CURATORS
In 2015, five freelance Exhibition Curators will plan and present the exhibitions of STILL, WE WORK, in Letterkenny, Kilkenny, and Limerick. This brings the Legacy Project to the next stage, by establishing a rich curatorial environment with independent curators and touring partners, to work closely with the artists and reach out to established NWCI members and new constituencies.
The first of three exhibitions on the tour was curated by Marie Barrett in Letterkenny at the Regional Cultural Centre in May. The exhibition then travelled on to Kilkenny in June with curators Rosie Lynch & Hollie Kearns, and Monica Flynn, supported by Kilkenny Arts Office and Abhainn Ri Festival. In October. Michele Horrigan will curate the exhibition in Limerick, supported by Limerick City Gallery of Art and Dance Limerick.
There are many, many ideas and propositions in the artists' works and their collaborations with the designers that lead into the diverse interests and experiences of NWCI members, all of whom are seeking to affect how change happens, and many who are involved in cultural projects and the arts. Audiences and forums throughout the tour will benefit from the close working relationship between the curators and Eilís Ní Chaithnía, NWCI Member Development Officer.
The role of curators has long been associated with the care of objects in a collection and a thorough knowledge of the context in which the objects in a collection can be understood. How they were made and how they came to be collected. More recently, the role of the curators working with contemporary artists involves identifying the context in which an artist's work will be seen and understood. Typically, this involves a consideration of what goes on when anything, ideas even, are presented to the public or made public. Typically, the role of the contemporary art exhibition curator brings these lines of work together. The Project Curator looks after the briefing of the artists, communicates with the commissioner about the aims and progress of the commissions, and manages the production of the exhibition and publication. For the 2015 tour of STILL, WE WORK, the Project Curator works with the Tour Manager and the Exhibition Curators, as well as the tour partners, to deliver the tour.
The first of three exhibitions on the tour was curated by Marie Barrett in Letterkenny at the Regional Cultural Centre in May. The exhibition then travelled on to Kilkenny in June with curators Rosie Lynch & Hollie Kearns, and Monica Flynn, supported by Kilkenny Arts Office and Abhainn Ri Festival. In October. Michele Horrigan will curate the exhibition in Limerick, supported by Limerick City Gallery of Art and Dance Limerick.
There are many, many ideas and propositions in the artists' works and their collaborations with the designers that lead into the diverse interests and experiences of NWCI members, all of whom are seeking to affect how change happens, and many who are involved in cultural projects and the arts. Audiences and forums throughout the tour will benefit from the close working relationship between the curators and Eilís Ní Chaithnía, NWCI Member Development Officer.
The role of curators has long been associated with the care of objects in a collection and a thorough knowledge of the context in which the objects in a collection can be understood. How they were made and how they came to be collected. More recently, the role of the curators working with contemporary artists involves identifying the context in which an artist's work will be seen and understood. Typically, this involves a consideration of what goes on when anything, ideas even, are presented to the public or made public. Typically, the role of the contemporary art exhibition curator brings these lines of work together. The Project Curator looks after the briefing of the artists, communicates with the commissioner about the aims and progress of the commissions, and manages the production of the exhibition and publication. For the 2015 tour of STILL, WE WORK, the Project Curator works with the Tour Manager and the Exhibition Curators, as well as the tour partners, to deliver the tour.
PROJECT CURATOR
Valerie Connor
Valerie Connor is an independent curator and advisor, who works with individuals and small-scale organisations in the visual arts. She is co-curating a public art project for the GPO Witness History 2016 programme and is on the Advisory Board of PhotoIreland and the Advisory Panel of the National Irish Visual Arts Library.
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She has previously been Chair of the National Campaign for the Arts and a board member of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. She was Ireland's Commissioner-Curator for the 50th Venice Biennale of Art and 26th Bienal de São Paulo and the specialist visual arts adviser to the Arts Council. A recent essay on contemporary art in Ireland from 2000 to 2010 appears in the Art and Architecture of Ireland, published by Royal Irish Academy and Yale University Press. She has curated the TULCA Festival of Visual Art in Galway and a special project with Black Church Print Studio Dublin. Valerie is a graduate of the MPhil in Women's Studies in Trinity College, Dublin, which is a member organisation of the NWCI. She frequently takes part in public, professional, and academic debates about the arts, drawing together ideas about cultural topics.
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Asked to talk about ‘ethical attitudes’ in art, at the first Visual Arts Workers Forum, she drew on her article 'Feminism, Democratic Politics, and Citizenship', written for the journal Third Text and she is a lecturer in photography at the Dublin Institute of Technology, using problem-based learning methods. www.valerieconnor.com
EXHIBITION CURATORS
DONEGAL
Marie Barrett
Marie Barrett is an artist and cultural director. She is a founder/director of North-55, a socially engaged visual arts organisation that engages divergent communities on civic issues on a cross-border basis, fusing cultural and aesthetic pursuits with community development processes.
Across the region, Marie and North-55 work to establish coalitions with other arts, community and statutory organisations through long-term partnerships to create a cultural corridor, where innovative ideas are visualised and articulated. Her work has taken place nationally and internationally, and has included Sitework public art project, Orchard Gallery, Derry, the International Studio Programme (P.S.1.), New York, and the Artists Work Programme, Irish Museum of Modern Art.
She has been the recipient of several national and international awards including the Alice Berger Trust Award (Berlin), and the Cultural Relations Travel Award (Quebec). Barrett has previously carried out extensive research into socially engaged art practice, through the Arts Council’s Community Arts Development Scheme. She also has on-going involvement in international conferences and seminars that address issues relating to socially connected ways of making art. These included New Zones for Critical Practice in Art Salford 1994, Chimera, Sydney 1995, Littoral, Dublin 1998 and InSite, San Diego/Tijuana, 2001. www.north-55.com / Photo Credit: Tanya Doherty.
Across the region, Marie and North-55 work to establish coalitions with other arts, community and statutory organisations through long-term partnerships to create a cultural corridor, where innovative ideas are visualised and articulated. Her work has taken place nationally and internationally, and has included Sitework public art project, Orchard Gallery, Derry, the International Studio Programme (P.S.1.), New York, and the Artists Work Programme, Irish Museum of Modern Art.
She has been the recipient of several national and international awards including the Alice Berger Trust Award (Berlin), and the Cultural Relations Travel Award (Quebec). Barrett has previously carried out extensive research into socially engaged art practice, through the Arts Council’s Community Arts Development Scheme. She also has on-going involvement in international conferences and seminars that address issues relating to socially connected ways of making art. These included New Zones for Critical Practice in Art Salford 1994, Chimera, Sydney 1995, Littoral, Dublin 1998 and InSite, San Diego/Tijuana, 2001. www.north-55.com / Photo Credit: Tanya Doherty.
KILKENNY
Rosie Lynch & Hollie Kearns
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Independent curators Rosie Lynch and Hollie Kearns work collaboratively out of a shared office at Callan Workhouse, Co. Kilkenny, where they are engaged in a number of projects towards developing a semi-derelict wing of the Workhouse into a new facility with shared artistic, design, research and community facilities.
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Current projects include Workhouse Union (2015), an artistic programme of new artist commissions, and a public programme of activities at Callan Workhouse, Nimble Spaces (2013-2015), and a long-term process of collaboration between artists, architects and adults with an intellectual disability. An international conference 'Nimble Spaces: Ways to live together, New Cultures of Housing' to take place on May 1st 2015 at VISUAL Carlow, and they are taking part in a research residency as part of the Im/Plants programme at National Sculpture Factory Cork.
Recent projects include The Pattern Exchange (2015), a guest curated exhibition at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, and Forecast (2014), a project looking anew at five rural towns in Co. Kilkenny. They were co-founders of Commonage (2010-2014) with Tara Kennedy and Jo Anne Butler. Rosie Lynch has a BA in Fine Art from NCAD and completed an MA in Visual Arts Practice from IADT in 2011. Hollie Kearns has a BA in the History of Art and English from University College Cork (2007) and an MA in the History of Art from University of Leeds (2009). nimblespaces.org / Photo Credit. Brian Cregan.
Monica Flynn
Monica Flynn holds a B.Design (Fashion) from Limerick School of Art and Design (1992) and spent a number of years, in Kilkenny, as a self-employed designer-maker. Attempting to be a one-woman knitting machine got her in a bit of a tangle and so she decided to retrain in Arts & Cultural Management, UCD (1999). Since then she’s had lots of fun working to support community arts, disability arts and theatre education initiatives. Monica has coordinated arts training for childcare workers; helped stage disability cabaret events; pretended to be a wave; gotten a grounding in arts education and taught Fashion & Textile Design in further education.
A continued interest in her own creative work has led to a visual arts career and Monica has been a practising visual artist since 2003. Following an MA in Visual Arts Practices from Dun Laoghaire, IADT (2008) Monica took on the role of Professional Development Officer at VAI. She has been a co-founder member and director of The Market Studios, Dublin (2007 - 2014) and has an ongoing interest in artist-led initiatives.
In her visual practice Monica is concerned with mysticism; chance operations; economics; food and performative events that involve the audience in the artwork. Recent projects include: Café Society Leitrim (2014) a series of discursive public events in Café Lounge, Carrick-on-Shannon, as part of the SPARK Creative Residency, supported by Leitrim County Council and Leitrim LEO and Hospitality (2014) a collaborative project examining cross cultural expressions of hospitality with Open Circle Arts, a womens' community arts collective in Kilkenny, funded through CREATE Artists in the Community Scheme. www.monicaflynn.com and facebook.com/cafesocietyleitrim
A continued interest in her own creative work has led to a visual arts career and Monica has been a practising visual artist since 2003. Following an MA in Visual Arts Practices from Dun Laoghaire, IADT (2008) Monica took on the role of Professional Development Officer at VAI. She has been a co-founder member and director of The Market Studios, Dublin (2007 - 2014) and has an ongoing interest in artist-led initiatives.
In her visual practice Monica is concerned with mysticism; chance operations; economics; food and performative events that involve the audience in the artwork. Recent projects include: Café Society Leitrim (2014) a series of discursive public events in Café Lounge, Carrick-on-Shannon, as part of the SPARK Creative Residency, supported by Leitrim County Council and Leitrim LEO and Hospitality (2014) a collaborative project examining cross cultural expressions of hospitality with Open Circle Arts, a womens' community arts collective in Kilkenny, funded through CREATE Artists in the Community Scheme. www.monicaflynn.com and facebook.com/cafesocietyleitrim
LIMERICK
Michele Horrigan
Michele Horrigan is an artist who works primarily in photography and video. She was educated at HfBK Stadelschule, Frankfurt am Main and the University of Ulster, Belfast. She has exhibited in London, Dublin, Frankfurt am Main, Copenhagen and Buenos Aires. She also curates exhibitions, with an emphasis on working with artists in site-specific or context-led roles.
Michele founded Askeaton Contemporary Arts in 2006, where she is curatorial director. By developing community involvement and understanding how art might be produced and experienced in this locality, ACA aims to open up new possibilities of how contemporary art might operate outside a city environment, while supporting the production of new artists’ projects. She now lives in London and Askeaton, County Limerick. www.michelehorrigan.com and www.askeatonarts.com / Photo Credit: Sean Lynch.
Michele founded Askeaton Contemporary Arts in 2006, where she is curatorial director. By developing community involvement and understanding how art might be produced and experienced in this locality, ACA aims to open up new possibilities of how contemporary art might operate outside a city environment, while supporting the production of new artists’ projects. She now lives in London and Askeaton, County Limerick. www.michelehorrigan.com and www.askeatonarts.com / Photo Credit: Sean Lynch.
