TRADE is an annual Visual Arts Programme supported by Leitrim and Roscommon County Councils, and the Arts Council of Ireland.The initiative consists of a residency phase (where four local artists work under the mentorship of an invited artist) and a seminar event – which has historically displayed a substantial engagement with current critical discourse. In providing a platform for ‘local artists to engage internationally as well as for international artists to participate locally’, an interesting legacy has evolved out of contributions from an array of participating artists, curators and thinkers.
Featured Image: Engage Collective: Talk About Fracking, Carrick-on-Shannon, 2011;
Image courtesy of the artists and The Dock.
Published on Paper Visual Art Journal
Review, Visual Artists News Sheet Jan/Feb Issue
‘Reflections on things yet to come’ was a solo exhibition by Fiona Mulholland, which presented new sculptural works developed during her 2 month residency at Leitrim Sculpture Centre. On entering the gallery space my gaze was firmly fixed on a horizontal strip of blue neon lighting, which drew me nearer, until some words could be deciphered. A 6ft high billboard-style frame, constructed from painted steel, supported the question Are we there yet? The luminous lettering exuded an audible electric crackle – an iconic sound associated with this type of retro signage.
Fugitive Papers : James Merrigan, Michaële Cutaya.
With Contributors: Gavin Murphy, Joanne Laws, Seán Lynch, Chris Fite-Wassilak.
When: Saturday 12th November
3:00pm – 6:00pm
Where: “The View” in Aras na Mac Leinn,
NUI Galway
http://www.fugitivepapers.org/
Fugitive Dialogue #1 (Private)
Gavin Murphy, Joanne Laws, Valerie Connor, Fiona Fullam, Michaële Cutaya and James Merrigan
Galway, Sunday 16 October 2011
TRANSCRIPT OF CONVERSATION >
http://www.fugitivepapers.org/#!__archive1
Thoughts on Fugitive Dialogue #1 Contemporary Criticism
Art Criticism as a ‘floating signifier’ for lots of different approaches to writing about art:
Published August 2011 in Allotrope Press
http://www.allotropepress.com/#/editions/4555354736
My dad is not a miner.
He did not sign up for 12 hours of daily darkness.
He did not begin work at 13 and retire at 63.
He did not receive a commendation for 50 years of labour.
He did not receive a parting gift
A carriage clock.
A symbol
Of passing time.
He did not die a year later.
This is not his story.
The recent solo exhibitions of Brian Hand and Sean Lynch, shared some common ground, each unearthing peripheral stories from the archives of recent Irish history, and delivering them into the present moment. Found within these processes of re-enactment were monuments and protests, punctuated with artifacts, revealing the Irish character within a changing cultural landscape.
Published July 2011, on Billion Art Journal.
Click here for the PDF:
A Report on ‘Commons’, Leitrim Sculpture Centre, 1st -25th February 2011
Sarah Browne, Bryonie Reid, Fiona Woods
Edited version published in Visual Artists News Sheet May/ June issue, 2011
http://visualartists.ie/category/van-ebulletin/
(Fiona Woods, Common 3, 2010)
http://www.vsw.org/ai/issues/afterimage-vol-38-no-4/
Curatorial Inquiry
Manifesta 8
Spain
October 9, 2010–January 9, 2011
The Manifesta Foundation chose the Murcia region of Spain for the eighth edition of the nomadic European biennial of contemporary art. Located at the southern edge of Europe, Manifesta 8 proposed an artistic dialogue with northern Africa. This thematic subtext aimed to assess the potential for a roaming pan-African biennial, but it was largely sidestepped and replaced with a broader set of questions: What is the nature of citizenship? What is the function of art? How does the media reflect and construct local and global realities? Read more…
Back in the summer months, my attention was drawn to a call for submissions by TRIARC (Trinity Irish Art Research Centre) to a post-graduate research symposium. Thematically concerned with ‘Writing Irish Art History’, the event on 20th November sought to ‘highlight current scholarship on the historiography[1] of Irish art, architecture and material culture’.
Published: Jan/Feb 2011, Visual Artists News Sheet
Joanne Laws 