has certainly made all of us aware of the potential for growth and development of the project and we’re currently exploring ways of infiltrating other non-gallery spaces.

Linda Shevlin & Padraig Cunningham

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

11

September – October 2010

Regional Profile

Roscommon Arts Office

Location

Veronica Forsgren Far-Far. Feelystone. Art@work 2009.

Margo McNulty Doorway

Veronica Forsgren Far-Far. Feelystone. Art@work 2009.

Yvonne Cullivan Estate Agent Window – Public Art Project, Castlerea.

Last year, Roscommon County Council published its second arts plan – Sustaining the Arts. This is a shorter three year plan, as opposed to a five year plan, because as the name suggests its focus is to sustain the programmes and supports built up over previous years – and to endeavour to ensure the viability of working as an artist in County Roscommon in these straitened times; which we hope will have somewhat improved by 2012.

One of the longest running and most successful programmes developed by the Arts Office has been Art@work, a residential programme where artists spend three weeks in a company in County Roscommon making work inspired by the environment, staff or working practices of the company. The programme was initiated to provide the opportunity for a largely non-arts audience to encounter an artist and observe the process of making art. The artist is under no onus to work with staff, or to necessarily make any work at all. As the programme developed, the unique benefits to the artist and to management became evident and over the years these considerations or impacts have helped refine the shape of the programme. Since 2001 over 60 residencies have taken place in about 30 different companies from stainless steel and coal factories to bakeries, newspapers and the Garda Siochana. With each, the insights brought by artists, which makes art the unique thing it is, have continued to cultivate new audiences and engender a greater appreciation for art generally.

TRADE is a collaborative visual arts programme between the Arts Offices of Roscommon and Leitrim providing knowledge, resources and opportunities for visual artists to engage internationally. Rather than considering ‘rural’ as ‘isolationary’, TRADE emphasises that art is a global construct and encourages a freeflow of ideas and opportunities both for local artists to engage internationally as well as for international artists to participate locally.

Founded in 2004, the seminar TRADE (then Artist as Traveller), invited Hou Hanru, Hüseyin Bhari Alptekin, Shin Egashira and Julie Bacon among others. Trade 2005 invited artists’ agencies such as N55, myvillages.org and M & M proyectos.

Since 2006, TRADE consists of two elements – a residential programme and a seminar event which occur over a two year period. In 2006-7 Alfredo Jaar and Rebecca Fortnum worked intensively with a group of five artists each from the two counties over a 16 month period culminating in the TRADE seminar in December 07. In 2008-9 Darren Almond and John Gibbons were lead artists.

While not a pre-requisite of the programme, TRADE has given rise to a number of significant outcomes including AFTER – a series of public art projects across the two counties concerned with the changing landscape and environment at the time and featured Carol Anne Connolly, Alice Lyons,

Gareth Kennedy, Christine Mackey and Anna MacLeod. As part of the 2009 seminar Darren Almond, Padraig Cunningham, Margo McNulty, Johnnie Lawson and Róisín Loughrey presented a group exhibition of new video works entitled Sequence in five unoccupied warehouses while Cathy Carman, Seamus Dunbar, Cathal Roche and Anna Spearman opened a TRADE shop which invited members of the public to bring in items which were reconstructed into art objects. The two arts offices will shortly be announcing details of the lead artists for the 2010-2011 programme and so Roscommon and Leitrim based artists who are interested in participating should contact their Arts Office for further details.

Under Sustaining the Arts, Roscommon County Council has adopted a new percent-for-art policy and programme. The programme sets out a series of locations or regions where projects will occur based on capital development and population. The programme also defines a range of approaches to commissioning and artforms to be employed. Rather than being initiated solely by the capital project that gave rise to the opportunity, the programme is sequenced according to a matrix of considerations including the readiness of a community to engage with a once-off large scale project and the anticipated benefit, desire or impact for a community to engage with a particular artform or approach at that time.

In Castlerea, Yvonne Cullivan is currently undertaking research under the broad areas of urban planning, architecture, cartography, creative communities, regeneration and the particular histories of the structure of Castlerea town. The programme will involve a range of research methods including talks, workshops, events and interviews ultimately culminating in the development of a body of new work.

At a remove from its core programmes, the Arts Office is also concerned with the wider understanding and perception of creativity and the creative sector in society. This year, for the second of three years, the Douglas Hyde Conference will investigate topics, issues and roles around creativity.

Last year, the conference was entitled Culture and the Economy – Creativity and Innovation in post boom Ireland. The ensuing discussions brought about a great deal of debate about the value of creativity, its role in education, economics and its contribution to a sense of identity. This year we wish to work through four of these distinct topics under the title Inside Creativity: Education, Innovation, Economy & Society. The one-day conference will take place in the Abbeyfield Hotel, Ballaghaderreen on Friday 15 October 2010. For further information on this and other Arts Office programmes, please go to www.roscommonarts.com.

Phillip Delamere, Arts Officer

Margo McNulty Doooega

My work deals with hidden history, memory and place and with aspects of everyday life and experience. In my practice, I often revisit these themes and am influenced by geography, agrarian culture and certain traditions inherent in Irish culture. I create a visual language that expresses the intricacies of memory, creating arenas for identity to be revealed and understood in the broader context of the past. I was born on Achill Island, lived in London and now Roscommon. My practice to date has primarily been printmaking and photography and more recently has moved on to making video based work.

I spent nine years based in London and relocated to Roscommon in 1996. There were many adjustments to be made moving from an urban to a relatively rural environment. In one way it focused and intensified the need to view my artistic practice from a fresh perspective.

I made contact with the Arts Office in Roscommon at an early stage. This provided a means of networking with other local artists and led to my engagement in residency programmes such as ‘Art@Work’. In 2009 I was selected to take part in the Trade residency project which was a joint venture between Roscommon and Leitrim County Councils. During the residency I worked with London-based artist Darren Almond. It was an opportunity to extend my art practice into a new medium. It culminated in the screening of a video projection entitled Inside Out showing with Darren Almond and the other artists involved in the residency as part of a group exhibition entitled ‘Sequence’ I have maintained and developed international links through the Edinburgh Print workshop and have attended photogravure workshops at the Crown Point Press in San Francisco in 2006 and 2008 which were supported by the Roscommon Arts Office, the Arts Council of Ireland and the Athlone Institute of Technology. I have continued to exhibit my work nationally and internationally, most recently in group exhibitions with the Achill Artists Group in Cologne and with the Graphic Studio in Paris, Louvain and a touring show in Poland. In addition to my artistic practice I currently lecture in the Design department of Athlone Institute of Technology.

Living in Roscommon has given me many opportunities to develop my work. It’s a portal and gateway to the rest of the world. The local has become global.

Margo McNulty

Black Hole Studios Upon resettling in Frenchpark, Co. Roscommon locals approached me to “do something with the place”. The Old Courthouse had been lying idle for a while and after some discussions with the local Arts Officer, Philip Delamere, we made a successful application to lease the space from Roscommon County Council. Black Hole Studio was set up in September of 2008 by myself (Mary Duignan) and David Pierce.

Our main aims and objectives are – to work on our own projects (and collaboratively with other artists and various agencies); run workshops / courses; host exhibitions with an emphasis on contemporary art practices; offer a professional photography, reproduction and print service.

We officially launched the studio space, website and brochure on 23 January 2009, with the photography exhibition ‘Earthlings’ by David J. This was a great success and very well attended by the local community. Since then we have run a variety of workshops and courses from videoexpression to puppetry. We have had three more exhibitions in the space and have participated in other group shows in Roscommon, Offaly and Dublin.

This is our first time running a studio and it has provided us with lots of learning opportunities – all good – but not without some pain and frustration. We decided at the beginning to have a commercial business as part of the studio in the hope that it might help sustain the space financially.

At present we run the centre solely from our own funds and occasionally we are grateful to receive small grants from the Roscommon Arts Office towards exhibitions and project work.

When we’re not toiling away trying to make a living, we host and participate in exhibitions. An example was Culture Night 2009. For this exhibition we collaborated with the Goethe Institute, Dublin to create an exhibition to mark 20 years since the fall of the wall, entitled ‘Berlin 20 Years On’.

The exhibition featured works by award winning film-makers, from the US, UK, Lebanon, Germany and India, along with photographic works such as Ortszeit / Local Time by Stefan Koppelkamm and Berlin Early 1990s by David J and a recreation of a Berlin bar, circa early 1990s.

This event was widely publicised in local press and was chosen to feature on RTE’s Morning Ireland. People traveled from Ballyhaunis and Athlone to see the exhibit, but on the night, locally we were up against ‘Roscommon’s Got Talent’.

Getting people to come to events is one of our difficulties. Needless to say attendances can vary.

In response to this we feel we need to build stronger links with artists, studios and centres around the county. We would like to collaborate more, utilising larger centres for bigger events and exhibitions. We also want to encourage local schools to visit exhibitions and participate in response workshops so as to involve them more in contemporary arts. Another way we intend to reach more people is to take art out of the studio and into public spaces.

Upcoming events include David Pierce’s installation ‘Mind Bomb’ will be featured in the Hallow’een Festival, Thurles from 22 – 31 October.

Also we are currently collaborating with Cruachan Aí and Roscommon County council for this year’s Culture Night. The exhibition ‘Piseog’ (superstition )will take place in Cruachan Aí visitor centre, Tulsk and Black Hole Studio on Friday 24 September. The show will explore various aspects of Irish cultural identity, mythology and ritual. Exhibiting artists include Ursula Burke, Damian Byrne, The DiddleyIdles and more to be announced Mary Duignan www.blackholestudio.ie

12

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

September – October 2010

FOCUS

Strule Arts Centre

Crecent Arts Centre

Like Bread, Drink and Religion?

Marianne O’Kane Boal reflects on recently developed gallery and museum buildings accross Ireland and the challenges faced in running these facilities.

Le Corbusier contended that “museums are a recent invention; once there were none. So let us admit that they are not a fundamental component of human life like bread, drink, religion, orthography”. (1) Modern museum architecture began as recently as the 1970s with the Centre Georges Pompidou. So marked the beginning of the innovative museum of the people, located at pedestrian level in the civic realm rather than at an elitist remove: the palace on the hill. Some of the museum milestones over the past 30 years include; the Guggenheim Museum, New York by Frank Lloyd Wright (1959), Centre Georges Pompidou (1977) in Paris by Renzo Piano & Richard Rogers, Mario Botta’s redesign of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (1997).

Bilbao, however has gone a step further than its earlier counterparts and subsequently changed the face of contemporary museum architecture. With his design, Gehry introduced an architectural typology that unabashedly sets out to upstage the art it contains. For the first time the art experience, and thus stated function of the museum, is secondary. “The ‘Bilbao effect’ made two things absolutely clear. First, that a city, and possibly a whole region, can profit from a new museum, and secondly, that architecture had finally become emancipated from the art exhibited inside it.” (2) This type of architecture, however, has its critics, particularly within the profession. For architect, Valerie Mulvin, “today, global architecture has fractured into nearly as many directions as art, but this does not necessarily mean innovation…[It is] less focused on making appropriate spaces and more on the creation of star events.

Innovation is stifled at the lower end with endless repetitions of the successful motif. There are probably fewer original ideas floating around in the making of architecture than ever before”. (3) Feargal Harron of Kennedy Fitzgerald Architects also dismisses Bilbao, “current contemporary thinking is leaning more towards what David Chipperfield has done in Germany and what Tony Fretton has done at the Fuglsang Kunstmuseum in Denmark. In these examples the architecture is more restrained with a classical approach to modernism and the display of art”. (4) Whether a new landmark icon or a redefined structure, there is little doubt that we are often faced with the development that “the experience of place is replacing the experience of art.”(5) Internationally, examples of now obsolete buildings being reused for art are apparent in the Tate Modern as a former power station, the Baltic in Gateshead, a former flour mill, the Lingotta Exhibition Spaces in Turin, a car factory and Ireland’s best known example would be IMMA, a former military infirmary. The successful fusion of historic heritage and contemporary purpose is noteworthy in Carlo Scarpa’s Castelvecchio Museum, Verona (1956-73) and Norman Foster’s Sackler Galleries at the Royal Academy of the Arts in London (1985-91).

For many architects, the challenge of architectural redefinition and reuse of defunct spaces holds continued appeal. For Valerie Mulvin, “found spaces and reclaimed landscapes provide an antidote to the perceived over packaging of purpose-made buildings.”(6) Regionally, in Ireland, the practice of redefining space is well established and includes a broad miscellany of previous functions. Thus we have former clothing factories (Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin and Void Art Centre, Derry), market houses (Ards Arts Centre, Newtownards, and Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown), town halls (Down Arts Centre), Customs Houses (Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork) banks (West Cork Arts Centre), yacht clubs (Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh), city liveries or estate stables (Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, and Clotworthy Arts Centre, Antrim), gaols (Basement Gallery, Dundalk and Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise), linenhalls (Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar)

Visual, Carlow

townhouses (Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, Garter Lane Arts Centre and Galway Arts Centre) and Victorian swimming baths (Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast). Finally school buildings are adapted in a number of instances with examples including the Model, Sligo, Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, Verbal Arts Centre, and the Playhouse, Derry.

From 1990-2005, nearly 30 venues opened, with more recent landmark new builds being the most costly; Source in Thurles by McCullough Mulvin Architects, 2006 at a cost of €10 million, Solstice in Navan by Grafton Architects, 2006 at a cost of €13.5 million (hybrid of interchangeable spaces appropriate to performing and visual arts) and Visual in Carlow, 2009 by Terry Pawson Architects at a cost of €18 million. (The 3,726 sq metres three-storey building design is based on the model of the Germanic Kunsthalle, an exhibition space without its own collection).

Recently Mick Heaney wrote “after a decade of expansion that saw ever more grandiose spaces springing up in towns around Ireland, Visual was the most expensive example yet….[It could be argued that] in the depths of a recession, launching an expensive arts venue in a small midlands town now looked like an act of folly”. (7) So how are the directors of these buildings ensuring survival?

Heaney explains that the resources are rarely there to match the ‘big budget facades.’ Belinda Quirke, Director of Solstice explains; “we’ve been cost-cutting from day one. There was no incubation space for the arts to develop and now there’s a place for the local arts to work.” Carissa Farrell, Director of Visual explains that the venue is ambitious and will compete on an international stage, but it has yet to receive Arts Council funding towards running costs. (8) Some argue that the creative industries have the potential to aid Ireland’s economic recovery and according to Seamus Kealy, Director of The Model, Sligo (re-opened in May following an extensive redevelopment programme), “the redeveloped Model is the type of arts project that can assist in our national recovery. At a time when ambition has been stilted across all sectors of the economy, we are delighted to have an innovative programme of showcasing and learning that will stimulate creativity and enterprise across all disciplines and age groups. We have a busy hive of studios on the top floor with nine artists working on their practice and creating new work from The Model”. (9) It is too early to know if this ambitious claim will be realised but the inclusion of local artists utilising studios at the Model means there is consequently a direct impact on the local economy.

In Northern Ireland, arts infrastructure development has also been significant, the Arts Council of Ireland have now met their objective to provide a dedicated arts facility within a 20-mile radius of every person living in Northern Ireland and have since shifted focus to Belfast and Derry. They contend, “flagship arts facilities such as the Playhouse and the Crescent Arts Centre promote the highest architectural design standards, support a range of arts activities, and can be major contributors to the social and economic regeneration of our towns and cities. In the past three years, the Arts Council has

contributed £14m to nine completed projects, with others such as the Lyric and The Mac in the pipeline”. (10) Comparable to the big budget developments in the Republic of Ireland, the Braid Arts Centre in Ballymena (2007) has a significant presence in the town centre and is fully integrated as a sizeable extension of Mid-Antrim Museum. According to the architects at Consarc, the Braid “has been designed like a piece of jewellery, conscious that it is visible on all sides, dominating the surrounding skyline on the site it occupies. Further the architectural language relays something of the interior functioning of the building.”(11) The transparency of the glass curtain wall emphasises the presence of creative endeavour within. Provision includes a 425-seat theatre, arts workshop spaces for the making and display of art, lecture theatres, café, shop and a temporary gallery. Spaces are highly flexible with moveable partitions to extend spaces.

Strule Arts Centre in Omagh (2007) is also centrally located and its design by architects Kennedy Fitzgerald and Associates features a footbridge linking the waterfront site to a new college, existing bus station and riverside walk. It contains a 400-seat theatre, a 125-seat lecture theatre, a visual arts gallery, dance studio and café, and meets the requirement of a “flexible arts based building with a multifunctional brief.” Jean Brennan, Director of Strule Arts Centre in Omagh, explains, “in some respects we are very lucky as our town centre location means we can exploit our venue for non art-related activities such as conferences and meetings. Growing this income is becoming more important for us, as we need to generate our income targets to allow us to programme elements that may not generate income, especially visual arts. Those working in the visual arts need to start looking at ways to generate income for galleries, particularly as most local authority venues in Northern Ireland do not get arts council funding.”

According to Neil Murray of Hamilton Architects, the brief for the Crescent Arts Centre requested “multi-purpose spaces for visual, performance and creative arts – art galleries, flexible workshops, studios, offices and café are also included”. Due to the state of disrepair of this Grade B1 Listed Building, “before commencement of the project only 50% (circa 1000m2) of the existing building floor area was safe to use. Now the refurbished and extended premises provide over 2500m2 of flexible spaces. The dedicated art galleries comprise 120m2 of this total.”(12) The gallery space is arranged within three interconnected rooms, which allow for ‘narrative flow’ according to the curator Dickon Hall; “We find that the experience of the viewer is enhanced by the privacy of the space and also its intimacy; the cavernous and often bombastic, large, factory-like gallery spaces that have become almost standard since the 1960s have removed the intimacy between viewer and object.”

Considering Ireland’s size as a country, the development of its arts infrastructure over the past 20 years has been immense. It is clear however, that the sustainability of these buildings is an issue. Arts Council funding north and south sees cuts year on year. Architects and centre managers believe that variety of art forms and comprehensive representation (making and doing) is the key to survival in harsh economic times. Feargal Harron states, “flexibility is becoming a trend certainly in recent art centres that have been built in Ireland over the last 8-10 years.”(13) Centre Managers are no longer as precious about their programme elements in terms of exclusivity and costs are shared through touring visual arts exhibitions as well as the performing arts.

The multivalent experience of numerous art forms and the presence of a shop / cafe within the centre maximises the potential of attracting visitors. Art has to become part of the social agenda rather than operating exclusively. The commercial elements of shopping and dining “are aestheticized by the museum site… and promoted as pseudo-cultural products”. (14) Marianne O’Kane Boal Notes 1. Le Corbusier, Other Icons: The Museums,1925, from The Decorative Art of Today, translated by James I. Dunnett, pp.15-23, Cambridge, Mass/; MIT Press, 1987.

2. Suzanne & Thierry Greub, Eds Museums in the 21st Century: Concepts, Projects, Buildings Prestel, Munich, 2006.

3. Valerie Mulvin, Notes on Building for Art, in Space: Architecture for Art, Gemma Tipton, Ed, CIRCA, Dublin 2005 4. Feargal Harron, Kennedy Fitzgerald and Associates, Interview with the author, July 2010.

5. Gemma Tipton, Space: Architecture for Art, CIRCA, Dublin 2005 (Belting in ed Noever, p.80) 6. Valerie Mulvin, ‘Notes on Building for Art,’ in Space: Architecture for Art, Gemma Tipton, Ed, CIRCA, Dublin 2005 7. Mick Heaney, Report, Culture Supplement, Sunday Times, 11 July, 2010, p.18-19.

8. Ibid 9. Seamus Kealy, Sligo Weekender 20 July 2010 10. Response by Arts Council of Northern Ireland to Tourism Strategy for Northern Ireland to 2020 the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI), May 2010 11. Andrew Cowser Civic Re-branding, Perspective, Vol 17, No. 4 July-August 2008.

12. Neil Murray, Hamilton Architects, Interview with the author, July 2010.

13. Feargal Harron, Kennedy Fitzgerald and Associates, Interview with the author, July 2010.

14. PoYin AuYeung Museum Space: Privatizing Culture/Imaging Desire, in The Meaning of Site, edited by Katya Sander, Simon Sheikh, and Cecilie Høgsbro Østergaard (Copenhagen: The University of Copenhagen, 2000), pp. 96-119.

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

13

September – October 2010

CONFERENCE REPORT

'Florawarch' installation view

Roundtable at Belfast Exposed

Learning & Sharing Sylvia Grace Borda Reports on a Roundtable Discussion on Collaborative Photography organised as part of her projects at Belfast Exposed (13 May 2010).

Throughout the beginning of this year, I was in dialogue with Visual Arts Ireland, Community Arts Forum (NI) and Belfast Exposed about hosting a roundtable discussion. The focus of the event would be based on the outcomes of two community photographic arts projects that I was delivering with Belfast Exposed at the time – namely Flora Watch and Away Days and Holidays in Northern Ireland.

Flora Watch sought to bring in some contrasting ideas of how nature and scientific observation could create a positive means by which to picture the landscape. Supported through Belfast City Council’s Development and Outreach fund, Flora Watch led to over 30 community groups applying to the programme. Subsequently it was expanded in which both youth and community workers attended targeted workshops and training events on photography and ecology.

Supported by Belfast City Council’s Good Relations Fund and the Community Relations Council, the Away Days and Holidays in Northern Ireland project was initially informed by ideas of looking at old family holiday snaps, before the most recent phase of conflict to explore the notion of a pre-Troubles society. Specifically focusing on the 1940s to the 1970s, the project shifted to the development of an audio archive, containing the reminiscences of seniors in Northern Ireland. Whilst not a typical photographic project, it has been successful in bringing together diverse participants to give a voice to a unique time period, supported by the visual.

Centering on these two projects, the roundtable was an opportunity to examine and discuss long-term approaches to collaborative arts projects with communities, and how community photography projects can have a legacy within communities. The discussion was chaired by Heather Floyd, Director of Community Arts Forum. I spoke at the event along with the community facilitators I worked with; along with Nick Mack a research consultant working with Community Arts Forum; Sarah Gale Community Artist-Intern; Deborah Morgan of the Divis Community Centre; Fiona Watters, Prison Education Officer, Belfast Metropolitan College; Matthew Rutherford-Jones of the Sonic Arts Research Centre; Mirjami Schuppert, Belfast Exposed Archive Researcher and Keith Donnelly an artist and arts development professional from Scotland.

A broad definition of ‘collaborative photography’ was explored, as a concept covering a range of activities that brings together groups or individuals to work jointly on a photographic project toward a common goal. As a practice, it depends upon the presence of extensive dialogue and negotiation between the participants concerned. It is through this dialogue that the nature of the activity itself takes shape, along with its implementation, outcome and legacy.

This concept was debated throughout the day and was underlined by the fact that photography’s most modern roots in Northern Ireland does not hold the same inherent cultural meaning as in other nations, largely due to an community experience of photography as a medium that tends to be politically loaded, coming with its own agenda, whether from the perspective of government, political parties, the press, and even paramilitary groups. This has led to the medium being

'Florawatch' workshop.

was not something that was anticipated beforehand, but showed the benefits of dialogue in collaborative practice. Through dialogue, the prisoners achieved a level of personalisation in their project – making nature trails and plaques, for example – something which is ultimately of much greater value to them than the activities that an artist might drive.

I emphasised that collaboration is not always instantaneous and

popularly associated with news, information and propaganda rather

can take time to develop. There is also a certain element of the original

than the visual arts or community based learning activities.

artist or creator “letting go” of the project, to allow it to gain momentum

The Flora Watch programme focused on photograms, the historical

and evolve. Whereas the defined goal of an exhibition can limit,

photographic technique involving the creation of silhouettes by

stakeholders might consider other metrics – such as the skills that have

placing objects onto light sensitive paper in tandem with plant

been gained, learning legacies, and new dialogue and insights.

identification. Deborah Morgan, community worker from the Divis

For the Away Days and Holidays in Northern Ireland project Matthew

Community Centre, Fiona Watters, from the Prison Service and Belfast

Rutherford Jones, an intern from the Sonic Arts Research Centre,

Metropolitan College, and recent photo graduate Sarah Gale, were all

Queen’s University Belfast illustrated how an online photography

apprenticed in photogram techniques. During the day each spoke

based project can become a successful audio archive. Matthew

about how this knowledge, plus a grounding in plant learning

mentioned how his mentorship challenged how audio can work to

activities gained in the workshops could be transferred back to

illustrate the visual (ie the photograph). He talked about the open

participant’s local communities and to local youths.

source software program, Drupal, which enabled the management of

Deborah Morgan pointed out how this programme has given

the audio to result in an online archive (www.awaydaysNI.co.uk). This

longevity and a certain amount of adaptability to other areas of her

archive is now making available the stories of seniors in Northern

community delivery. She spoke about how artists coming into a

Ireland across communities, and encouraging opportunities to learn

community to give workshops can offer a bright spark of activity, but

more about favourite visitor spots and to share experiences held in

sadly these benefits often quickly fade afterwards. The youth workers,

common to both communities, such as visiting families, going on short

on the other hand, have a lasting connection to, and rapport with, the

away days and simply ‘being young again’. As such, this collection of

community groups and can carry the projects on indefinitely, adapting

recordings forms a resource that can be consulted by educational

them to their own needs. She re-iterated how her colleagues and

bodies, as well as younger people looking to gain insight into the

herself had appreciated the arts training offered through Flora Watch.

formation of Northern Ireland’s identity.

Indeed none in her group come from an arts background. Deborah also

Mirjami Schuppert, Belfast Exposed Archive researcher re-iterated

alluded that the training was very warmly received, with a certain

how image archives in contrast to audio can often demonstrate

element of “why don’t we do this more often?”

inequity. She discussed how most of the current photographic archives

Of note, Deborah further spoke about how the Flora Watch

available to the public about Northern Ireland relate to its recent

material developed by the youth at their local community centres

histories associated with the period of the Troubles. This is in part due

resulted in an exhibition at the Belfast Exposed archive gallery. She

to the result of the mass media attention the Troubles received.

emphasised that for the youths involved this was a novel experience,

I spoke about the breaking away of the project from exclusively

as most had never been to a gallery before and were not aware of the

images. Since past Northern Ireland holiday locations can represent

customs or rules governing such a place, let alone being somewhere

specific community use, or allude to certain cultural identities: these

where they felt they had a voice.

factors ultimately facilitated the formation of a photographic archive

Sarah Gale discussed her role as project intern, visiting community

without primary visuals, but voices first. I realised to ‘hear’ the past

groups and assisting community workers in delivering parts of Flora

offers an immediate personalisation to place and time that can provide

Watch. She illustrated how simple techniques such as a flashlight, and

a more intimate link to what is being represented.

closet can become a successful darkroom. Sarah also discussed how

The day concluded with community engaged and artist-led

working in the community gave her a broader sense of some of the

projects being discussed by independent arts consultants: Keith

issues that one might overlook as an artist working independently.

Donnelly and Nick Mack. Each discussed the work involved as an arts

Sarah commented on health and safety, and how these measures are

based practitioner or a community-based interest group – how each

well understood and the ability of community workers to creatively

other’s specific arts development needs could inform the other and

problem-solve.

create potential frameworks for a greater legacy.

Fiona Watters, the Education and Outreach officer for the

One of the concluding debates of the roundtable was about the

Women’s Prison Service through Belfast Metropolitan College, spoke

full creative potential of both artist and community participants, as

about bringing Flora Watch to a young offender’s prison. She told how

well as other routes of production and delivery and how these might be

the project began to be noticed by women’s groups in the prison, who

considered. It was generally agreed that outcomes should be flexible

then adapted it themselves. The women there found the project very

and respectful of the needs of both the artist and community; thus both

beneficial in two ways: it allowed them to better appreciate the green

sets of work informing each other, with both parties being challenged

spaces on the prison grounds, and it gave them an activity which they

to respond to each other and taking something of value and benefit

could do with their own children. The latter was particularly important,

from the mutual experience.

as it gave the women a way of bridging family relations, and the confidence that they can impart knowledge to their child.

Through Fiona’s dialogue it became evident such an outcome

Sylvia Grace Borda

14

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

September – October 2010

Project profile

Performance Collective – performance at the Dun Laoghaire venue.

Interior view – venue for Naomi Sex and Sinead McCann's project for DL 5–8

Meeting Expectations Naomi Sex discusses DL 5 – 8

Exterior view – venue for Naomi Sex and Sinead McCann's project for DL 5_8

DL 5 – 8 took place over a number of Thursday evenings, from 20 May to 17 June, across various locations in Dún Laoghaire. The programme was an initiative of Creative Policies for Creative Cities, an undertaking which involves researchers, artists, architects and administrators and is co-ordinated by Nollaig Ó Fiongháile, Development Manager of the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (GradCam) in Dublin (1).

GradCam researcher and consultant for Creative Policies for Creative Cities, Tara Byrne managed the day-to-day running of the project.

As part of DL 5–8, myself and Sinead McCann each devised projects utilising empty retail units. Artists making and showing art in disused retail units is now becoming an established model in recession Ireland. Examples would include Creative Limerick and the artist-led initiative Occupy Space project in the city (2).

For Tara Byrne the research context into which DL 5 – 8 fitted was essentially concerned with “how artists and cultural practitioners can work with cities to activate public space in a sustainable way” (3). In relation to the practicalities of working in vacant premises, Byrne noted that “this calls up questions of structural sustainability – eg. who will be the local liaison and who will provide the necessary ‘political’ support for the project; how we can devise appropriate payment structures and mechanisms to make this a viable work proposition for cultural practitioners?” (4) Due to problems with insurance and health and safety issues, the retail space I had been first assigned fell through on the day before the launch date. However, Sinead was kind enough to accommodate my project in her space – a feat managed in double quick time with some slight re-scheduling of her programme.

Both Sinead and I are practice-led fine PhD researchers at GradCam; and as such our foray into working in disused shop front spaces had a hybrid practice / research agenda. All artists do research, however in our case, our research needed to exist within a fairly stringent structure – as well as continually contesting its own validity within a wider academic

research field. This kind of research context – dry as a bone and heavily weighed down by theory – might seem an unlikely space where the unpredictable, experimental and creative could flourish. So how might our work / research relate to what would hopefully be an exciting and unexpected art intervention?

Sinead’s practice utilises sculptural and performative elements, and her research is focussed on the relationship between urban architecture and everyday experience. For her DL 5 – 8 project she required a large open retail space, located in a quiet part of town. Her project comprised of the curation of two events under the title ‘The Potential of Vacancy’ – a screening of 12 artists’ (5) video-based works and a performance event involving fourteen artists (6). The poetic and optimistic quality of the title / theme of her project, was underpinned by the practicalities of having to work and negotiate with a large group of artists.

My own research explores the mechanisms of the contemporary art world – specifically in relation to the reputational economy – eg how artist’s works get valued in terms of prestige and financial worth.

My DL 5 – 8 work saw me sidestep the art world functions of artist or curator and to take on the role of a retailer; and to use the space as a ‘shop’ to sell product, sourced using a retail approach. The product in question being artworks and the stock acquisition policy being the classic one of buy cheap sell dear. The funding I received to realise this project was deployed to buy unwanted artworks from artists. On agreeing a price, I requested that to ask artists to remove their name from the artworks and agree to let me attempt to re-sell their now anonymous art in the shop through a process of market negotiation – ie. haggling.

The project sought to explore the consequences of detaching artworks from their ‘reputation’ in terms of the artist’s identity and profile. As well as this my project cast gallery visitors as much more than passive viewers but also as buyers, participants, audiences and publics – who were participating in an experimental and subversive testing of the ‘value’ of artworks.

Indeed at the core of both mine and Sinead’s projects was an interest in blurring the line between publics and audiences. Before I took up residency in the retail unit, my work sought to address an online public as I began making contact with artists, via a notice in the VAI’s e-bulletin to bargain for artworks. Once my project was up and running in the space, I interacted with visitors to the space as potential customers and participants in my work / research.

In Sinead’s case, she probed public engagement through a comparison between the dynamics of presenting a screening and live performance event. Sinead’s screenings subverted the concept and context of a ‘local cinema’. The venue had previously been a wine shop and to some extent was a reminder of the past economic times and themes of consumerism and excess were addressed in the screenings.

The presentation of live work by The Performance Collective (7) lasted

two hours, and comprised durational and improvisional work that aimed to challenged the passive role of art audiences and viewers.

The duration of both of our projects fell in the middle of an unprecedented hot spell. In the heat local passers-by strolled into the shop at different times and were free to watch, listen, ignore, protest, interact, stay or leave, as they felt fit. Overall, DL 5 – 8 was an event where many varying levels of public expectations and understandings about ‘creative cities’ literally met – all the views of artists, musicians, organizers, facilitators, funders, landlords, local businesses and local participants in the events.

As Tara Byrne has noted “expectations around meanings of the ‘Creative City’ are important – complicated by multiple interpretations and understandings of precisely what that means, all the more complicated as a result of its spectacular international success over the last 10 years. Some understandings are informed by writers associated with the concept – such as Richard Florida and Charles Landry (8) – and others by a feel-good notion of benign creativity, omni-present within a city of artists and ‘creatives’. It could be argued however, that the success of the concept lies in its ‘all things to all people’ appeal, and its harnessing of a number of cultural ‘interpretations’ of the concept to make coherent arguments to the state or locality about the importance of culture and cultural practitioners to the general health of ‘place’ or communities. It is in this context that the ‘Creative Policies for Creative Cities’ project harnessed this term, allowing it to be interpreted, as it wanted to interpret it, in this instance, researching cultural practitioners roles within cities.”(9) On a micro level, our projects generated an ‘on the ground’ activation to this broad sense of the ‘creative cites’ remit. Events and opportunities such as this are essential to provide a means for real-life applications of theory and discourse; that in turn can be appraised and measured against theoretical and academic constructs. In our opinion our projects within the DL 5 – 8 programmes offered a positive contradiction to the perception of PhD research based art practices as overly rarefied and out of touch with practical realities. Instead we see our work as forcing a challenge to expected and predicted norms; and as making a genuine attempt to produce a set of learning outcomes and exchanges for all involved and engaged in the work – both for the public and ourselves as artist / researchers.

Naomi Sex www.creativepolicies.com

Notes 1. Further information is available from www.creativepolicies.com / www.gradcam.ie 2. Occupy-space.blogspot.com / http://www.limerickblogger.ie/blog/2009/09/creative-initiativelooking-good-in-the-city 3. From email correspondence with the writer 4. From email correspondence with the writer 5. Artists included in the screening event were; Owen Boss, Emily Boylan, Alan James Burns, Mary Caffrey, Jennifer Cunningham, Jessica Foley, Emma Houlihan & Jennie Moran, Rachel Kiernan, Seamus Mc Cormack, James Merrigan, Mick O’Hara and Amy Walsh.

6. Artists who featured in the performance event were; Bern Roche Farrrelly (UK), Brian Fay (IRL), Frances Fay (IRL), Catherine Barragry (IRL), Cormac Browne (IRL), Dan Monks (SCOTLAND), Sinead McCann (IRL), Denis Buckley (UK) and The Performance Collective who are, Amanda Coogan, Pauline Cummins, Michelle Browne, Alex Conway, Frances Mezzetti & Dominic Thorpe (IRL).

7. For further details see www.sean-og.com/theperformancecollective/ 8. Florida, Richard (2005), Cities and the Creative Class and Landry, Charles (2000), The Creative City; a toolkit for urban innovators.

9. From email correspondence with the writer

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

15

September – October 2010

Institution profile

Not Abel, 'Vigilant Ease' (Digital print on archival paper, folded) 2010.

Not Abel, Foreground, Head Shop 2 (Ceramic, 2010)Background, Spitting Sentry (DVD, looped)

caption caption

Not Abel, Industrial Complex, installation view. April - May, 2010, ESB substation

Adham Faramawy 'Al Hashshashin' installation view, April 2009

Unhinged & Contradictory Jason Oakley speaks to Ian McInerney of The Black Mariah about IT’s one-year tenure at Triskel. The Black Mariah @ TRISKEL will present a programme of exhibitions featuring national and international artists, a graduate exhibition, curated group exhibitions, and an open submission, as well as interim events both on and offsite.

Jason Oakley: Could you briefly outline on how and why The Black Mariah was invited to curate the Triskel’s visual arts programme?

Ian McInerney: The invitation came about just as we had decided to shut our Washington Street base during November 2009. A friend and mentor made an introduction with the suggestion that we could possibly put together some projects with Triskel. Through discussions about the city, the collaboration began.

JO: How long is The Black Mariah contracted to work for Triskel?

IM: From September 2010 – September 2011. The Triskel is re-inventing itself as a cultural hub of sorts. Besides The Black Mariah, it will house Plugd Records and Corcadorca theatre group. Up until January 2011 The Black Mariah will operate out of the former ESB sub-station at Caroline Street, after that we will be based at Triskel’s Tobin Street Premises.

JO: Will The Black Mariah undertake other activities in addition to curating the Triskel’s visual art programme? minute. These include the development of a new gallery space in Lismore in conjunction with Lismore Castle Arts; and we are working on a library of video works with Crawford College of Art and Design.

JO: What about relationships with other institutional and artist led visual arts initiatives in Cork?

IM: We will be working with Cork Film Centre, CCAD, Art Trail, The National Sculpture Factory and The Cork Film Festival,

JO: Does the Triskel space offer you possibilities to do things you couldn’t do at the The Black Mariah?

IM: It depends how you look at it. We did have concerns around paranoia. When we were based on Washington Street a great generosity surrounded the project – artists working for no fee, and huge ‘in kind’ support. With the relationship with the Triskel we can now pay people; and we will experience working within the constructs of an institution – it is an opportunity to scale up and step up, while we still

you will both work with artists and mediate the shows for the public?

IM: We have no particular overarching ethos or definitive way of working with artists. Although we do like to work intimately with invited artists. We don’t see ourselves as just facilitators. For example we worked with Mark O’Kelly for a six-month period prior to his exhibition last year. Mark instigated the collaboration from his side, turning his hotel room into a studio for a week while discussing with us the work, space, ‘ethos’ and presentation. Mark even titled the one of the paintings in the show – a portrait – Mariah .

JO: Are you aiming to offer a balance in the programme between Irish and international artists and showing emerging and established artists – what was the thinking behind this spread?

IM: It ‘s interesting that you see it that way. Actually, we don’t see our programme as being balanced in the way you suggest. Rather, we see it as being a little unhinged, discordant and contradictory. Even though certain artists are pronounced as – established, emerging or international and so on; we’re actually not interested in labelling.

Last years programme saw represented artists making new work; a member of Aosdana collaborating on new work with an emerging / represented artist, programmed alongside the work of recent graduate and an international artist.

A focused interest and a lack of capital funding, has led to the development of a mode of operations for The Black Mariah that to some extent is in opposition with traditional frameworks – but besides operating outside and against these frameworks, with make use of them in new ways. As a result of this ‘mutation’, we are becoming increasingly interested in working towards figuring a suitable model for actually representing particular artists.

get to be ourselves.

JO: Are there any key themes and issues that you are exploring during your time working with Triskel?

IM: Not specifically. Through programming we see key themes being

JO: The Black Mariah are described as a curatorial group – could you outline who are the members of the group and what its structure is?

IM: The Black Mariah was founded in 2007. I direct and curate with the assistance of artist Stephen Mc Glynn.

JO: Do you have an overarching curatorial ethos in terms of how

IM: Yes, there are a number of projects we are working on at the

collaborating with an institution, for fear of being subsumed, a kind of JO: How would you describe the relationship between The Black Mariah’s programming of visual arts for Triskel – are you guest curators, curators in residence or consultants?

IM: The Black Mariah are guest curators, although given that our relationship with Triskel is new, it is difficult to ascertain what our levels of involvement may be as of yet. Since we began with Triskel, we have concentrated on programming, and are just beginning to thrash out ways of working side by side. We would like to think of our situation as developmental throughout our tenure, while constantly reviewing, adding, or editing.

Vomit Nest @ Preform March 2009 09, The Black Mariah

explored via the individual interests of artists invited, an overarching theme could be an infinite number of possible combinations of the varied individual interests being explored.

JO: Are there any particular elements of the upcoming programme that you would like to highlight to our readers?

IM: Almost everything really – the CCAD / LSAD graduate selection, Sonia Shiel; David Wojtowycyz; Pallasades; Sean Lynch; Nevan Lahart, Ossian Brown & Stephen Thrower; Peggy Franck; AA Bronson / General Idea; Angela Fulcher & AJ Fusco; Mordant Music; Theo Adams ... www.theblackmariah.com www.triskelart.com

16

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

September – October 2010

HOW IS IT MADE?

Doctors & Patients Gemma Anderson discusses her project ‘Portraits: Patients and Psychiatrists’

Gemma Anderson Virginnia copper etching, hand coloured with japanese paints, 100x80cm

Gemma Anderson Felicity copper etching, hand coloured with japanese paints, 100x80cm

Gemma Anderson Connor copper etching, hand coloured with japanese paints, 100x80cm

The roots of my project ‘Portraits: Patients and Psychiatrists; began in June 2007, arising out of contacts made from my MA exhibition at the Royal College of Art, London. I presented a series etched portraits that referred to the pseudo-scientific theories of physiognomy, phrenology and the ‘doctrine of signatures’. These works came to the attention of forensic psychiatrist Tim McInerny and the curator Sarah Williams.

The following April, I was invited by Sarah Williams on the strength of my MA work to participate in an exhibition she was curating for the Jerwood space in London entitled ‘An Experiment in Collaboration’. By this time I had returned to Belfast and was based at Queen Street Studios. This invitation by Sarah prompted me to start working on a series of portraits of staff and patients at Knockbracken Hospital in Belfast. With the Jerwood exhibition coming up, I made contact again with Tim, who facilitated me access to make similar works at Bethlem Hospital in London. My contribution to the Jerwood show, which ran during July 2008, featured the first four complete portraits made for the series.

I had become especially interested in working on portraits of psychiatric patients, as my grandmother had spent a period in a psychiatric hospital in 2004. Deeply aware of how her identity was diminished by the language of the medical institution, I witnessed how its vocabulary failed to express the history and story of the individual I loved and knew so well.

I received a very positive response to this exhibition, which encouraged me to apply for a Wellcome Trust Arts Award – for arts and health initiatives – in order to further develop the work I had begun with Tim at Bethlem Hospital under the title ‘Portraits: Patients and Psychiatrists’. Specifically, I applied for a project that would commence in August 2009. I was successful and received an award of £20,910 for the project, which comprised overall of the production of a series lifesize etched portraits of a variety of psychiatric patients and psychiatrists at Bethlem Royal Hospital, London; a blog documenting work on the project, exhibitions and accompanying talks on the project as well a paperback publication, produced in conjunction with the Bethlem Royal Hospital and sold through the Bethlem Museum and subsequently made available in all the venues were the work was shown (1).

Before commencing the project Tim McInerny recruited a number of willing psychiatrists, who could be of assistance in identifying patients and doctors who would enthusiastic to take part. For the success of this project it would be vital that the doctors and patients involved had good working relationships. Although the project was based at Bethlem Royal Hospital in Beckenham, I also drew individuals at their homes in Hammersmith, Hampstead and Homerton; at a boys’ school in Brentford and at other NHS units – Kentish Town Community Mental Health Centre and the Maudsley Hospital in Denmark Hill.

Such drawing from life requires trusting relationships with individuals and institutions – and it was a challenging experience full of learning and discovery. Each individual led me on a search.

Sometimes I drew their personal possessions, but as the project evolved I was drawn to the animals, plants and other objects at the Royal College of Physicians, Kew Gardens and University College London’s Grant Museum of Zoology, Rock Room and Human Anatomy Room.

Sometimes I drew personal objects from an individual’s home that they had brought with them – or I borrowed these objects to draw them in my studio. The other imagery that I used – plants, minerals and animals – was included in the portraits as a reference to how these were historically used to treat the individual’s medical condition; as well as these being objects and things that the individual had a personal association with.

Another key element of the project was forming trusting working relationships with institutions – collections and museums. I arranged appointments to draw at the Royal College of Physicians, the Grant Museum of Zoology, University College London’s rock and anatomy rooms. In all these places I was given a desk space to draw at; as well as this I could request specific items that I wanted to draw from their collections.

My overall aim was to try to represent the people involved in this project in a multi-faceted way – depicting their histories, medicines, interests and emotional worlds. The greatest privilege for me was being able to meet each person, hear their story and experience their environment. Essential to this was learning about the perspective of both patient and psychiatrist.

In order to learn as much as possible about each individual, I was allowed access to the wards where the patients and psychiatrists worked. I spent time interviewing and developing ideas for the portraits with each individual before drawing them. I was invited to

attend lectures at the institute of psychiatry, which helped me gain insight into the contemporary research and concerns of the psychiatrists and hospital staff. I also spent time with the clinical team on ward rounds during which I learnt about the practical problems both the doctors and patients experienced within the hospital environment.

As there where 16 individuals involved in this project, I spent a lot of time organising meetings with each person. I was nervous at first as I began working with the forensic ward, I had never met anybody who had committed murder and I wasn’t sure how I would feel in the actual scenario. This was one of the most rewarding experiences of the whole project for me; as I found my initial feelings of fear and anxiety transformed into feelings of compassion and sympathy as I heard the individuals personal story and spent time talking to them.

I asked each person to allow four hours for our appointment.

Before each meeting I emailed each person a list of questions, I wanted them to think about beforehand. Questions like “why did you become a psychiatrist”; “can you tell me about your relationship with your psychiatrist / fellow patients”. I also asked everyone what if anything they had in common with their doctor / patient. This was a particularly interesting question, as sometimes we discovered common ground that was previously unknown – for example a doctor and a former Michelin star chef patient, shared a love of cooking fish.

It was harder to make appointments to interview and draw the psychiatrists than the patients, simply because of their workload. This made me really appreciate the value of spending so much time with each patient. Our conversations could expand and explore ideas and subjects of interest. For example one patient disclosed information to me that was very significant, which he had not discussed with his psychiatrist.

After the interview we had a break, I would make notes of initial ideas and then we begin the drawing. I asked each person to sit comfortably, choose a point to focus their eyes on and to stay as still as possible. Most people find the experience of being drawn relaxing, so much so that some fall asleep during the sitting! One patient I drew had ADHD and said he was worried about being able to sit still for an hour and a half – as he had never been still for this long before. I asked him what he would do with the portrait when I gave it to him; and he said he wanted to give it to his mum. I said that if he could try his best to sit still the portrait was more likely to look like him; and miraculously he stayed perfectly still for the entire time I drew.

On average the drawing took between one and two hours depending on the individual. When I had finished the drawing, myself and the sitter looked at it together and discussed ideas for the additional elements that could be woven into the portrait. Sometimes people were happy enough for me to make the decisions and other times they had specific requests – for example a forensic patient asked me to include symbols he had drawn into his portrait.

To the general public the individuals within psychiatric hospitals are invisible and to some extent stigmatised. As Tim McInerny wrote in the publication for the project “In the 1960s the anti-psychiatry movement, as championed by Michel Foucault and psychiatrist R.D. Laing, accused psychiatric practice of social control, promoting stigmatisation and of incarcerating the mentally well in asylums for reasons unrelated to their health. In western countries, this ultimately led to the development of care in the community, closure of asylums and the return of psychiatry and patients to society. The first decade of the twenty-first century has seen something of a reversal of such emancipation. Increasingly, fear of psychiatric patients and their association with a potential risk of violence is fed by tabloid hysteria.”

The aim of ‘Portraits: Patients and Psychiatrists’ was to allow the general public to encounter and better understand psychiatric patients and individuals, while still protecting their privacy and maintaining anonymity. Furthermore, I used pseudonyms for the identities of both the doctors and the patients– they are all seen equally and as individuals rather than people branded by their profession or medical condition. ‘Portraits: Patients and Psychiatrists’ was part of my ongoing interest in the history of medicine, comparative anatomy and the potential of the portrait as a form of empowering the individual.

Gemma Anderson www.gemma-anderson.co.uk http://gemmaanderson.wordpress.com

‘Portraits: Patients and Psychiatrists’ was exhibited at the Freud Museum, London (5 July 2010 - 22 Aug 2010); The Globe Theatre, London during September; ACME Project Space, London in November. Works from the Welcome commission will also be included in an exhibition of new work by Gemma Anderson at the Molesworth Gallery, Dublin in October. Following this the artist will show at the Naughton Gallery, Queens University, Belfast in May / June 2011 Notes (1) For further details about the award see: http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Public-engagement/Grants/Arts-Awards/index.htm

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

17

September – October 2010

Art in the public realm: FOCUS

Enlightenment

The Centre for International Light Art in Unna, Ruhr, is the only light art museum in the world. It features both permanent installation from and temporary exhibition. In tandem with this preoccupation,

Belinda Quirke discusses the meaning and implications of THE recent spate of lightrelated public art events and artworks.

Ruhr created the worlds “first” Light Art Biennale entitled “open light in private spaces” in 2010 as part of its European Capital of Culture programme. Curated by Matthias Wagner K, 60 different light art pieces were sited in home, work and recreational spaces reimagining. the event nature of light festivals, and consequently distinguishing light art, from illumination and light design (5). To confuse a landscape issue, Linz, also introduced a Light Art Biennale this year, edifying an existing engagement at Arts Electronica and public commissions by native Waltraut Cooper throughout the city. The theme of the 2010 biennale private light in public spaces – is a gentle teasing of the German Light Art Biennial and influenced by Beuys’ iconic performance How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare.(6) Turin’s Luci d’Artista arose from a Christmas lighting commission involving 14 Italian artists. What began as a customary desire of city councils to design Christmas illuminations, has impressively and imaginatively grown to an annual light event which commissions an impressive array of international work.

Luci d’Artista is curated by Ida Gianelli, Director of the Castello di Rivoli Museum and Pier Giovanni Castagnoli, Director of GAM. Featured artists permanently on display include Jenny Holzer, Rebecca Horn, Joseph Kosuth, Daniel Buren and Mario Merz. Turin regards the permanent installation of light art as part of the city’s strategy to position itself as a leading city of contemporary art, amalgamating with other art events to combine into Torino Contemporanea-Luce e arte (Contemporary Turin-light & Art)(7).

Is there merit in considering a light art event for Dublin? In 2008, The Science Gallery initiated, Lightwave: a festival, bringing together scientists, engineers, technicians, lighting designers, and artists to contribute to its opening event. A number of interventions and related discussions throughout the city demonstrated the potential growth of

Rafael Lozanos- Hemmer. Vectoral Elevation Dublin.

an even larger city wide investigation that could stimulate collaboration with contemporary art and architecture. Whilst Lightwave was deferred in 2010 due to budgetary cutbacks, the Director of the Science Gallery, Michael John Gorman believes a Festival of Light for Dublin; “could offer a specific focus on innovation with light across the arts and sciences that is not present in other festivals of light”.

No doubt technological advances are a major impetus in contemporary light art development and a stimulant for public interaction. Rafael Lozanos- Hemmer’s Vectoral Elevation, O’Connell St., Dublin encouraged the public to create unique light designs online that were projected skywards by 22 robotic searchlights. The highly popular Playhouse (Dreambox) featured in last year’s Dublin Theatre Festival, used over 100,000 LED lights to light window frames of 330 windows of Joseph Kosuth Sechs Teile, Lokalisiert, 2004. 'Open Light in Private Spaces'

.'Lightwave', Science Gallery Dublin.

Liberty Hall in the creation of a giant interactive display. Participants

The Berlin Festival of Lights has a theme tune … cue eurotrashtic beat,

defining itself as a network “using light as a major tool for urban, social and economic development, with a concern for sustainability and environmental issues” (2). Four main strategic committees are chaired by member cities; Urban Strategies and Lighting (Liege), Culture and Lighting (Glasgow) Technological Prospects and Trends (Shanghai), Sustainable Development (Eindhoven). On behalf of LUCI, the city of Glasgow has commissioned a tender to research “the economic and cultural benefits of lighting festivals and other night-time events”. No city in Ireland is currently a member.

The identities of festivals of lights can be ambiguous in definition as coherency between light art, light design and illumination can be roughly amalgamated. At their lowest, they appear as garish technical fêtes of architectural encroachments, whilst at their high point, a fluid dialogue between residents, the city and contemporary culture. While considering contemporary artists working in light, Elizabeth Baker’s article for Art News, The Light Brigade (1967) posits the idea that light – “a common industrial material…that has until recently stood for the most common aspects of a flashy advertising culture-may now realise a different potential in its symbolic capacity to arouse emotional response, and in the hands of artists, transcend its materiality (3).”

Dan Flavin detested this notion of transcendence concerning his fluorescent icons. In the context of light art, the event is often a misdirected prominence rather than a site specific material singularity.

However, a number of cities and art projects are readdressing a light inquiry in an urban context.

In 2005, 'Light Art from Artificial Light' curated by Peter Weibl and Gregor Jansen at ZKM, Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany created an almost encyclopaedic survey of light art featuring works of Dan Flavin, Bruce Nauman, James Turrell to Olafur Eliasson, Jenny Holzer and Zaha Hadid, illustrating a diverse breadth of artistic

were invited to download the Playhouse Animation Creator to generate

tempo moderate, non descript background musings with sensitive soulful singing by the artist Ayman “…I see it…I feel it, It’s like something I’ve never seen…I’m feeling free and I cherish every moment…turn the lights on… let it shine on..I can see things I’ve never seen”. I listened to this while surveying an image of an illuminated multicoloured Brandenburg gate, with text “be free, be sexy, be Berlin” , nestled proportionately under its quadriga of galloping steeds (1) Across Europe, a myriad of festivals obsessed with light have appeared diverging widely in concern and depth of intention. Cities are embracing the artificial and natural in immense outpourings of street projection, installation, conferences and events. Artificial light, for better for worse, remains one of the greatest symbols of modernity, marrying, with urban architecture, a sense of progressiveness and intent. Janus-like, the most established light festivals frequently derive from imported or pre-existing communal rituals and ideals of celebration, hope and benevolence, the victory of light over darkness.

Light festival origins can also be seen in cities at high latitude during ‘White Night’ celebrations, when long summer nights are broken by the briefest nightfall.

In order to attract large scale foreign and domestic tourism, cities are realising the cultural, economic and regenerative properties of light in urban planning and design. Fête des Lumières in Lyon, France, has attracted four million visitors to date and enjoys a tripling of business in the city during the four day event. Frankfurt’s enormous Luminale: The Biennale of Lighting Culture, runs in association with Light+Building, a leading international lighting trade fair alone drawing 180,000 visitors.

The global organisation LUCI Lighting Urban Community International, was initiated in tandem with this growing significance,

concern. (4)

animations that were screened on Liberty Hall, whilst accompanying music and sound pieces was broadcast locally on FM radio (8).

Certainly there are a number of Irish artists whose practices are not framed by, but incorporate artificial light in sculptural installation; Corban Walker’s ZIP commissioned by Breaking Ground at Ballymun Civic Centre ‘stitches’ two walls together with blue and green LED lights. Martina Coyle’s Efflorescence in Balbriggan created a steel bridge adorned by hand sewn silk between two buildings illuminated by UV light. Brian Duggan’s recent Step inside now step inside at the Hugh Lane features the use of neon and a bisected carnival motordrome in correlation to the gallery’s elliptical setting. Niamh McCann’s work regularly features discarded neon and electrical signage within installation, to name but a few. Interdisciplinary art collaboration as well as science is a substantial prospective. In a city that hosts international theatre, dance, writers and film festivals, in addition to Darklight and Dublin Electronic Arts Festival, a positive exchange of ideas and expertise could be built on pre-existing synergies. There is always something ultimately enticing, that for a duration, the city becomes a playground and gives you, free of charge, a different perception of itself.

Belinda Quirke Notes 1 www.festival-of-lights.de 2. www.luciassociation.org 3. Michael Govan and Tiffany Bell, Dan Flavin: A retrospective, Dia Arts Foundation in association with Yale University Press, 2005 4 .http://hosting.zkm.de/lightart/stories/storyReader$18 5 www.biennale-lichtkunst.de 6. www.lightart-biennale.com 7.www.comune.torino.it/artecultura/luciartista/ 8. www.daft.ie/playhouse

18

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

September – October 2010

International event

Film at the Centre of Film Treasa O’Brien reports ON the Oberhausen Film Festival (29 April – 24 May 2010).

But No Wave’s history is still being written, and even before the moniker of No Wave stuck, Amy Taubin described them at the opening of the New Cinema, as “bent pink soup”, which most of the filmmakers took as encouragement. The surprising inclusion of Empty Suitcases, by Bette Gordon, also not really a No Wave film, worked well here as it intersected No Wave and added counterpoint meaning to the

This year’s ‘Podium’ had the theme of ‘The Idea of the Self’; and

other films. Marian Lewinsky, one of the curators of the ambitious and

was curated by Ian White (5). Each morning before screenings started,

expansive Early Cinema programme ‘From the Deep: The Great

the festival’s citizens gathered at the agora to discuss philosophical

Experiment 1898-1918’ held up No Wave and experimental cinema as

Oberhausen Film Festival has a tradition of the avant-garde, if that is

issues before going about their workaday – the ideas discussed in these

a mirror to early cinema. What might seem to a modern audience as

not too paradoxical a statement. The films that are shown at Oberhausen

sessions resonated throughout my film watching experience later.

naïve and crude, could be read a being full of invention, innovation

“We go to the cinema, we make films and we write about them. We have used the cinema to produce ourselves.” (1)

favour non-linear works, experimental documentaries and exercises in

Ian Curtis was the first guest, invited due to his four-part

the medium. Film on the edge of film – or, depending on where you are

documentary for the BBC The Century of the Self. Curtis argues that the

The No Wave programme was part of a series of curated ‘Profiles’

standing in the mandala, film at the centre of film.

idea of self is a modern phenomenon – one which was encouraged by

on experimental filmmakers, and it was a pleasure to discover Gunvor

There were many visual artists and curators (2) at Oberhausen and

politics and business in the 20th century in order to discourage

Nelson, Amit Dutta and Fred Worden. I was left cackling at Gunvor

it reminded me somewhat of international visual art events (only

collective action. Contemporary individualism’s logic might be that if

Nelson’s Take Off, where a stripper strips of her body parts and throws

better) – where a normally dispersed community of like-minders

the self is well developed, then society as a group of selves will also be

them into the cosmos, a surreal mix of sci-fi comedy, dismemberment

(filmmakers, artists and curators) converge for a few days in a small

‘happy’. The irony of individualism is that in some ways, via

horror and feminist subversion. Amit Dutta’s high production

place, and feel stronger. And, much like biennale culture, nationality

globalisation, it has brought us together; individuals are more equal

boyhood memories astounded me; a modern Indian Tarkovsky, I

was used to define and list ‘international’ films.

when treated as consumers; “Yes, we are all individuals!” say the unified

experienced the surreal feeling that I was dreaming the screen in front

Since its beginnings over 50 years ago, Oberhausen Film Festival

crowd (if VAN doesn’t mind me quoting from Monty Python). The self

of me. Cinema has this ability to mirror and tap into our unconscious

has welcomed new film formats, where other institutions have snubbed

has become a microcosm of society or as Curtis puts it “socialism in one

and dreamlike states, and the Oberhausen programmers understand

them. It was one of the first film festivals to accept video on a par with

person”. Though an intelligent filmmaker and speaker, and certainly a

this without sentimentality.

film and highlights music video as a serious genre. Wenders and

maverick in the BBC, Curtis’s thesis that authorship, identity and

Other films that might be seen elsewhere as video installation or

Herzog had their early films shown here and Irish filmmaker Ken

difference work against collective identification is arguable. Collective

in galleries were Wall and Tower (dir. Yael Bartana) and Promotional

Wardrop won an award here. Oberhausen values artists’ films and

groups such as unions and ‘identified communities’ are just extensions

Video (dir. Public Movement) both exploring political propaganda

filmmakers’ art, all through the form of the ‘short film’. As a festival, it

of ideas of self anyway, and nationalism – although its ugliest form – is

films. The overall winner of the international competition at

has contributed to, as well as followed, the evolution of short film

the proof. The human body can be extended to the metaphor of the

Oberhausen was a video essay Madame and Little Boy, (dir. Magnus

through the information age.

body politic; society is just a bigger ‘self’.

Bärtås) which used the device of singer Will Oldham narrating from a

and a disregard for history.

For a few days in spring this year, the depressed town of Oberhausen

Whereas Curtis spoke of society’s turn to the self, Elisabeth

studio next to a The Nike Missile Site outside San Francisco, to tell

became a filmmakers’ utopia (3), with back-to-back screenings of early

Lebovici spoke of individual artists turn away from self, or more

three stories: that of Korean actress and director, Madame Choi, who

cinema; experimental films from the last few decades; new films in

specifically how they dealt with self and authorship in the late 20th

was sent into political exile; the Hiroshima bomb; and cinematic

competition and programmes by indie distributors. The festival still

century by performing / constructing ‘selves’ for a public. Examples

monsters like Godzilla that correlated to propaganda.

stays within the parameters or etiquette of a film festival, that is to say,

included Annette Messager who separated and constructed various

One thing these films had in common was that the content of the

it only shows single screen works in a sit down cinema – no installation,

identities – Annette Messager Collectionneuse; Annette Messager

films was about film culture itself, a trait also prevalent in contemporary

longer form films, or looped works and only a couple of peripheral

Artiste; and Annette Messager Truqueuse. Lebovici also cast aspersions

art video and film. Other films such as Flag Mountain (dir. John Smith)

events of ‘expanded’ cinema (4).

on Louise Bourgeois’ construction of herself as “a trauma for the

and Dining Cars (dir. Arianne Olthaar) were non-narrative works that

public”, that allowed her to hide behind a ‘pseudo-self’.

could be shown on looped installation in another situation, but the

One film that acknowledged and played with the architecture of cinema was Monolog (dir. Laure Provost) in which the artist / filmmaker

The ‘Cinemas of the Self’ event looked specifically at early cinema

breaks the boundaries of her time-locked recording by asking direct

and No Wave film, both of which had focused curated programmes in

questions of the audience about their comfort and trying to break out

the festival. No-Wavers, James Nares, Beth B, and Ireland’s Vivienne

The gap is narrowing, or rather the bridge is widening, between

of the screen. This film explored the restrictions and possibilities of

Dick were present at the festival and spoke at the podium and at their

art and film practice, and I felt very much at home here, being an artist

audience participation and ‘live-ness’ in film watching, cunningly

screenings about that time in New York in the late 70s when their films

that has turned cinematic as I’m sure filmmakers who are turning arty

constructed with a light touch.

and music signified their self-expression and self-destruction.

might do too. For more information on next year’s festival see www.

The limits of the festival’s remit (short film only, in curated

History has given this loose group a sense of ‘self’ although it was

cinema screenings) give it a concentration that, with the small scale

not a cohesive movement at the time. Saying that, there were still

and down-to-earth atmosphere, makes it its strength. The intellectual is

disagreements as what constitutes a No Wave film– the programme,

weighted well with feeling here; and in-between films, conversations

curated by Christian Holler, unearthed many gems, such as James

light up with strangers who feel like familiar friends. There is not much

Nares’ Ramp, an edited in-camera whirlwind of a film that belied his

else to do outside of the festival, which is also a good way of keeping

artistic roots more than his punk ones; and Vivienne Dick’s first films

social cohesion.

Guerillére Talks and She Had Her Gun All Ready. Dick has been called the

A meeting and discussion is held every morning of the five-day

‘quintessential No Wave filmmaker’ (6) and her films are politically and

festival called ‘Podium’. From 10am –12pm each day there were guest

socially aware. Thus, it was a pity that due to inclusion in the

speakers and intense discussion, with the rest of the day left to film

programme of the overlong Men in Orbit (7), No Wave was in danger of

watching, informal post-show Q&A sessions and some events in the

being misinterpreted as a kind of punk Generation X predating jackass

evenings.

culture.

Irish Bronze Kilmainham Art Foundry Ltd

T/A

IRISH BRONZE

for sculptors seeking the perfect cast

telephone: e-mail: website:

Willie Malone 01 4542032. irishbronze@eircom.net www.irishbronze.ie

Death of Cuchulainn. Oliver Sheppard RHA (1865 – 1941).

Oliver Sheppard sculpted this exquisite world-renowned piece In 1911/12. The original work in plaster was exhibited at the RHA in 1914. Purchased by the State in 1935, the work was cast in bronze (commissioned by Eamon de Valera to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the 1916 Rising) and placed in the GPO Dublin.

Commissioned by The Office of Public Works in June 2002, the second Cuchulainn was cast in bronze at Griffith College Dublin by Willie Malone. This picture shows the new work on permanent exhibition at the Custom House, Dublin.

duration of sitting with them in a linear way, brought another dimension to the temporality that freer choice may have not.

kurzfilmtage.de Treasa O’Brien Notes 1. Emma Hedditch speaking as part of ‘It’s Not Terrible’, a performative intervention into the Podium ‘The Idea of the Self’ discussions.

2. Note that Oberhausen uses the term curators rather than programmers – is it just semantics that separates the worlds of visual art and experimental film?

3. A major recession currently affects the industrial-dependent town with high unemployment figures.

4. One special event was a live performance Counterpoint Chapter 08: Architecture by Grace Schwindt, in which she and an actor read from the script of her own multi-channel film of interviews with ex-pat Germans about German history.

5. Ian White is adjunct film curator of Whitechapel Art Gallery and leader of Lux’s Artist Associate Programme (AAP) in London. He brought his AAP cohort with him and their events and critical reflection to proceedings brought another vibrant texture to the festival.

6. By Village Voice critic Jim Hoberman 7. A mock space movie that took up rather too much space in this programme. These boys with toys laughed at their own joke for too long and with bad sound; the irritation prompted quite a few walkouts, to the perverse delight of aficionados.

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

19

September – October 2010

Project PROFILE So getting back to the original question, what then provoked the current management committee to make an exhibition of the past committee’s work, why now, why not in another four years to mark Catalyst’s 20th birthday? The answer is that the show represents a specific inheritance from a past Catalyst committee – in 1996 Catalyst held a show also titled ‘Art Rebels’ and a key component was the creation of a number of time capsules. As the press release for the 2010 edition of ‘Art Rebel’s explained “In February 1996, the members of Catalyst Arts were invited to fill an empty box marked Art Rebels for the annual members show. 79 boxes were returned, and exhibited anonymously. The floorboards in the gallery were lifted up and the boxes placed between the beams, to be sealed off until 2010 when they would be unearthed and reopened. The Art Rebels boxes, like Catalyst, 'Art Rebels' box (artist unknown)

have survived the moves, the crisis, the parties and controversies of 14 years.” (2) Indeed the 79 boxes were retrieved from Catalysts gallery space on Exchange Place (3) and then moved stored at their new premises. The boxes eventually resurfaced, as a result of research into the Catalyst Arts archive – a turn of events, that was in fact not far from the original hopes of the 1996 serving committee.

The re-discovery of this material, along with the original 2010 deadline imposed by the previous board, served to provoke the current committee into thinking about the history of their organisation and the potential for celebrating Catalyst’s past. The 2010 ‘Art Rebels’ show was devised as a celebratory marker of the past work, and workers, who contributed to Catalyst Art’s rich history – a very altruistic act. As the

Work by Brown & Bri for 'Art Rebels'.

Dougal McKenzie & Allan Hughes Who Loves The Earth? (A Series Of Points).

Out of the Box

destination and the optimism of the Catalyst Committee of 1996 that the gallery would still be here in 14 years is reflected in the dedication of over 50 directors since, to the idea that an entirely volunteer led gallery can thrive in Belfast”. (4)

Brian Connolly profiles ‘Art Rebels’ at Catalyst Arts, Belfast (21 May – 12 June) – an exhibition that drew on the archives and history of the organiSation.

Catalyst Arts recently presented ‘Art Rebels’ an exhibition of artworks by past committee members of the organisation (21 May – 12 June). The show featured over 35 artists, who had served on their board, going back to when Catalyst was founded. This was no mean feat, considering that not all contributors have remained living in Northern Ireland, let alone Europe; and moreover that the current Catalyst staff and board, as per the groups founding principles all work on a voluntary basis and on a two-year tour of duty.

So how and why did this show come about? The answer lies in the past history of Catalyst Arts. Catalyst Arts was established in 1994, following on from a series of discussions held by young artists, graduates and students about the issues surrounding the contemporary lack of visual arts opportunities and artist-led initiatives for emerging artists in Belfast. To some extent, this was partly due to the demise of ARE (Art and Research Exchange) (1) – but also, in my opinion there was a clear generational shift occurring at that time.

At this time, as a result of visiting art students and informal exchanges, some close affinities and alignments were being established between Glasgow and Belfast. Ambitious, street savvy and politically motivated Glaswegian student artists such as Roddy Buchanan, Douglas Gordon, Ross Sinclair, Karen Vaughan and Christine Borland – to name but a few, all came to Belfast either formally, as students; or as interested visitors or friends. These individuals all had experience within the Glasgow School of Art’s ‘Environmental Art’ course – and as such were working and making art and artistic interventions within the urban context, beyond the confines of the gallery space and formal art structures.

A few Belfast artists including Robert Peters, Heather Allen and myself made return visits to Glasgow. These informal links were vital – friendships and provocative discussions developed around the potential socio-political role of art within contemporary society.

Particular attention was given to the importance of the artist run venue. In particular the Transmission Gallery in Glasgow was seen as a potential model for artist-run initiatives for both within and outside of the gallery space.

Over time the informal discussions became more focused and directed and Transmission Gallery emerged as the primary the yardstick out of which the parameters of a new artist run initiative emerged. The initial process was very much driven by Karen Vaughan, Robert Peters, and I think Dougal Mackenzie, (and apologies to those that I may have overlooked here). Catalyst Arts was established with a fresh young ambitious committee who rented a first floor premises in Exchange Place in the heart of the then, run-down area at the back of the art college.

current committee put it “ now in 2010 (the boxes, reach their final

Catalyst established a focused ‘modus operandi’ from the earliest stages of its existence, as it intentionally set out to have a quick committee turnover, set at two years, each on a rolling schedule to ensure some form of continuity. This was done for various reasons.

The main reason was to ensure a curatorial dynamism within the organisation. Secondly having a quick committee turnover would ensure a spread of vital experience across younger artists and it was also an attempt not to overload individuals for prolonged periods.

Thirdly a continuous turnover of volunteers would enable the organisation to evolve and develop and not stagnate or narrow its remit, which might otherwise occur if a set few were to remain in control.

Each of the Catalyst Arts incarnations reflect their committee’s make-up as influences change and rotate. This key fact has engendered a dynamic back catalogue and rich and hectic programme of activity.

Catalyst Arts has created international links and exchanges; artist networks; performance festivals; site-specific projects; travelling shows; city garden projects; performances; members shows; all kinds of exhibitions, student shows and discussions – as well as parties, fun, pure silliness, and oddities – and all kinds of cultural activity and madness in between. Its youthful outlook and makeup is its strength and cultural remit.

However, with its quick management turnover Catalyst at times can be, and has been, vulnerable to a range of difficulties and organisational threats. Somehow though, it has managed to survive through thick and thin; through contentious venue changes and funding shortfalls. Through all kinds of tests and trials, it has managed

Thirty-four ex-directors and committee members participated in the new ‘Art Rebels’ exhibition. While this did not represent the full cohort of all of the past committee members, the majority of the past directors were represented in the exhibition. As a group exhibition, by its nature, it was an interesting and eclectic mixed bag – which encompassed performance works, site specific sound-works, video works, installations and mixed media works, paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, text works, collaboration and participatory practice.

There was a range of notable works and a cursory look at the contributing artists list is enough to ensure that a degree of depth and quality was evident throughout the exhibition. (5) The opening night brought many of these directors / committee members together – either for the first time or at least since a long time!

Many had never met each other, as some had not been back in Belfast for many years, and as a result the opening event was a historic meeting and social gathering.

The original Art Rebel boxes were available for inspection during the opening, as well as at set times throughout the exhibition. The public were able to pick out specific artists boxes under the archival guidance of Cherie Driver. I reviewed several boxes on the night and was glad that they, had ‘thrown a stone into the future’ – a stone that had to be lifted up in the present, and dealt with, in a considered way both by the most recent Catalyst Arts Committee, as well as an art audience.

The whole ‘Art Rebels’ project” is further proof if any were needed that artist run initiatives are vital and fundamental to a healthy visual arts community and culture. Long may they exist and well done to Catalyst Arts – past and present.

Brian Connolly

to stay afloat and grow in confidence and stature. This fact is a testament to the thankless hours of tireless and invisible voluntary work, given selflessly by the past directors who must be congratulated for keeping the organisation alive and kicking.

Catalyst has also launched a range of artistic careers and many young – and not so young – arts organisations in Belfast can trace their roots directly back to Catalyst Arts. The majority of the former committee members either are practicing artists, curators, educators, arts directors, arts facilitators, or a combination of theses roles. This fact indicates the crucial role that Catalyst plays, and has played, in providing valuable professional experience for many of those working in the visual arts in Belfast and the cultural importance that Catalyst Arts has had within the visual arts infrastructure within the city – funders please take note!

Notes (1) Art & Research Exchange (A.R.E.) was an organisation formed in Belfast in 1978, comprising a vanguard of conceptually and theoretically engaged younger artists and radically minded veterans. Further details can be found at: http://www.thevacuum.org.uk/issues/issues0120/ issue11/ (2) Catalyst Arts Art Rebels Exhibition Preview Statement, 2010.

(3) Catalyst Arts in effect were evicted by Laganside Developments, during their rejuvenation and reinvention of the area as a cultural quarter, now known as the Cathedral Quarter. This is rather ironic when one considers that Catalyst Arts was one of the original arts organisations to inhabit and generate cultural interest within the run down area. It is also to be remembered that they were the victims of rampant property development under the guise of so called ‘cultural planning’, which eventually resulted in their enforced departure form the area due to rent escalation and funding difficulties.

(4) Catalyst Arts Art Rebels Exhibition Preview Statement, 2010.

(5) The exhibiting artists were – Allan Hughes, Angela Darby, Benji DeBurca, Brendan O’Neill, Brian Patterson, Brown&Bri, Caelan Bristow, Cherie Driver, Cian Donnelly, Clive Murphy, Colm Clarke, Dan Shipsides, Deirdre McKenna, Dougal McKenzie, Duncan Campbell, Eilis O’Baoil, Elina Medley, Eoghan McTigue, Fiona NÌ Mhaoilir, Fionnuala Doran, Fuyuka Shindo, Grainne Cullen, Helen Sharp, Johanna Leech, Julie Bacon, Justin McKeown, Karen Vaughan, Leo Devlin, Mark Orange, Meabh McDonnell, Peter Richards, Phil Collins, Philip Hession, Robert Peters, Sara O’Gorman, Seamus Harahan, Stephen Hackett, Susan Phillipz & Ursula Burke.

Launch event for a new public artwork by James Hayes

‘In an attempt to find the right words...'

1pm Friday 22 October 2010 Commissioned by Mayo County Council for Áras Inis Gluaire, Belmullet, Co. Mayo An exhibition by the artist will also be in Áras Inis Gluaire documenting the process of creating the artwork. This will be in the gallery from 22 October – 10 November.

There will be a lecture by the artist on the project, prior to the official launch, at 11am on Friday 2 October in the Áras Inis Gluaire theatre. This is open to all but booking is essential, contact Gaynor Seville, Public Art Co-ordinator, details below.

‘In an attempt to find the right words ...' is a public artwork by James Hayes, commissioned by Mayo County Council and funded by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government under the Percent for Art Scheme.

For further information please contact Gaynor Seville, Public Art Co-ordinator T: 094 904 7561 E: gseville@mayococo.ie

October 2010 Something Very Important from Some Time Ago An exhibition of new works by Eugene Magowan Curated by Jane Ross The Observatory, 7 Sir John Rogersons Quay, Dublin, Ireland. Ph: +353 1 8333456. email: info@blueleafgallery.com

Landscape Green Yellow. Oil on Canvas, 24” x 36”

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

September – October 2010

Opportunities

Opportunities COMPETITIONS

COURSES / workshops

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

Opportunities GRAD / POST-GRAD

EXHIBITIONS IRELAND

September – October 2010

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

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September – October 2010

Opportunities

VACANCIES

Don’t forget Do look at the advertisments in this VAN, also check our web site & subscribe to our e-bulletin for further opportunities.

WATCH OUT We strongly advise readers to verify all details to their own satisfaction before forwarding art work, slides or monies etc.

Thanks A-N: The Artists’ Information Company; The International Sculpture Centre (New Jersey / USA) and the NSF Cork.

FUNDING & AWARDs

NOTICES

Milliken Bros., Fine Art Materials Suppliers Available now on line at

www.millikenbros.com

11 Main Street, Greyabbey, Co. Down BT22 2NE Tel: 028 42788293 / 028 42788005 Fax No. 028 42788293 Email: millikenbros@btconnect.com

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

27

September – October 2010

Project profile

Resurrection Joanne Laws discusses ‘SACRED’ A CROSS-BORDER exhibitioN and semimar project.

Janine Antoni Unveiling, Mariele Neudecker Gravity Prevents the Atmosphere from Drifting into Outer Space. Unveiling was borrowed from the collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Image reproduced with their kind permission.

The disused office space prior to the installation of Sacred. A total of four buildings were used for the exhibition, only one of which was a gallery.

Mariele Neudecker Gravity Prevents the Atmosphere from Drifting into Outer Space (left) & Fergus Martin Table (right). Mariele Neudecker’s piece is part of the collection Catherine Loewe Contemporary. Fergus Martin is represented by The Green on Red Gallery.

Janine Antoni Unveiling, Abigail O’Brien Red Ribbon, Paul Seawright Horizon.

Image reproduced With the kind permission of the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Richard Wright, the winner of last year’s Turner Prize, created a wallinstallation for the Turner show at Tate Britain comprising an intricate, fresco-like pattern crafted with layers of gold-leaf. It was a quiet and ephemeral work, which nicely offset the usual media hype surrounding the prize. The Telegraph declared the work an “incandescent, ethereal beauty”. “We are in the presence of an invitation to reverie” claimed The Independent. This artwork could not be ‘bought’, or even ‘preserved’, but merely experienced in transience, almost like a mirage.

The work could be read as referencing renaissance annunciation iconology; or as offering a kind re-formulated, abstracted and contemporary evocation of religious experience.

Closer to home, coinciding with the passing of the controversial Blasphemy Law in July 2009, the exhibition ‘Medium Religion’ in The Model discussed the space that religion occupies in the Irish psyche – while alluding to a more universal message. The curator of the show, Boris Groys, presented an in-depth account of the transforming role of spirituality in our modern era of mass communication. As Groys put it, “the general consensus of the contemporary mass media is that the return of religion has emerged as the most important factor in global politics and culture today.” – a reference to anxieties about both Christian and Islamic fundamentalism. (1) However, on the whole, art with religious connotations has been considered sanctimonious, clichéd, or just simply un-cool. So why the return to matters of the ‘divine’? What bearing does this have on contemporary life? In fact considering notions of ‘sacredness in the everyday’ offers the basis for a rich and compelling discussion – especially when art, iconology and anthropology are central to the conversation. The ‘Sacred’ exhibition and seminar, originated by The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon, aimed to stimulate and explore just such a topical discourse (2).

‘Sacred’ was facilitated by artist and curator Linda Shevlin, and contracted by Caoimhin Corrigan for Leitrim Arts Office. The project was funded under the Peace III programme and was devised as a collaboration between members of communities from Carrick-onShannon and Enniskillen. The artists featured in the show were Daphne Wright, John Byrne, Gary Coyle, Fergus Martin, Paul Seawright, Janet Mullarney, Abigail O’Brien, Amelia Stein, Janine Antoni, Grace Weir, Susan MacWilliam, Sharon Kelly, Mariele Neudecker, Patricia Kelly, Stephen Dillon and Cian Donnelly. The exhibition took place at the Higher Bridges Gallery; Enniskillen Castle and off site venues in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh (25 June – 21 July).

The project officially commenced December 2009, when members of Catholic and Protestant communities from Carrick-on-Shannon and

Enniskillen gathered at The Dock for the first project meeting. As the press release for the show put it, the aim was to initiate conversations around “the shared, experiential aspects of religions as opposed to focusing on their differences”. Over the following months the participants were given presentations by specialists from a range of contemporary art institutions. The participants visited the Ulster Museum in Belfast and IMMA in Dublin. At The Dock Suzanne Lyle from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland; the artist and Head of Fine Art at NCAD, Philip Napier; Johanne Mullan, National Programmer, IMMA; Jerome O’Drisceoil of the Green on Red Gallery and Linda Shevlin, project facilitator, presented artworks for the group’s consideration.

The participants selected artworks in close consultation with the facilitators and specialists. As such, evidence of ‘amateur’ decisionmaking was not apparent in the exhibition. This was certainly an indicator of the success of the project. But on the other hand, it might have been nice to seen less ‘professional veneer’. However, on closer inspection it was clear that unique personal touches abounded – particularly in the labelling, where the participants had the opportunity to engage with the audience and explain why they chose each piece.

A spirit of generosity and mutually beneficial exchange was embodied in the project – in that the participating galleries and museums were loaning their works outside of their usual institution remit. In our current economic climate it seems particularly desirable to acknowledge a potential for the erosion of traditional transactions of ownership – where art is bought up and kept for private use. Bringing artworks out of the collection scenario has the potential to generate new audiences, new meanings, and new contexts in which the work can be received.

In terms of general themes, the artworks explored notions of domesticity, cultural heritage and memory in relation to faith and religious experience. Amelia Stein’s photographs Loss & Memory (2002), depicted old-fashioned objects such as china cups, leather shoes and candlesticks. These banal trinkets could be read as resilient reminders that the old ways should be recalled within the modern psyche.

Similarly, Fergus Martin’s Table (2009), depicted a simple and robust image of the family. It evoked a sense of belonging relating to heritage, serving as a reminder of the family as the very foundation of Irish nationhood within the church / state discourse of DeValera’s Ireland in the 1930s.

The ‘mother’ as a universal signifier of strength and heritage, was presented as a spiritual icon in Janet Mullarney’s Domestic Gods II (1998). Sharon Kelly’s Mother, 2003, depicted an empty nightgown,

illustrating modesty and femininity of a certain era, with sacramental connotations relating to christening or wedding gowns. The mother’s absence was palpable in Stephen Dillon’s Untitled 1 & 2 –Ceramic Figures of Youth (2005), as they stood alone on the adjacent plinths. Depicting hooded youths, these pieces expressed a tribal search for kinship or a sense of belonging. Janine Antoni’s artwork equated the covered head with the religious act of concealment, visually enacted in Unveiling (1994), through the use of a bronze bell and fabric tassel, creating a veritable shroud. Miriam De Burca’s commissioned work I’m Asleep Don’t Wake Me (2010), was a double video piece, depicting two priests playing the same piece of Irish music, but filmed in isolation from one another, in their own homes.

A one-day seminar / conversation event was held on 26 June in conjunction with the show, in order to further explore the relationship between contemporary art and the sacred. As part of this dialogue session, the artist Seamus Nolan conducted a performance with the ‘anarcho-primitivist’ thinker John Zerzan, which involved a re-reading of The Case Against Art, written by Zerzan in 1984. Daphne Wright discussed her work The Prayer Project. The artists Karl Burke and Miriam De Burca – who had been selected by the community groups from an open and invited call for proposals – spoke about their experiences creating new work for the exhibition. The artists’ conversations were chaired by the independent curator Helen Carey. Philip Napier (Head of Fine Art NCAD) talked to Rev. Gary Mason about his work in communities in East Belfast and the role of art in a culture of change.

Miriam De Burca talked of her own take on spirituality, which objectively observes religion, but treasures the strength and spirit of people. She considered it a shame that God (or any religious affiliation) may get the credit for what is essentially the power of human connectivity. Daphne Wright spoke in detail about her Prayer Project (2009). Co-commissioned by Picture This and Quad in the UK, the work investigates the intimate act of prayer through the medium of film, presenting voyeuristic portraits of people as they convene with the ‘other’. Wright discussed the difficulties she had faced regarding access to religious groups, funding criteria and liaison with the media. She insightfully considered the relationship between art, religion and culture in our contemporary information age – noting that art, as with prayer, can bring the individual into the present moment, where freedom can be experienced through the appreciation of simple reflections.

Anthony Gormley’s Fouth Plinth project for Trafalgar Square was referenced, in consideration of the real experience over the dominance of commercialised representations. Gormley´s challenge to the public to display themselves on a pillar in Trafalgar Square raised interesting issues relating to performance and voyeurism – where the individual was presented as a kind of icon, in turn raising questions about hierarchy and the dissemination of the religious doctrine.

Overall, notions of the present and ‘nowness’ was a reoccurring theme within the seminar – along with the idea that passive consumerism essentially corrupts our sense of living actively in the present.

In The Case Against Art, John Zerzan argues that in our age of electronic media, reality is continually updated, and as such ‘primary acts’ (ie. reality) have become secondary to the act of representation (3).

The discussion also brought to mind the Situationalist International literature of the 1960s which aimed to address the loss of individual identity and the negation of the ‘self’ under capitalism (4).

In recent times, the Catholic Church’s strong hold over Irish state relations has diminished. Now seems a pertinent time to ask questions which consider the act of faith as being separate from any religious orthodox. In considering the contemporary cultural landscape, it is seductive to promote spirituality and art as two-sides of the same coin.

Both have the capacity to highlight the ethical blind spots in society, perhaps relating to scientific or political endeavour, and to ask necessary questions, reaffirming the philosopher Neitzsche´s observation that “we have art in order not to perish of the truth” (5).

Joanne Laws Notes 1. Groys, Boris, Religion in the Age of Digital Reproduction, http://www.e-flux.com/journal/ view/49 2. The project was a continuation of a discourse initiated by an exhibition of the same name held in The Dock in late 2009. The first ‘Sacred’ show at the (14 Nov – 2 Jan 2009) featured an edible art installation from Djeribi; painting by Bernadette Kiely; a film piece by David Michalek; a sound /performance work by Aileen Lambert and ceramic sculpture by Katherine West. The exhibition was curated by Siobhán Garrigan, Associate Professor of Liturgical Studies, Yale University – Garrigan’s new book The Real Peace Process: Worship, Politics and the End of Sectarianism has just been published.

3. Further information on Zerzan´s writings and thoughts can be found here – www. johnzerzan.net 4. The Situationist International (SI) was formed in 1957 by a merger of Guy Debord’s Lettrist International and Asger Jorn’s International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus (IMIB), two post-war continental art groups. The IMIB could claim descent from the COBRA art group. A third art group, the London Psychogeographical Society, was claimed to have joined at the time, but was invented to add to the internationalist claims of the SI. 5. Neitzsche, Fredrich in The Importance of Neitzsche; Ten Essays, Erich Heller, (University of Chicago Press, 1998) p130

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

September – October 2010

Laughism

Laughism

By Borislav Byrne

Workspace Minor Capital Visual Artists Ireland, on behalf of The Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport and in partnership with the Arts Council, invites applications for grants towards the cost of equipment and/or improvements to the quality of artists’ workspaces.

Following the Arts Council’s recent policy on Visual Artists’ Workspaces – A New Approach’. where capital grants to visual artists’ workspaces were outlined as a priority, the Department recognises the extent of legitimate need for capital investment in visual artists’ workspaces at the present time.

The scheme will award capital grants of up to €15,000 to purchase/maintain essential equipment for the benefit of artists and/or to undertake improvements to the quality of the artists’ workspace. The total fund available is up to €140,000. The scheme is administered by Visual Artists Ireland on behalf of the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport and the Arts Council.

Further details: ww.visualartists.ie For queries please contact Niamh Looney at Visual Artists Ireland E: info@visualartists.ie T: 01 8722296 Deadline: Thurs 30 September @5.30pm.

Applications should be sent in hard copy and electronic format (word format) to Minor Capital Visual Artists’ Workspaces 2010, Visual Artists Ireland, 37 North Great Georges Street. Dublin 1

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

September – October 2010

29

International event

Works presented at the London Zine Symposium.

Works presented at the London Zine Symposium.

Works presented at the London Zine Symposium.

Sarah Bracken's stand at the London Zine Symposium.

Time of the Zines Sarah Bracken reports on the sixth annual London Zine Symposium On 29 May, on a rainy London Saturday, artists, environmentalists, punk rockers, vegetarians, vegans, bike lovers, misfits, a lot of tattooed ladies and just about every other kind of person you can think of descended upon The Rag Factory on Heneage Street. The Rag Factory is a non profit organisation supporting the creative community in London, it provides spaces to rehearse, audition, film, work, think, create or just to meet. Today it was the home of the sixth annual London Zine Symposium.

So what are zines? A zine is any independently produced publication, usually made by hand or through DIY means and with little budget. Who makes zines? People from all walks of life, some people write about their own lives (per-zines), others talk about issues that are important to them, some people make them as works of art, some to teach new skills and share ideas.

Edd Baldry, one of the founders of the London Zine Symposium described how before the symposium zine makers didn’t have a designated time or place to trade, sell, or buy zines. Even more importantly they didn’t have a place to meet other zine creators.

Inspired by the Portland Zine Symposium in Oregon, Edd, Natalie and their friends decided to set up the first London Zine Symposium in 2005. Edd was part of a collective squatting in an old university building and decided that this would be the perfect venue for the event.

The symposium began there on Gower Street, and moved from place to place each year until finding its current home in the Rag Factory in 2008.

Many of the exhibitors – zine makers and distributors – have been there from the very beginning, and they talk fondly of the thrill of being in a squat and feeling like rebels! More and more zinesters have joined the symposium every year, some even travelling from America and a few of us Irish zine makers popping over for the event too.

2010 was my second time selling at the symposium. I had one of the 64 stalls jam packed with every type of zine imaginable. Besides the stalls there was also a number of workshops, this year’s included, a discussion: ‘create your own culture’;an workshop ‘collaborate writing of feminist-queer sci-fi’; zine readings and a kid’s comic class. Along with all of the exhibitor’s stalls there was a table for individual zines, which anyone could sell from on the day, a great place to get your zine making career started. There was also vegan food to nibble on and best of all there was no rent on the stalls. A donation bucket was passed around for you to contribute what you could afford. Another way to show your support was to purchase symposium t-shirts, programmes, books and badges, I bought them all and went home on the plane looking like a walking billboard for zines.

Demand for stall slots has gotten greater every year; Edd received hundreds of stall applications months before the event was due to take place. To accommodate as many people as possible many of the stalls

Work presented at the London Zine Symposium.

were divided between three different distributors. This was great fun because it caused us all to mingle a lot more, to share change and to give each other breaks to go to stretch our legs and check out the workshops.

When most people think of zines nowadays they think of black and white photocopied pages stapled together, containing information about punk bands, rants or writings about political issues. Zines like this are still a prominent feature of any zine event but over the last few years, probably due to events like the symposium, zine makers have been pushing the boundaries and experimenting with content, binding, papers, layouts and shapes. Organisers of the symposium have noticed a decline in the classic photocopy style and a rise in art zines made with great skill and attention to detail. The term zine might be relatively modern but DIY publications have been around for a long time.

Two 20th century artistic and cultural movements pioneered DIY press, long before punk zines and have influenced the production of zines today. The artists of Dadaism regularly made and distributed underground publications using a cut and paste collage style, to make bold statements such as “we demand the right to piss in different colours”. The Dada magazines: Cabaret Voltaire, Dada, 291, 391, and

New York Dada, also demonstrate techniques that would become future characteristics of zines: rants and detournement.

The Beat Generation were also notable for their DIY attitude.

Allen Ginsburg in particular used independent press to get his work and the work of his friends out there. The Beats made small publications, and pamphlets to distribute and promote their work, giving them out at poetry readings, gigs and everywhere else they went. They experimented and collaborated, causing their work to cross over into many different genres. Like zine makers today the Beats were not just artists, they were jacks of all trades: writers, musicians, poets, speakers, publishers, activists etc.

The most recent high profile collaboration between zines and the art world was Sarah Pierce’s Irish contribution to the Venice Biennale 2005. A library of Irish zines was displayed at the event in ‘The Monk’s Garden’. The zines can now be found in Seomra Spraoi’s ‘Forgotten Zine Library’ in Dublin and new zines are being added to the collection all the time. Anyone and everyone are free to go and spend as much time as they like rooting around and absorbing these little hidden treasures.

Three years ago my friend Andrea Byrne and I started a contributor based zine of art, poetry and stories called Baby BEEF. We were both fine art students and found the zine a great way to get our work out there, and we had a great time meeting and networking with other artists.

Being part of the zine scene presents lots of fun opportunities to us and has caused us to make lots of new friends. Besides London zine making has brought us to Belfast’s ‘Out to Lunch’ Arts Festival where we sold zines, and to Cork where a contributor of ours organised a gig to fund the printing of our next issue. Baby BEEF has since evolved in the name of our independent publishing company. We have moved away from the black and white photocopy format to create limited edition handmade artist books and zines that we sell at markets and soon on our website. At the moment the zine scene in Ireland is relatively small but hopefully this will change with new zine / comic / artist book fairs such as ‘Summer Edition’ and ‘Independents Day’ – both Dublin based – that have both held their second annual events this year. These events have both been influenced by the London symposium and have the same ethos of building a DIY community and inspiring people to get involved.

I arrived to the symposium early and found a stall with a Baby BEEF sign on it. I set up my zines, along with some other zines, made by Irish zinesters that couldn’t make it over. Sat next to me was Dan Tyler who had been up all night finishing his new zine and putting messages into glass bottles. Dan was great company for the day, we traded zines and he told me that he worked in the rehabilitation of with people with brain injuries and hoped to open a business some day that would provide jobs for people adjusting to life in society after serious accidents. Dan’s black and white photocopied zine The Ship of Fools is romantic, angry and poetic. His stories about South London contain what he calls “a dark bubbling laughter throughout”.

Girl Photographer by Eleanor Jane was one of my favourites of 2009 and I was delighted to pick up the new issue #5 this year. Eleanor lives and works as a freelance photographer in Newport in Wales. The zine is packed with full colour photos from Eleanor’s everyday life and her travels in America and Dubai. The photos are accompanied with stories, diary extracts, mixed CD lists, photography tips, resolutions and even writings in Welsh. It is a visual feast.

Another highlight for me cost a mere £2, an absolute bargain for an inspirational zine packed with ideas, Sugar Paper: 20 Things to Make and Do made by Seleena from Manchester and Kandy from Derbyshire.

It came with all the ingredients for a felt purse, just one of the fun things inside its pages. The zine also teaches dance moves, knitting, the blanket stitch, recipes and lots more fun crafts and past times. Both of the zines creators sell handmade and knitted goods on the internet.

It was hard to pick which zines to mention out of my huge bundle that I brought home with me. But I think the ones I talked about give an overview of different types of zines and different types of zine makers. That’s what I love about zines, the stories of the people that make them. People that come from so many different backgrounds and occupations, but all of them take the time to get out theirs scissors, and long-armed stapler to share something of themselves with other people. Zines capture the thoughts and opinions of people from a certain time, they talk about problems, politics, the environment, and they teach people new skills and open their eyes to new ways of doing things. They provide a space to wonder. They give a voice to the little people, those ignored by the mass media and alienated by society.

Events like the zine symposium provide a venue for this community to grow. In the age of technology were everything seems so impersonal and distant, zines give back a bit of humanity, something you can touch and hold, knowing someone else made it with love, hope and passion and sent it out into the world for you to find.

Sarah Bracken www.babybeefartpress.com

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The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

September – October 2010

Studio Profile

Creativity Inclusion Development

CAS has also received great support and encouragement from Pauline Kersten of Conway Education Centre. Emma Berkery and Chris Lennon have developed a close working relationship with the Education Centre and have completed a number of creative projects KATHY MARIA MARSH REPORTS ON Conway Artists studios, WEST BELFAST with groups of young people.

It is important to emphasize that CAS is central to the regeneration of Conway Mill and by extension, West Belfast’s Lower Falls ward and the Gaeltacht Quarter. The art’s group aims to bring wide-ranging high quality arts experiences to the people of West Belfast and beyond. By developing a strong programme of visual arts showcases and exhibitions alongside a strong educational ethos of outreach and learning initiatives, CAS hopes to develop and strengthen the interaction of the Mill Artists with the local community. The outreach & learning programme is central to CAS as a community arts organisation.

CAS has instigated a diverse range of exhibitions and projects.

The group has held exhibitions with Feile An Phobail in 2008 and 2009. They staged a group exhibition in the Black Box in Belfast and went on to develop a group exhibition this year in the Safe House gallery in Belfast entitled, ‘Time Enough To Dream Of Home’. This formed part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival programme.

Creative energy is generated through collective and individual artistic pursuits.

Deborah Malcomson and Emma Berkery have initiated a number of projects together. A recent project ‘Modern Masters’, which has been realised with the support from Belfast City Council and Divis Community Centre comprises a series of collaborative art workshops exploring the working methods of contemporary artists. Malcomson and Berkery have also been working consistently trying to raise funds and are delighted to have recently teamed up with contractors H&J Martin who are offering their support in sponsoring the Mill courtyard mosaic project.

While continuing to develop the outreach and learning programme for CAS, Emma Berkery also took part in a four-person show in the Cockleshell gallery in Wexford, in August this year. She is Kathy Maria Marsh. Under The Midnight Sun Lapland. Film still. 2010 Conway Mill Complex before development. Falls Rd, Belfast. represented by The Nicholas Gallery on Lisburn Rd, Belfast and Ross artists wanted to create economically viable creative practices within CAS (Conway Artist Studios) is West Belfast’s only dedicated, Fine Art in Donegal. the Mill and consequently stay on site as much as possible, while professional artists and public art’s organisation. CAS is based in Having previously set up a contemporary art’s organisation simultaneously having a greater platform to raise their profiles to a Conway Mill on the lower Falls Rd in Belfast. Central to the vision and called Irishartnow, I gained valuable experience in devising PR wider audience, both as individual practitioners and collectively. The development of CAS is the regeneration of Conway Mill, an 1840’s strategies and securing art sponsorship for a number of public art group has set up a Constitution and is in the process of applying for flax-spinning mill. Conway Mill Preservation Trust (CMPT) was projects. I am an active CAS PR sub-committee member. In June this charitable status. CAS consists of a committee and sub-committees (PR established in 1999, to develop conservation and funding strategies for year I received an award to attend a conference at the University of and marketing, community art outreach, education etc). the preservation of the mill complex. CMPT is a sub group of Conway Lapland in Finland. I presented a workshop that explored the CAS’s vision is for a dynamic, challenging, sustainable and Street community enterprises that have owned and managed Conway interaction between performance art practice, group participation and inspiring arts organisation that maintains strong links within its local Mill since 1985. Over the years the mill has become an established the environment. community. The group’s core values are: haven for community, industry, culture and learning enterprises.

The wider theme of the conference challenged artists, art Creativity & Education: Engaging with local schools and Conway Mill was awarded Grade 2 listed building status in the educators and researchers to present, compare, and develop functions educational facilities through long-term relationships, promoting that support the goals of sustainable development through art. year 2000. Since that time, CMPT has successfully lobbied central and the creative arts and facilitating artistic development. local government and secured a funding package of over £5.4 million.

Sustainable development is understood as continuous and controlled Professional Development: Supporting artists and crafts people The Department for Social Development is the lead funding body, societal change taking place at global, regional and local levels. Its aim within the Mill through the provision of training, practice support followed by the International fund for Ireland, Integrated Development is to secure good living possibilities for present and future generations. and facilities to encourage the development of artistic practices In terms of the regeneration and transformation happening in Greater fund, Heritage lottery fund, Art’s Council of Northern Ireland lottery within the Mill, promoting aspirations of excellence. and capital fund and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Belfast, this is an exciting time to look to the role of art and the Social Inclusion: Facilitating creative experiences for those in Investment. significance of creative collaboration. targeted areas of economic and social depravation in West Belfast The Art’s Council of Northern Ireland has awarded a total of Following on from my project in Finland I have been developing and across Northern Ireland. £329,843.00 towards the building project, and this will fund the ‘art’s an exhibition of paintings and video entitled, ‘Under The Midnight Economic Development: Working in partnership with local floor’ – which will house Conway artist studios, a workshop and Sun’. This will be shown in November in the venue An Culturlann, in organisations to advance the regeneration of Conway Mill and the gallery space. An 18 month long programme of refurbishment work Belfast. I will also be exhibiting work with Dublin based photographer Dragana Jurisic and fellow CAS member Emma Berkery, developing a Lower Falls ward within West Belfast. Creating and facilitating on the mill complex is nearing completion. The new layout will group exhibition of paintings and photographs entitled, ‘After’. Work economic opportunities for artists and crafts people within the provide: will be exhibited in December in Europa Hotel, Belfast.

Mill to develop sustainable, economically viable, creative practices.

19 new artists’ studios (approx 5,800 sq ft) CAS has received interest from a number of international artists Recently a voluntary Board of Directors was appointed as the 16 new enterprise units (approx 12,270 sq ft) with connections to the mill that are keen to take part in a residency main committee to oversee CAS activities including fundraising 2 workshop spaces / kiln rooms programme.

CAS hopes to address this next year, when the group has efforts. The Chair is Susan Glass, who is also Project Manager of CMPT. New reception / foyer and courtyard with atrium made the permanent relocation into the new studio spaces. Building The Treasurer is Therese Bateson, who is the CMPT accountant. Gary Scope for future development including a café, a gallery, a multi on existing strengths and experience, CAS will continue to stage Hill, who is a tutor at Conway Education Centre, took on the voluntary purpose art’s space for performances, exhibitions, conferences etc exhibitions and open studio events, organise residencies, formulate role of secretary. CAS has benchmarked itself against similar arts and additional enterprise & craft units. exchanges with other artists, studios and art’s organisations in Ireland organisations and aims to have a paid member of staff in place by The ambitious project, which is being carried out by H & J Martin and abroad, increase facilities, services, resources and information for 2013.

Ltd, will also see the rebirth of the popular Space Gallery. In the past, the group, assist emerging artists through a guest artist programme, The members of CAS have been very fortunate in the support the gallery provided resident artists and the wider artistic community develop contacts with community groups and organisations and they have received from Conway Mill Preservation Trust and the with the facility to exhibit and display their work. Mill artists also members of the business community etc. voluntary committee, particularly from the new Chair of CAS Susan worked with the local community and Conway Education Centre, CAS is steadily raising its profile as a professional art’s organisation.

Glass. She has offered valuable advice based on her knowledge and providing a range of workshops and art activities. The provision of two Practising amidst the inspiring backdrop of one of Belfast’s most experience in project management. workshop spaces with kilns will ensure that this practice continues. historical, iconic buildings, the group is excited about the future and I asked Susan about the level of expectation the Art’s Council had, CAS is made up of a diverse group of multi disciplinary artists and ultimately reaching an international audience. We are working to following their significant investment, “CMPT will be working closely crafts people. There are currently 15 members including myself, make it happen. with the Arts Council regarding the proposals and procedures for Deborah Malcomson, Emma Berkery, Hugh Clawson, Shauna McCann, To find out more about the work of CAS, CMPT and the individual monitoring the selection of studio tenants, the quality of exhibitions Raymond Watson, Louise Firinne, Chris Lennon, Marie Louise Gormley, artists, please see the listed website addresses. and for the strategic planning of the arts facility, including the staffing Alice McGuinness, Kevin Quinn, Risteard O’Murchu, Pol Mag Uidhir, Kathy Maria Marsh www.conwayartiststudios.com and funding of the arts facility at Conway Mill. We will also be Deborah Fitzsimmons and Mary Gillen. CAS was initially set up to www.irishartnow.com consulting with the Arts Council regarding the integration of art support the artists of the Mill through creating a supportive network www.conwaymill.org www.emmaberkery.com works into the building”. however it quickly became apparent that this wasn’t enough. The

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

31

September – October 2010

Art in public: Roundup

Art In Public: Roundup

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

Outside: Insight

Marie Hannon and Shelter Split. Photo: Cecilia Danell

Brigit’s Garden, Roscahill recently hosted the third Annual ‘Outside: Insight, Sculpture in the Gardens’ (11 July ­- August). The event was opened with interactive performances by Knee Jerk and Ann Marie Healy. ‘Outsight: Insight’ was organised in association with Galway Arts Centre. This year’s participating artists were Tommy Casby, Cecilia Danell, Pieter Koning, Michelle Maher, Samantha McGahon, Tim Acheson, Louise Manifold, Michele Horrigan, Knee-Jerk, Ann Maria Healy, Roisin Coyle, Alannah Robins, Ceara Conway, and recent GMIT graduates Fiona Hession and Marie Hannon. The works, although very different aimed to respond to the landscape and context of Brigit’s Garden. Several works addressed the theme of home and shelter.

The show encompassed a mix of media including the use of sound, and video works by Michele Horrigan and Louise Manifold.

The aim of Outside: Insight is to give artists an opportunity to make work for outdoors and gives visitors to the gardens an opportunity to engage with art in a natural context. The exhibition is also being supported by Galway County Council. www.brigitsgarden.ie www.galwayartscentre.ie

Insect Festival

work is one of the artists ongoing projects and been previously installed in various locations including tropical rain forests, inner city bus stops, Brownfield sites, the Scottish Highlands, German city centers and aboard water vessels as part of the Venice Biennial.

The work comprises of a series of blank canvas screens upon which ultra violet light is projected – thus attracting insects. The press release noted that the insects “arrive on the canvas to reproduce and create pheromone paintings”. A series of night walks and talks were also programmed in conjunction with the installation. . The last weekend of the residency culminated with an ‘Insect Festival’, which exhibited the artwork and insect documentation over the two preceding two weeks. www.sculptureintheparklands.com

Artist and biologist Brandon Ballengee was this year’s artist in residence at Sculpture in the Parklands, Lough Boora, County Offaly. During the course of his residency Ballengee created an education programme and a series of workshops – entitled ‘The Eco Actions Summer School’ which explored the boundaries between art, science and technology (19 – 30 July).

The project funded by the Heritage Council and Offaly County Council, provided an opportunity for children to exploring the rich bio diversity of Lough Boora Parklands. Daily activities included the creation of bog journals, exploring the aquatic micro – fauna of the bogs, creating insect portraits at a human scale, painting insect murals and bug sculptures from natural materials.

Since 1996, Ballengee has collaborated with scientists to create hybrid environmental art / ecological research projects. He is directly involved with field study research and uses the visual impact of science to engage the public in a discussion of broader environmental issues.

Ballengee also created Love Motel for Insects a light installation which aimed to demonstrate the rich biodiversity of insect life in Lough Boora. The

featured thirteen artists who looked at notions of space via their own chosen medium, including painting, photography, installations and video projections.

The artists included were: Olive Barrett, Caroline Dooli, AJ Doyle, Louise Farrelly, Gillian Fitzpatrick, Fionnuala Hanahoe, Frances Hayes, Niamh Heery, Emer Lynch, Denise McCabe, LesleyAnn O’Connell, William O’Neill, Claire Weir. The project was supported by the ILAC, Oxfam Home, Francis Street and the Visual Artists Ireland.

Prettyvacant was set up in 2009 to repurpose empty buildings as temporary exhibition spaces for artists. www.prettyvacantdublin.com

Hopeful Structures

www.leitrimsculpturecentre.ie

the ‘R’ Word On 17 June The National Sculpture Factory in association with the Cork Midsummer Festival 2010, presented Today We Don’t Use The Word Recession a new work commissioned from Danish collective Superflex.

Superflex worked with the Lord mayor Cllr.

Dara Murphy in order to realise their proposal for an art event / gesture comprising of the inhabitants of Cork agreeing for one day not to use the word ‘recession’ throughout the city for one full day.

A key element of the project was the Mayor writing a formal decree on behalf of the people of Cork to this effect. The decree invited Cork’s citizens to come up with alternative terminology; the thinking behind the project being around notions of re-visioning culture and society. The decree was announced through a week long publicity campaign in newspapers, radio, TV and through posters in the streets. As part of the event with Crawford College of Art & Design hosted a public discussion by Superflex. www.superflexcork.wordpress.com www.nationalsculpturefactory.com

Brandon Ballengee 'Eco Actions Summer School'

representation and environmental arts practice, worked with the ten schools from different border areas and cultural backgrounds. A total of eighty primary and secondary pupils participated.

The artists engaged the school children with their own practice leading visual arts research and field study trips to various locations along and across the border between counties Leitrim and Fermanagh. Their collective investigations and various artistic activities formed the content of the exhibition.

‘Fields of Vision’ aimed to offer opportunities for young people to not only engage with the rich heritage of their surroundings but to interact with each other and professional artists and to share different viewpoints and perceptions of the land.

The project included an exhibition at Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Manorhamilton showcasing the new works created by the artists in the course of the project (11 June – 9 July).

The project was funded by the County Leitrim Peace III Partnership through the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund which is managed by the Special EU Programmes Body.

Public Art Launch in Aughagower Tom Meskell’s Pilgrimage event took place 9.30 until sunset in the town of Aughagower, Co. Mayo. The project was commissioned by Mayo County Council and funded by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government under the Percent for Art Scheme.

Pilgrimage comprised of the presentation of collection of temporary figurative sculptures made by the artist in collaboration with wide selection of people from in and around the Aughagower area. The work was inspired from the pilgrimages to Croagh Patrick, which pass through Aughagower.

The event was accompanied by an exhibition in the Aughagower community hall, presenting background material and documentation relating to the community sculpture workshops conducted

by Meskell. As part of the commission, a limited edition publication was produced, which is now on display and available for loan from public libraries across county Mayo.

Fields of Vision ‘Fields of Vision’, was a cross-border arts project initiated by the Leitrim Sculpture Centre in collaboration with 10 schools from Leitrim and Fermanagh, The project explored the diversity of the border landscape in terms of its cultural and physical geographies and their mutual influences and interactions. Four Irish artists, Andrew Dodds, Diane Henshaw, Seoidín O’Sullivan and Moira Tierney, each with particular interests in landscape

Taking Place Fionnuala Hanahoe Park Reflecting

James Ó hAodha ‘Taking Place’ Exchange Gallery, Dublin

‘Taking Place’ James Ó hAodha’s exhibition at the Exchange Gallery, Dublin (10 – 30 May) blurred the lines between the exhibition venue and public space, by appropriating commercial waste materials left in the street for collection, to create works inside and beyond the walls of the venue.

For the show Ó hAodha utilized the gallery as a working space and a base for a series of installations interventions being conducted in the streets around Exchange. In the gallery space the artists erected barricades, which were disassembled and reassembled over the period of the occupation.

As the press release outlined, Ó hAodha “worked tactically within the timescales and practicalities of placing and collection” and his interventions were concerned with issues around “tools of resistance, meeting and organisation, teaching and dissemination of information, in an attempt to suggest or prompt a return of these tools to common use” .

In 2009, Dublin City Council Arts office launched a new pilot initiative in the Red Stables Artists Studios – with the assistance of The Arts Council – to commission an emerging curator to plan and devise an outdoor exhibition of temporary artworks for Saint Anne’s Park.

For this year’s project invited curator, Sally Timmons selected Mark Clare and Fionnuala Hanahoe to consider the notion of a folly (defined as an ornamental structure or building, whose creation reflects a whimsical inclination on the part of the builder). With this in mind, the artists developed artworks that aimed to provide a physical and visual interference within the environs of the park, holding intrigue as visually stimulating yet seemingly futile functional structures.

The project was entitled ‘Hopeful Structures’ and took place 6 June – 6 July. The works were on view during the parks public opening times.

Fionnuala Hanahoe’s work Park Reflecting was a modular work installed in varying locations in and around the lawns near red Stables Artists Studios..

Mark Clare’s’ Shangri La was sited at the Millennium Arboretum. As a further outcome of ‘Hopeful Structures’ programme both of the artists have produced moving image documentation of the placement of temporary artworks in the park. www.hopefulstructures.com

www.exchangedublin.ie

Spaced Out

YOUR WORK HERE !

If you have recently been involved in a public commission, percent for art project, socially engaged project or any other form of ‘art outside the gallery’ we would like you to send us images and a short text (no more than around 300 words) in the following format:

'Spaced Out' installation view

The month of May saw Prettyvacant – an initiative repurposing vacant properties as temporary art spaces – scale up their operation, and launch the group exhibition ‘Spaced Out’ in an empty retail unit in the ILAC Centre, Dublin.

‘Spaced Out’ aimed to respond to the vast space of the unit, while commenting on the wider issue of vacant spaces in Dublin and beyond. The exhibition

Artists name Title of work Commissioning body Date advertised Date sited / carried out.

Budget Commission type Project Partners Brief description of the work

32

The Visual Artists’ News Sheet

September – October 2010

regional contacts

Regional Perspectives visual artists ireland's regional contacts – Aideen Barry, Damien Duffy and eamonn Maxwell report from the field.

West Aideen Barry This report focuses on some recent developments in Galway, Mayo and the greater Westmeath and Roscommon area and on artists and the visual arts sector's relationship with local authorities.

An interesting public art project is about to get underway in Mayo. Facilitated by public arts officer Gaynor Seville Landmark, is a large-scale project sited in and around the park and wetlands of Castlebar, in the area known as Lough Lannagh. The project, funded under the Percent for Art scheme, ambitiously focuses on both the permanent and the ephemeral, with two permanent sculptural commissions and two performance commissions; along with an emerging artist bursary scheme and an artist-in-residence bursary.

This project affirms the need yet again for the role of public arts officers within local authorities. Public arts officers are important for the creation of multiple opportunities for artists and communities alike – they operate from a key position, in terms of explaining the concerns of both public and artist to city and county councils. In particular, one of their key roles is in the demystification of “what is public art, or what can be public art?” especially in light of the enduring emphasis on large scale permanent structures, effigies and memorial busts in local authority commissions. Their role is a difficult one, but they are uniquely placed to truly challenge the possibilities and bring about alternatives to the drabness of much commissioned work.

Further good news. The town of Athlone, with the commitment and support of Westmeath local authorities and BMW / ERDF funding is building a gallery and artists studios. This certainly will be of benefit to artists in the Roscommon and Westmeath areas, who have been calling for additional studio spaces for quite a while now. It is a good thing when councils recognise the need for the development of infrastructural support for the arts.

The need to have local authority support to seek funding for such developments appears to be key in securing funding from Europe – through such EU funds as the regional development funds. Thus for example, the success of projects such as the Model redevelopment, in Sligo.

In stark contrast, Galway City Council utilised their Gateway funds (around €2.4 million) to replace two roundabout junctions in the city, rather than support the local arts infrastructure. One gasps at the poor judgement and lack of consultation with the arts community.

This decision and others like it, have upped the anti on artist-led initiatives in the city, with them becoming more politically vocal.

In a recent development Adapt Galway was launched. The project is calling for Galway City Council to back the use of redundant buildings (shops and other un-leased commercial spaces) for artistic use – studios, galleries, and reading rooms, workshops. In particular they want the city to cover the costs of the rental (if there is any), insurance and electrical costs and so on, in exchange for actually delivering the fully functioning “city of the arts’ that the city is touted as being. The initiative is based on the success of Occupy Space in Limerick. Adapt Galway is actively calling for consultation and commitment with; and overall a better relationship with the City Council. As yet, they have not heard back from the Council – but its early days.

Adapt want to be part of the discussion about the redevelopment of sites in and around the city – in short to be a part of the bigger picture. This includes the ‘laundry’ site, next to the University, on Newcastle road. These premises would be a fantastic location for visual arts fabrication, studio and exhibition facility, along the lines of National Sculpture Factory in Cork. Organisations such a Lorg Printmakers, 126, Engage studios, Knee-Jerk and a host of other artist led initiative have expressed there wish to be included as a part of the Adapt’s campaign for this space.

Visual Artists Ireland has been running and continues to run some outstanding regional professional practice educational and development programmes – the main focus being the up-skilling of artists via practical training, public talks, symposia, graduate packs.

Moreover these have been tailored made in response to artists needs.

But could and should we be ‘up-skilling’ an other side of the sector – specifically local authorities?

Most artists are quite savvy with the trends and concerns of the contemporary visual art world – simply through operating in the art world on a day to day basis, along with our educational backgrounds and so on. Alongside this, we artists understand the mechanics and practicalities of being professional artists and arts practitioners – in

terms of paying the bills and making a living. But how many of our elected representatives know the reality of our profession?

Perhaps we need to invest in ‘up-skilling’ our representatives – on an individual and collective basis; exposing them to visual art practices on a whole? I’m not proposing locking them in their chambers and forcing them to watch a documentary after documentary on contemporary art – that could doom us all! What I am however suggesting is that perhaps Visual Artists Ireland could consider a means and ways of getting council staff and councillors to seriously consider art, in its many guises – and to crucially come to understand artists. It would be nice, for example to see artists and artistic organisations represented on chambers of commerce around the country.

Councils and Chambers of Commerce could be engaged with on an educational level, in terms of offering them presentations on current examples of best practice and so on. In reality most of our councillors don’t go to visit the publicly funded galleries that their very own council supports. It might be interesting to think what could be achieved if we ‘up-skilled’ their view of arts practice by bringing art to the chambers?

South East Eamonn Maxwell Greetings from the Sunny South East, where it is currently raining!

Let me begin with a personal introduction. I moved to this part of Ireland in spring 2009, to assume the role of Director of Lismore Castle Arts, on the western edge of County Waterford. Originally I hail from County Antrim, though I spent the past 15 years studying at art school and then working in London as a Curator. During my time in London I worked with a large number of artists including many from Ireland.

One of main reasons for accepting the job at Lismore is the gallery’s ambition of presenting the best main international artists in rural Ireland, as well as my own ambitions to work in the visual arts in the country of my birth. Therefore, it’s a real achievement and a great honour to have been asked to be the Visual Artists Ireland Regional Contact for the South East.

It would probably be helpful for you to have some facts and figures about the region that is commonly referred to as the Sunny South East. There are 5 counties that compromise the region: Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary (though, only the South of the county), Waterford and Wexford. It stretches from Birr in the West to Coolgreany on the East Coast and from Balina in the North to Tallow in the South. Over 460,000 people live across the five counties, with Wexford being the most populous with 132,000 citizens. It’s a diverse region with amazing scenery to inspire many artists.

In terms of visual arts practice there is quite a lot going on. The main visual arts spaces are the recently opened Visual in Carlow, The Butler Gallery in Kilkenny (soon to begin development on a new dedicated gallery space), Garter Lane, Lismore Castle Arts, (the artists run) SOMA Contemporary Art Box and Waterford Municipal Art Gallery in Waterford and Wexford Arts Centre. In addition there are many annual events that include strong visual arts presentations including Eigse in Carlow and the Kilkenny Arts Festival. (Indeed the 2010 Kilkenny Arts Festival probably had the strongest visual arts programme of any of the festivals taking place in 2010.) There are many renowned artists living in the South East. One of the most important initiatives in the region is ArtLinks, a cross county programme (supported by country Arts Offices and the Arts Council) to promote the arts through networking and shared resources and to provide training and support for artists and organisations. They also provide an annual bursaries totalling €30,000.

So what is the role of VAI regional contact? Primarily it’s about raising the profile of the visual arts in the region. I will be attending exhibitions and other visual arts events, promoting your activities through VAI newsletters, being a first point of contact for any issues and ensuring these get dealt with by VAI where appropriate. It is important to me, and to colleagues in the VAI, that arts practitioners feel an integral part of the wider Irish artistic community, so with your help I hope we can together achieve that aim. Clearly that is going to take some time to achieve, but through collaboration and shared information I’m confident that the arts in the Sunny South East can match those in the rest of Ireland.

At this point I need to add a note about Lismore Castle Arts.

Whilst we are supporters of work by Irish artists, the focus of Lismore is on bringing the best international artists to the region, for the benefit of art lovers near and far. Our exhibitions are curated to the highest standards and we are programmed several years in advance.

Therefore I would be grateful if you did not submit any unsolicited exhibition proposals, as they will not be considered and the materials will not be returned. Apologies if that seems harsh, my role with VAI is to help artists in the South East but also to make them aware of the realities of visual arts in this region. That’s not to mean there may not be future opportunities to work with practitioners in the region, more to request that you don’t waste your resources asking for shows at Lismore.

So that’s the intro to me and the role. Now it is over to you. My email address for you to send news about exhibitions and other projects is eamonn@visualartists.ie. (I would be grateful if you contacted me this way, rather than via Lismore Castle Arts). I look forward to hearing from you.

North West Damien Duffy It has been a momentous summer for the North West. The summer of 2010 will undoubtedly go down as the end of one chapter and the beginning of another in the history of Derry / Londonderry / Legenderry.

The events of 15 June were without doubt history in the making.

Working as a part of a team from Void in the stage management of the families’ public / media address was a privileged role, witnessing the reception of the public apology by a British Conservative Prime minister and the total vindication of all killed and wounded on Bloody Sunday by Lord Saville’s report.

The transformation in the city was immediate and palpable.

Finally the untruth propagated by the British State in the Widgery Report was undone. The city could at last begin a new chapter, a new narrative.

Against the context of this city wide vindication, another wait came to an end. Since October 2009, Derry City Council along with ILEX the Urban Regeneration Company had been working on its bid for the first UK City of Culture. Shortlisted to the final four, Derry discovered that it would be the first UK Cultural Capital in 2013.

The cultural and political reverberations of the designation will have to be worked through over the next two years. There has been some criticism of the bid for its UK status among some nationalist and Republican citizenry of Derry. Just how much of a ‘sell out’ as some have called it, is it?

It is the aim of the year long events to use culture as a means of investigating, celebrating and enquiry into the much contested identity and territory that is Derry / Londonderry and what has now become legendary. Whether that can include dissenting dissident voices will be one of the challenges of the year long event.

The collective drive by the city’s arts and cultural organisations has galvanised that very network. Along with what is substantial widespread public support, there has been demonstrated a larger civic maturity that shows the need to now tell a new story. Looking at what both unites and divides us but through the consensual medium of culture. Under the rubric of ‘cracking the cultural codes’ the ground is set for a ‘Rancierian’ (1) investigation into the politics of aesthetics and the distribution of the common.

Amidst these city wide events, Void Gallery hosted the launch of latest issue of Printed Project, entitled ‘Virtual Fictional’ along side an afternoons discussion/ performance with the artists Kevin Atherton and Sarah Pierce. Discussing a publication concerned with ‘metafiction’ (fictions about and within other fictions) could not have been more appropriative given the surrounding dialogue the city is engaged in – with both its past and possible future, in terms its fictive past as established by a British government untruth, and its collective vindication, entering then into a territory that it had spurned for the same 38 years.

Damien Duffy Note (1) ie. along the lines of the thinking of French philosopher Jacques Rancière, author of The Politics of Aesthetics Continuum Books, 2006. A good overview / review of the key points of Rancière’s ideas can be found at: http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/books/davis/davis8-17-06.asp

West Cork Arts Centre North St, Skibbereen, Co.Cork

t: +353 28 22090 e: info@westcorkartscentre.com w: www.westcorkartscentre.com

Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh untitled oil on canvas 2009

Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh Paintings

An exhibition of paintings exploring line-based imagery and abstract elements.

Ellen Driscoll Fastforwardfossil (Part 3) 1 October - 20 November Drawing, photography and sculpture by this American artist.

3 – 25 September Rory Breslin Some Attachments and Severance

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TRAINING WORKSHOPS AUTumn / WINter 2010 Cork & Dublin

Documenting your work. Mon 27 Sept Dublin / Fri 19 Nov Cork Writing & Talking about Your Work. Tues 28 Sept Dublin only Understanding your Accounts. Tues 05 Oct Dublin only Writing the Artists Statment & CV. Sat 16 Oct Dublin only Money Matters for Visual Artists. Mon 18 Oct Dublin only Professional Skills for Visual Artists. Mon 25 Oct Dublin only Developing Critique around Your Work. Thurs 4 Nov Dublin / Fri 5 Nov Cork Preparing Proposals. Sat 6 Nov Dublin / Tues 30 Nov Cork Public Art Proposals . Mon 22 & 29 Nov Dublin / Thurs 2 & Fri 3 Dec Cork Making the Most of Residencies. Tues 23 Nov Dublin / Fri 26 Nov Cork Peer Critique - Site Specific & Public Projects. Wed 24 Nov Dublin / Tues 23 Nov Cork Artist Led Projects. Nov Dublin / Nov Cork Working with Private Galleries. tbc Dublin only Copyright Issues. Nov Dublin / Nov Cork Peer Critique – Painting. tbc Dublin only Masterclass with Nigel Rolfe . Date tbc Cork only Unless otherwise stated workshops, run from 10.30 –16.30

28 August - 25 September

Rory Breslin Box Variations III, bronze

Visual Artists Ireland & National Sculpture Factory present

Vanessa Daws Gold Belly, mixed media & video

1 – 30 October Vanessa Daws Cascade

7 – 16 October Lundbeck Art Exhibition Linenhall Arts Centre, Linenhall Street, Castlebar, Co. Mayo ( 094 902 3733 * linenhall@anu.ie www.thelinenhall.com

early booking is advised Further details: www.visualartists.ie / www.nationalsculpturefactory.com Dublin workshop bookings: Monica Flynn / Education Officer, VAI T: 01 872 2296 E: monica@visualartists.ie

Cork workshop bookings: Elma O’Donovan / Administrator, NSF T: 021 431 4353 E: elma@nationalsculpturefactory.com

Insurance for Artists O’Driscoll O’Neil are pleased to offer property & liability insurance for artists.

For artists engaged solely in retail sale and exhibition of own paintings or artists operating from a studio and including exhibition.

Quotes from: brokersubmissions@odon.com

Covers Available

Public / products liability only Property damage &public / products liability Property damage & public / products liability & employers liability

Option 1 Artist engaged solely in retail sale & exhibition of own paintings

Public / products liability only. €103

Property damage & public / products liability. €154.50

Property damage public / products liability & employers liability. €206

Option 2 Artist operating from a studio & including exhibition

Public / products liability only. €154.50

Property damage & public / products liability. €206

Property damage public / products liability & employers liability. €257.50

Schemes also available for: Artists studios & collectives, galleries, art centres and exhibition spaces and exhibitions.

For further details contact:

O’Driscoll O’Neil Insurance Brokers 17 Herbert Place, Dublin 2.

T: (01) 6395800 E: brokersubmissions@odon.com

All forms of Metalwork and Sculpture commissions undertaken

Bronze Foundry New works recently finished at the foundry

Paddy Campbell Lar na Pairc

Chris Wilson Oceans Edge

CAST BRONZE FOUNDRY Located in the Liberties area of Dublin, we provide a total sculpture service to artists and commissioning bodies. We pride ourselves in providing a comfortable, welcoming working environment. Our multi-skilled team brings personalised attention to every bronze casting project.

Cast Ltd, 1a South Brown St, Dublin 8. www.cast.ie  info@cast.ie  Tel: +353 (0) 1 453 0133 Contact Leo or Ray for your next project