The Potential of Vacancy  Live 8 January edition

 

 

 

    

 

 

Live@8 is an event in Bar 8, Galway, every two months. Each event is curated by an invited guest and festures screening, performances, installation, sound and improvised music. It is organised by Vivienne Dick, Áine Phillips and Maeve Mulrennan. The aim of live@8 is for people to engage with art in an informal atmosphere, where there is room for dialogue and experimentation.

 

This edition is curated by Jennifer Cunningham and Sinead Mc Cann. They will show a selection of video work and performance art by artists from all over Ireland, Britain and Sweden. Jennifer Cunningham and Sinead Mc Cann studied together on the Masters in Fine art programme in NCAD from 2006- 2008. They both took an interest in each others work.

 

In May 2010 Sinead was awarded a residency for 5 weeks in a vacant shop on the main street in Dunlaoghaire as part of the The Creative Policies for Creative Networks at GRADCAM. As part of this residency she curated two events. During this time Jennifer and Sinead discussed the possibilities of co curating a show together in Galway. The result is the Live 8 themed  “The Potential of Vacancy” 

 

 

Artists have responded in a number of different ways from comments on Irelands property boom, to work dealing with the more psychological aspects of the theme to Vincent Sheridan's work mapping the flight of flocks of birds, He is concerned with the social behaviour, flight dynamics and subliminal 'brushstroke' patterns of birds in flight.

 

 Liminal space is also a common tangent, for example the liminal space of vacant lots, Windtubines in an open landscape, or the liminal space that can be found in Ciara Mc Mahon’s work on transplant patients. Her piece deals with the malleable space between the embodied same and other, a subjective hybridity where one has a physical element of another inside one.

 

 

 

Owen Boss, Emily Boylan, Alan James Burns, Mary Caffrey, Jennifer Cunningham, Jessica Foley, Emma Houlihan and Jennie Moran, Rachel Kiernan, Seamus Mc CormaCk, James Merrigan, Mick O'Hara, Amy Walsh, Ella Bertilsson, Ciara Mc Mahon, Aoife Daly, Vincent sheridan, Trisha Mc Crae, Ian Clotworthy, Gillian Christie, Anne O Byrne

 

 and back by popular demand, Hugh Cooney

 

Music by Dave Callan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above Absent from the state by Sinead Mc Cann

 

Sinead Mc Cann (b. Dublin 1982) is an artist based in Dublin. She is a PhD researcher in the department of Sculpture at the National College of Art and Design. She studied sculpture at the Dublin Institute of Technology and NCAD at undergraduate and postgraduate level respectively.

 

Her practice investigates urban living in disadvantaged areas in the city and often presents the voices of marginal groups. She is interested in responding to and interrupting dominant codes existing in urban, social and institutional contexts.  Her practice is transversal and uses various sculptural and per-formative processes. It crosses many boundaries and contexts including collaborative projects with artists, researchers, communities, musicians, dancers and actors.  She has exhibited both nationally and internationally.

 

Her recent selected exhibitions include: Run Fast, in three parts as part of Right Here, Right Now, Performance art Kilmainham Goal 2010,Absent From the State, part iii,  Tulca, 2010, Absent from the State part ii, Thisisnotagateway festival, London, 2010, Absent from the State part II Dublin 2010, Get on Yiser Soap Box!,  Dublin 2010, In 12 Acts, Glasgow 2010, The Pre-History of the Crisis part 2 at The Festival of Creativity, Florence, Italy 2009, The Pre-History of the Crisis part 2 at Belfast Exposed, Belfast & Project Arts Centre, Dublin 2009.; The International Guerrilla Arts Festival London 2009, Boxid, Original Print Gallery Dublin 2009, What Hiver? Temple Bar Studios, Dublin 2009, Earplug Music Festival, The LAB, Dublin 2009, Collective Gallery Edinburgh 2009, Outofsite, Live Art Festival, Dublin 2008,Duty Dance, G126. Galway 2008, Master of Fine Art Graduate Show, Digital Hub, Dublin 2008.

 

 

 

  

Title: ‘Substance’. HD on mini DV tape. 4.39 mins duration.

 

   

 

 

Artists Statement

This piece is about the dislocation one experiences being in a large city. It was shot while on a field trip to New York funded by the Thomas Dammann travel award. Alone, cut off from my everyday contacts, I found myself moving through space in a very different way. I was attracted to vacant space, places that were somehow in limbo or were outcast and passed by.  ‘Substance’ is a compendium of these in-between places and neutral spaces. It's structured around a single individual, in a state somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, traveling through a seemingly banal urban environment.

 

 

 Owen Boss

 

Title: The Right of Way

Artist Statement

In 1947 my second cousin Joan Kinsella entered the enclosed order of the Redemptoristines Nuns.  To this day she remains a part of the order and has left the enclosure only a handful of times.  I have visited Joan on a number of occassions and filmed our meetings.

 

Biography

Owen recently completed his Masters in Fine Art at NCAD.  

Exhibitions include Testimonial Live (Project Arts Centre), Projector (Four), Camera Obscura (Lighthouse Cinema), Punctum (Project Arts Centre), Tumbledowntown (Hotel Ballymun).

Collaborations include Worlds End Lane (The Lab), Fingal Ronain (Watermill Centre, New York), Basin, Rock, Paper, Scissors and Tumbledowntown.

 

 

 

 

 

Title:The Shortest Night   Duration:3min 43 sec

Artist Statement

The Shortest Night  documents the launch of a Chinese lantern over the Irish Sea on the night of June 21, 2009. Bonfires traditionally burn throughout the night duing the summer solstice. The Shortest Night explores the magic of chemistry, the wonder of flight and the journey of light.

 

Artists Biography

Emma Houlihan and Jennie Moran met in Como, Italy in 2006 while attending the Foundazione Ratti residency led by Marjetica Potrc. Since then, they have shared a studio space at Commonplace Studios, Dublin and collaborated on many informal projects.  The Shortest Night is their first formal collaboration.

 HYPERLINK "http://www.emmahoulihan.com" www.emmahoulihan.com

www.jenniemoran.com

 

 

 Séamus McCormack

Title: Galatea, 2010,  Duration, 3.47mins

 

 

 

 

Performed by Michael Bates, William Delaney, Vanessa Matias Fahy and Geraldine McAlinden

 

Artists Statement

In several of his works George Bernard Shaw has preempted the complexities of an actor’s ability; prefacing dialogue with adjectives and elaborate often ornate stage directions. ‘This kind of prescriptive writing may work for the Stanislavskian actor, but for the modern actor it is anathema.’ 

 

 Artists Biography

 (b. 1983, Mullingar) graduated with a first class honours degree in Fine Art from DIT in 2006.  He is currently undertaking an MA in Sculpture at NCAD.  He has exhibited in group exhibition across Ireland and has had two solo exhibitions, most recently in Ballina Arts Centre 

 

 

  

 

Title: What Do We See: 2008. Duration: 4 minutes. 

 

 

 

Above- still from 'What do we see' by Trisha Mc Crae

 

Artists statement

My interest in film relates to ways people see; to the theory of the visual, the poetics of vision and the liminal spaces between.  These ideas transfer our attention from what we look at, to us as the subject, the looker and our experience of looking, our interpretation of what we see is filtered by our path of knowledge and understanding. It is this visual phenomenon, the idea that vision is a construct of the mind, that I am interested in exploring through the 6000 animated stills of this film. 

 

Artists Biography

Born in Dublin, based in Cambridge UK.

Graduated from Cambridge School of Art in 2004. BA Hons Art and Art 

Winner of the American Express Award.

Short listed for the Jerwood Artist Moving Image Award.

Exhibited nationally and internationally, screened in galleries and cinemas and festivals; including the Whitechapel Gallery, and theTraverse Video Festival, Toulouse, France.

Founder member of Neuf, a group of experimental filmakers in Cambridge.

 

 

Title : Nearer My God to Thee, Duration 3 mins.

 

   

 

Artist Statement

This performance, Nearer My God To Thee, was filmed in May 2009 outside the Thomas St Social Welfare Office in Dublin. It was conceived by conducting casual interviews with social welfare clients. The questions dealt with how they felt about being out of work and what they thought of the often dramatic media coverage of the recession. Most people felt frustrated or fearful about the future. This work, of a string trio busking outside the office, was a response to the fear in particular.

 

Artists Biography

Ian Clotworthy was born in Dublin in 1986 and studied sculpture at the National College of Art and Design. He divides his time between his art practice, furthering his education and the Shell to Sea campaign.

 

 Vincent Sheridan

Title: Starling Ballet ‘Whale’ , Duration 2 min approx

 

Artists Statement

Animals are often the main themes of Sheridan art, reflecting social behaviours, dynamic interaction and their relationship to the physical and human environment. Works frequently highlight - often in a whimsical and comical way - aspects of animal behaviour that mirror or mimic our own human activities. Such titles as Hierarchy, Attitude, Chorus Line, Marching Line and Stop!  are comments on aspects of modern society, i.e. groupies, stereotypes, passivity, and rule bound societies.

 

Artists Biography

Vincent studied at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and the Dublin Institute of Technology. He has been working as a full-time artist since 1981. From 1989 to 1998 Sheridan lived and worked as an artist in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada. He returned to Dublin in 1999. In 2007 he graduated with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art, specialising in Video. He joined the Black Church Print Studio in 2000 and is currently a Director of the Board.

 

 

 

 

 

Artists Statement

Through the urban terrain; this work explores time and memory in the context of a journey. Immersed in the city, this landscape conveys a well; a dark pool of memories and dreams that reveals sequential by the unfolding process of travelling through an alienated and isolated place. By examining this journey through the notion that time is non-linear, we begin to discover the way in which past and present interlink and become blurred. Questions also arise about how memories are formed and maintained over time. 

 

Artists Biography

Bertilsson is a Dublin-based artist. She graduated from NCAD’s fine art department in 2009. Her work has been shown in Ireland and internationally in Belfast, London, Los Angeles, Malaysia and Sweden.

Bertilsson is a member of the Black Church Print Studio and the artist collective Turbo Monthly. In 2009, she received a studio scholarship in Vilhelmina, Sweden, and recently received the SIM residency in Iceland that she will begin in February 2011.

 

Title: WAKE, Shot on Super 8 film  Duration 2mins,

 

Artist Statement

This film is about manmade objects in nature. It explores how they impact on the barren, open landscape they occupy. These huge looming turbines populate this lifeless environment. They also reflect the individuality and unity of humanity, through movement and rhythm. Wind Turbines, to me, seem to have a kind of energy or life force. They can be turbulent or gentle, like the mind can be in turmoil or at peace. Collectively they look the same but each one has it’s own unique rhythm.

 

Biography

Aoife Studied Printmaking at Limerick School of Art and Design and graduated in 2003. Through her print work she developed an interest in photography. She has completed two workshops in digital photography and is currently studying film and media production in Galway.. She has exhibited with Lorg Printmakers and was assistant director on a  project that was shown in the short drama category of the Galway Film Fleadh in 2010. She directed a short film that was selected for the Tuam Arts Festival in 2010 

 

 

 Ciara Mc Mahon

 

Title: I used to say it was gold but really its a platinum one, Duration 8 mins

 

     

 

Artist statement

Ciara McMahon's work, Leaky Self Project discusses the long term adjustments to lifestyle and attitude to self that heart/lung transplantation demands. Made in collaboration and conversation with the Living Gift Transplant Support group the Leaky Self Project is a site specific filmic installation, I used to say it was gold, but really it's a platinum one, platinum (2011), a web presence ( HYPERLINK "http://livinggift.ie/leaky-self/" http://livinggift.ie/leaky-self/) and an ephemeral, conversational event in Dublin cafés running concurrently with the exhibition.

 

Artist Biography 

McMahon trained in both fine art practice and medicine. Her art work is frequently collaborative and realized through performative, participatory works, digital media and site specific installation. The Leaky Self project is funded by the Arts Council through the artist in the community scheme, managed by Create, the National Development Agency for Collaborative Arts. McMahon will exhibit Liminality at NCAD Gallery in February 2011 as continued development of this body of work.

 

The Leaky Self project's website is :  HYPERLINK "http://www.livinggift.ie/leak-self/blog" www.livinggift.ie/leak-self/blog 

 

 

 

Artist Statement

" The potential of vacancy is explored here as an empty stage is transformed over a sort period of time into a spectacular set" 

 

Biography and Filmography

Des Kilbane successfully completed the BA in Film & Television Production in GMIT Galway in 2009. His graduation film Rhyming Couplet was premiered at the 2009 Galway Film Fleadh. It was also screened at the Flatlake Festival in August 2009. His next short documentary A Year in the Life of a School Garden was screened at the Galway Junior International Film Festival in November 2009, the Flatlake Festival in June 2010, Galway Film Fleadh July 2010 and Clones Film Festival October 2010. 

 

He operated the lighting equipment for the short film Malfunction in 2008, which was shown at the Prix Europa festival in Berlin. He also filmed Carte Blanche Theatre Company, from Denmark, for the Baboró International Children’s Festival in October 2008. 

 

He has just completed a feature length documentary, Bullsmouth National School 100 Years of Education, filmed on Achill Island over the course of 2010.  He is currently working on a documentary on the life and time of Johnny Kilbane former World featherweight champion. 

James Merriganʼs video work shows the sweeping camera view of the word BILLION cut out in a sheet of plywood and backed with peg-board and lit with work-lights. The influence for this work was the paradox between the ubiquity of the word “billion” in the media, creating a symbol of significance, but in truth, an empty signifier. The work also reveals the crude ʻmakingʼ of the work by showing a view of the ʻset-upʼ for filming in the final 2 seconds. 

 

Bio 

James Merrigan is a mixed-media and video installation artist based in Dublin. He was awarded the Irish Residential Studio Award at Red Stables for 2011. He has exhibited throughout Ireland and is a published writer on art. Forthcoming shows include the group show Trompe Le Monde (Feb 2011), curated by Mary Conlon, Occupy Space Limerick; solo show The Truth Spoken as Word (March 2011), curated by the Director of the RHA, 

Patrick T Murphy, Roscommon Arts Centre. Current projects include the creation of an online art criticism journal +BILLION-. In 2012 he will have a solo show at the LAB, Dublin.

 

:http://billionjournal.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

Artist Statement

Working with Photography, Digital Media, Video, Super 8, and 16mm film, Gill’s work explores the challenges of transition within human experience where night and day meet.

 

Biography

Now living in Ireland, Scottish born Filmmaker Gill Christie studied Fine Art at Edinburgh College of Art. Gill completed her studies in Film and Television at G.M.I.T. Galway with distinction and was awarded ‘Student of the Year’. She has exhibited and screened her work in Ireland, including Galway Film Fleadh. Gill worked on co-ordinating and conceiving the mixed media exhibition,  ‘Wir sind Berliner’, 2009 which was commissioned by the German Embassy to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall. Gill was also a participating artist in the exhibition.  This exhibition received Local and National press coverage.

 

Anne O’Byrne

    

Title:  ‘Red Kite’,  2010  Duration 4.12 mins.

Artists Statement
The search for ones identity can manifest itself in different forms.  Annes work explores and documents the process of building in an empty space, the building of ones identity.
Through video and small works on board she is charting the subtleties and nuances of the process.

Artists Biography
Anne is a visual artist , born in Cork and now lives and works in Galway. She studied at the Limerick College of Art and Design and holds an Honors Degree in Fine Art from GMIT, Galway (2010).
Anne is a board member of Artspace Studios.  Her practice incorporates paint, print, video and installation.
She has exhibited nationally and internationally, some recent exhibitions include, 126 Gallery selected for Graduate Show, Impressions 2010 print show, Galway Arts Centre, Artspace group show, Lorient France, Tulca Festival Live @8 video screening, Catalyst Arts Belfast, Hallward Gallery Dublin. She has an upcoming group exhibition in Stockholm, Sweden in February.

 

Title- ‘Structural Development’, Duration 1:36

2D computer animation

 

“You see, we Doozers love to build, but we keep running out of space” - Cotterpin Doozer

 

Ghost estates

Programmed mindless actions

Barriers and constraints that obstruct societies creative potential

Poor planning

Stagnant educational formats

Thoughtless/destructive actions

Repetitive cycles

Information overload

Build, build, build.

 

Rachel Kiernan (b. 1982, Dublin) I holds a BA in Fine Art Sculpture and New Media from the Dublin Institute of Technology and a Diploma in Community Arts Education from the National College of Art & Design. She currently facilitates art class with adults with learning disabilities.