Ireland Round Up:
‘Fieldworks: Animal Habitats in Contemporary Art‘, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork City; Ewa Partum ‘Installations and Provocations‘ Limerick City Gallery of Art; Dennis McNulty ‘Prototypes‘, Limerick City Gallery of Art
CIVIC WORKS:
JOANNE LAWS REPORT ON ‘THE WORKERS’ SYMPOSIUM WHICH TOOK PLACE AT ROSCOMMON ARTS CENTRE ON 18 JULY 2014.
As part of Leitrim Co. Council’s SPARK residency (1), artist Monica Flynn devised ‘The Café Society’ – a programme of public encounters and events at the Café Lounge in Carrick-on-Shannon. Discussing her residency experience with Joanne Laws, Monica describes the history of Coffee Houses as places of culture and commerce, modern-day coffee politics and the café as an enduring discursive public space.
The term ‘Network Society’ was devised in the 1980’s to denote changing paradigms in social, political and economic organisation across increasingly technological networks. The concept became synonymous with the proliferation of New Media, characterised by telecommunications, interactivity and digital code as facets of post-industrial capitalism and burgeoning Globalisation. It is within this discourse – which considers the individual as being inextricably ‘linked’ by networks – that artist Tom O’Dea situates his current practice-based PhD research.
Far away, so near… was a solo exhibition by Polish artist Anna Konik, featuring two video works which had never previously been shown together. Sensitively curated by Suzanne Stitch across Void’s subterranean spaces, the dual video installations proved technically and aesthetically engaging, while the content was harrowing in its portrayal of society’s marginalised and voiceless people, which constitutes a recurrent theme in Konik’s work.
I. Art Walks: Logging Speculative Journeys
Walking as a method of artistic practice has been well documented across a range of 20th century art movements (i) . Adapted from ethnographic and geographical fieldwork, ‘art walking’ is widely acknowledged as an increasingly important artistic research tool. It forms part of a perceptible shift away from ‘object-orientated’ practice, towards more participatory methods of engaging with ‘place’. In short, the walk becomes the artwork.
Catalogue essay for Linda Shevlin’s exhibition ‘Supernature’ at The Lab, Dublin (June 19th – August 30th, 2014)
‘Of all the faculties we possess, none is more important at this time than a wide-eyed sense of wonder.’
Lyall Watson Supernature (1973)
“..‘A Winter Light’ is ethereal, joyous and luminous with hope..”.
Mark Garry ‘A Winter Light’, 2013 (Detail of Wooden Flower and Spectrum), Image courtesy of The Model
Epicentres of activity
Joanne Laws reports on the EU FUNDED LOCIS Programme – a collaboration between leitrim CO. COUNCIL and counterpart institutions in poland and sweden.
Ulrika Laarson, ‘Our Time is Now’, 2013, Image courtesy of Leitrim Sculpture Centre
Joanne Laws 