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PopUp Conversations: To the Point

Welcome! Fáilte! As part of the inaugural Pop-Up Dublin Biennial, Dublintellectual and the NUIM Space&Place Research Collaborative are curating a series of creative and scholarly interventions that explore the literary, musical, cinematic, architectonic, embodied, cultural, political, historical and lived spaces of the city. The PopUp Conversations bring together artists, architects, performers, cultural practitioners and scholars to create, perform and raise questions about art and the city.

As Biennial Director Maggie Magee explains, Conversations provides a forum to discuss how we, as global citizens, might reflect and and possibly even consider how to reclaim a society and space that need ‘re-addressing’. Sessions include screenings, installations, performances and a walking tour of the Docklands. Taking place over the course of the exhibition week, we invite an interested public to explore what makes Dublin a world city for art, culture and scholarship through Conversations. Our themes include: Joyce in Music and Film Everyday Life in the City Art and Architecture Art as Public Life Reclaiming Space in the City Why Dublin? Memory as Art

If the artist offers publics the materials, questions and forms to (re)interrogate our cities, then the citizen-public intellectual should create opportunities for respectful encounters and conversations with others. With more than forty local and international artists, scholars and community leaders, and ten artistic and interdisciplinary scholarly collaboratives, Conversations is an integral part of such a socio-artistic interaction. The wide breadth of contributors is evidence of the rich intellectual and cultural capital we possess. We wish to extend our deepest gratitude to all those who are taking part, in front of and behind the scenes. Our rich list of sponsors and volunteers at the end of this publication attest to the generosity of all those who made Conversations possible. The willingness of so many to make their time and expertise available to us is indicative of the collaborative trend that has reached a groundswell across the city. We believe that we have entered a new era of cultural revivification, of public engagement and collaboration a trend that is serving to reinvent the city of Dublin as we know it. -- Dr. Marisa Ronan and Dr. Karen E. Till, Curators of Conversations

Credits: Front cover: Jeu Parti, Michelle Browne; above: The Drovers, film still, Rionach Ní Néill (choreographer) and Joe Lee (filmography); back cover: Niche by Fearghus Ó Conchúir (2008) photographed by Jonathan Mitchell. PopUp Conversations: To the Point Bloomsday: Joyce in Music and Film Saturday 16 June 2012

To celebrate Bloomsday, our opening day explores the spectres of Joyce in our lives, cityscapes, and artistic works, in particular through music and film. The day includes live musical performances, films, musical compositions, and a discussion with artists and scholars. We begin with a live concert by Luka Bloom, followed by a screening of the film shorts and compositions commissioned for the 2004 ‘ReJoyce’ project. Presented in association with the Contemporary Music Centre, the film shorts will be introduced by composer Vincent Kennedy, and discussed by artists and scholars. We then consider how these musical arts films, as well as director Sean Walsh’s feature film Bloom (2003), Film still, Bloom, directed by Sean Walsh, 2003 were inspired by Joyce’s Ulysesses. After Professor Luke Gibbon’s introduces Bloom, he, with director Sean Walsh. will discuss how these artistic works continue to be inspired by Joycean words, rhythms and imaginary geographies. We end with a screening of Bloom (2003), presented in association with Stoney Roads Films and the Odeon Point Village.

5pm: Point Village Plaza Luka Bloom’s Day Ride: Songs from This New Morning Luka Bloom is one the most celebrated Irish songwriters of his generation. Brought up in Newbridge, he went to the US in 1987 and took Luka Bloom as a stage name, in part a tribute to Joyce’s Leopold Bloom. This New Morning (http://www.lukabloom.com/shop/this-new-morning/) is his first release of new material since his acclaimed 2009 Eleven Songs. On this Bloomsday Luka Bloom is cycling around Dublin and singing songs at various breaks in his journey; one of which will be a PopUp Concert at the Dublin Biennial. He will begin his ‘Luka Bloom’s Day Ride’ at the Cafe du Journal in Monkstown, cycle to Dublin city, given an in store album launch concert in Celtic Note at 1pm, visit to The Bike Festival in Fade Street and perform at The Point at 5:00 pm. See: http://www.lukabloom.com/news/the- luka-bloomsday-ride/.

5:30-6:00pm: Odeon Point Village (Re)Joyced: Conversations about Ulysses in Composition and Film Presented in association with the Contemporary Music Centre. Three film shorts with original musical compositions will be introduced by composer Vincent Kennedy, and followed by discussion with artists and scholars. Commissioned in 2004 by the Contemporary Music Centre, Temple Bar Properties and the Association of Irish Compsers as part of the ‘ReJoyce in Music’ on the occasion of the 100th Bloomsday Festival, composers were invited to write music based upon or inspired by James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses. Following this, each composer worked with a filmaker to produce these three artistic shorts.

The Great Leveller (2004) Composed by Vincent Kennedy; visuals by Katie Lincoln. Performers include: Susan Doyle (flute), Deirdre O’Leary (clarinet), Richard O’Donnell (percussion) and Rhian McLeod (percussion). Musical recording conducted by Vincent Kennedy. Kennedy remarks that ‘Death is the great ‘leveller,’ and adds that this piece of music was inspired by Paddy Dignam’s funeral.’

Myriorama (Penelope Sleeps) (2004) Composed by Rob Canning; visuals by Katie Lincoln. Performers : Susan Doyle (flute), Síle Daly (oboe), Deirdre O’Leary (clarinet), Ian Dakin (french horn), Richard O’Donnell (percussion) and Rhian McLeod (percussion). Canning tells us that: ‘This piece of music was inspired by Molly Bloom’s Soliloquy at the end of Ulysses’. AfterJoyce 1 (2004) Composed by Benjamin Dwyer; visuals by Del 9. Performers: Susan Doyle (flute), Richard O’Donnell (percussion). Dwyer advises us that ‘This musical monologue emanates from new territory that is neither word nor music’.

Discussion to follow with artists and scholars: Vincent Kennedy, Composer Sean Walsh, Director of Bloom Chair and Discussant: Professor Gerry Kearns, Geography, NUI Maynooth 2

6:00-7pm: Odeon Point Village Ulysses as a feature film: Conversations about Joycean legacies Generously sponsored by Stoney Road Films and Odeon Point Village. Sean Walsh perhaps made the film Bloom (2003) for all those people who have been put off reading Ulysses by virtue of its reputation as a very difficult novel. In the film, he focuses upon the narrative elements of the book and, with Hugh O'Connor as Joyce's alter-ego Stephen Dedalus, Angeline Ball as the voluptuous Molly Bloom, and Stephen Rea as the humanitarian fetishist, Leopold Bloom, Walsh produces three plausible and intriguing characters. This is a painless way to become familiar with the events of the book but it is also much more than that. In Bloom’s misadventures with the dominatrix Bella Cohen in the brothel in the Monto district, Walsh produces something psychedelic enough to capture the shape-shifting of that bizarre evening. Dublin is shown in warm colours for much of the earlier episodes of the film; the humanistic aspects of the novel are well served by the production, by the generosity of Rea’s portrayal of Bloom, by turns diffident and brave, and by Molly's lusty embracing of her sexual appetite. The film is sexy, humane, and funny. For those still inhaling deeply before plunging into the novel, the film can indeed serve as a narrative encouragement. For those who already love the book, the film provokes reflections about the less easily filmed experimental and literary aspects of the novel. For those who already love both novel and film, well ... you already Bloom, dir. Sean Walsh, 2003 know you will want to hear a conversation about the film with Director Sean Walsh and Joyce expert Professor Luke Gibbons, as well as watch it again on this Bloomsday. Invited speakers: Professor Luke Gibbons, Department of English, NUI Maynooth Sean Walsh, Director of Bloom Chair: Professor Gerry Kearns, Geography, NUI Maynooth

7-9pm: Odeon Point Village Feature Film: Bloom (2003), Directed by Sean Walsh The most recent adaptation of the most famous 20th century novel in the English language, James Joyce’s Ulysses, this film stars award- winning Angeline Ball and Stephen Rea. This is a deeply touching human journey of love lost and regained and life lived to the full.

PopUp Conversations: To the Point Everyday Life in the City Monday 18 June 2012

This day explores how the urban context directly influences and is influenced by everyday experiences, group conduct and social meanings. Inspired by theorists Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau and Walter Benjamin, as well as by the Situationists, we explore through film and reading groups such questions as: How do transnational processes of globalisation and immigration bring some peoples (and not others) into contact? How are such situations and social relations framed by and imbued with power? Is there such a thing as a global sense of place? What is the nature of body-city encounters? What new ways of inhabiting the city might be made possible through attention to the practices of everyday life?

3-5:30pm: Odeon Point Village Cinema Feature Film: Trafficked (2010), directed by Ciaran O’Connor Generously sponsored by Stoney Road Films and Odeon Point Village. To the modern European city of Dublin comes another new recruit to the sex trade. Trafficked in the back of a van, a young African girl, Taiwo, believes she is about to start a new life free from the oppression at home. But she soon finds that she is trapped in the dark seedy underworld of vice and drugs in a city riding the Celtic Tiger. She meets small time hood Keely, who unwittingly seals both their fates when he steals her from the gangsters she was supposed to work for. Filmed in Dublin in a hit and run style, Trafficked has a Trafficked, director Ciaran O’Connor, 2010 gritty, grainy feel and an immediate and exciting texture. As Ireland confronts the issue of immigration, Trafficked tackles it head on. According to The Irish Times: ‘This film shows what can be done with a small budget, a lot of talent and the courage to tell a painful story’. Followed by discussion with Ciaran O’Connor, Director of Trafficked Martin McCabe, GradCAM

5:30-6pm: Happy Hour (Gallery 1) with discussion to follow

6-7pm, Gallery 3 ‘Conversations’: (PopUp) Dublin Urban Salon Discussion of Henri Lefebvre’s The Practice of Everyday Life Volume 2 (1961). Chair: Alan Mee, Alan Mee Architects (AMA) and Director of the Urban Design Programme, Department of Architecture, University College Dublin The Dublin Urban Salon is an informal and international group of artists, scholars and practitioners established in 2011. We discuss readings related to the urban condition as well as create informal networks to advance creative urban interventions. A core part of our discussions is the ‘translation’ of the readings to the Irish and the Dublin urban experience; the transnational and global context is never far from the surface, as, this being Ireland, we live in a highly globalised place. To date, we have focused upon the writings of Henri Lefebvre, including Urban Revolution (1970), The Practice of Everyday Life Volume 1 (1947, 1991) and The Practice of Everyday Life Volume 2 (1961, 2002), part 1. We invite anyone interested to participate in, just listen to and hopefully be inspired by our discussions of the second volume of The Practice of Everyday Life. As the second of his three-volume project, The Practice of Everyday Life is considered to be the richest, most prescient work by one of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers. Written twenty years after his first volume, the second volume outlines the theory of the semantic field and the theory of moments. When the book appeared in 1961, it was a moment significant for France: many of the ideas became influential in the events leading up to 1968. His ‘impetuous, often undisciplined’ prose offers a glimpse of how charismatic a lecturer Lefebvre must have been.

PopUp Conversations: To the Point Art and Architecture Tuesday 19 June 2012

The artwork exhibited and the conversations that will follow explore the intersections and possibilities of art and architecture. Independent artists, dancer/choreographers and scholars consider how sculptural presences, moving bodies, pathways and spaces shape and are shaped by built environments. What are the possibilities and problems with artistic and architectural practices? Why would an architect become an artist and an artist an architect? How can dance provide scholarly interventions in ways that lead us to theorise, understand and plan for environments differently? What practices in art and architecture might lead to practices that might shape more livable landscapes?

5-5:30pm: Happy Hour (Gallery 1), installations, videos and artistic films (Galleries 1, 2 and 3)

Artists’ statements Gallery 1 The Slump Test, Michelle Browne Sculpture | 2011

Gallery 2 House-On-Air, Michelle Browne sculpture | 2011

Risk video installation | 2011 Developed from a residency at Leitrim Sculpture Centre, these works look at Ireland’s situation after the burst of Ireland’s property bubble. The idea of balance (physical, economic, social) has been a concern in Browne’s work in recent years and this work Michelle Brown, House-on-air, 2001 questions what can happens when the balance between development, community and local needs is thrown off-kilter. House- On-Air, The Slump Test and Risk (video documentation of a poker game between the artist and prominent entrepreneurs from Dublin) challenge the viewer to consider their relationship to risk-taking and their role in the ebb and flow of the economic cycle.

Gallery 3 spaces for conversation, Culturstruction, Tara Kennedy and Jo Anne Butler chairs, string, space, Gallery 3 | dimensions variable | 2012 Through minimal means this temporary installation will consider the often implied hierarchies of spatial organization.

Paperwork, Blaithin Quinn cartridge paper | dimensions variable | 2012 Constructed from a variable number of modules and folded into one of many possible spatial configurations, Paperwork explores the potential of vacant commercial space. This work, which in one configuration consists of 1045 modules, was made in a former travel agency in Dublin. The labour intensive process and a focus on the productivity of artist as worker served to reactivate an otherwise disused work space. For the ‘Art and Architecture’ conversation at the Dublin Biennial, Paperwork delineates a space for discussion. This work was originally commissioned by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and supported by The Arts Council of Ireland, for the Unfolding Narratives exhibition.

Balithin Quinn, Transcolonia, 2012

Three+1 for now, Fearghus Ó Conchúir video | 2008 Choreography and concept: Fearghus Ó Conchúir. Performers: Jarek Cemerek, Stéphane Hisler, Bernadette Iglich, Matthew Morris. Director: James Kelly. Camera Operator: Kate McCullough. Editing and post-production: Feenish Productions. Produced by: Fearghus Ó Conchúr in association with Project Arts Centre and with the support of Dublin City Council and An Chomhairle Ealaíon/The Arts Council of Ireland. On wasteground near Sherrif Street, in Dublin’s Docklands, a cast of international dancers embody the spirit of a Bodies and Buildings research by Fearghus Ó Conchúir (2008) city whose skyline changed everyday during Ireland’s economic Photographer Jonathan Mitchell. Performer Fearghus Ó Conchúir boom. They dance under the cranes, shelter in derelict factories and celebrate on the overgrown plots of land that await the developers’ attention. Like Dubliners new and old, they adapt to changed circumstances in a choreography that is as tough, quirky and unexpectedly beautiful as the city itself. They make the most of what they have. Three+1 for now has its public premiere on Culture Night 2007 when it was projected onto the side of the Dublin City Council buildings at Barnardo Square near City Hall. It has been shown as part of the Screendance Festival in Falkirk in May 2009 and as part of Dublin Dance Festival’s screenings at the Lighthouse Cinema in July 2009.

Untitled Dance Film, Ríonach Ní Néill and Joe Lee Film clips |2012 work in progress Choreographer Ríonach Ní Néill and film artist Joe Lee are currently collaborating with members of the Macushla Dance Club for +50s and professional contemporary dancers on a genre- bending film containing elements of pure dance, biography and documentary. The biography of person and place are the engine of the work. Located in the Macushla dancers’ neighbourhood of north Dublin city and docklands, it is a conversation between past and present, an exploration of communal identity and memory, contributing to the multi-layered narrative of the city and its people. Recognising that identity of place and person is multiple and often contradictory, it contributes a nuanced understanding of a city area, older creativity, and of dance. Using the Macushla dancers’ personal narratives as gateways to more universal experiences, their movement memories as triggers for exploration of place, the film’s starting point reimagines their biographical stories of the city. Imaginatively superimposing past events and places onto the present footprint, many scenes are filmed in their original locations, as they are now – leading to dancing round a kitchen table in what is now a carpark, herding cattle over the Luas Macushla Dance Club, line – building up a social and physical landscape shifting through Ríonach Ní Néill (chor.) and Joe Lee (dir.), film still time.

5:30-7:30pm: Gallery 3 Conversations with artists and scholars Invited speakers: Blaithin Quinn, independent artist and architect Jo Anne Butler and Tara Kennedy, Culturstruction, independent artists Michelle Browne, independent artist Professor Gerry Kearns, Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth Joe Lee, independent film artist Chair: Dr. Ríonach Ní Néill Galway Dancer in Residence, Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway

6 PopUp Conversations: To the Point Art as Public Life Wednesday 20th June

In what ways might art provoke critical reflection upon the severity of our present moment? These films, installations and discussions raise many urgent topics including community development, service learning in arts education, new models of practice in community-based arts, youth development through the arts, and how we can develop models for integrating reciprocal, community-based learning into formal education for artists, architects and designers nationwide. They also interrogate everyday urban life and how publics are made through creative practices and community partnerships. We begin with Daniel Eisenberg’s POSTWAR film series that explores how the meanings of events shift over time. Installations and videos created by artistic collaboratives working in Dublin offer a glimpse into new models of artistic practice. An extract from Roger Hudson’s Wordweaver: The Legend of Benedict Kiely (2003) paints a portrait of an artist during a time of rapid social change in Ireland. Our speakers and conversation to follow will ask how we can learn from these artists the better to understand our current dilemmas.

3-5pm Odeon Point Village Cinema POSTWAR: The Films of Daniel Eisenberg Generously sponsored by the Odeon Point Village and Daniel Eisenberg. Selections from the POSTWAR series will be shown and will be discussed by: Ann Curran, DIT Dr. Karen Till, Space&Place, Geography NUIM Chair: Dr. Lisa Godson, NCAD, GradCAM

Daniel Eisenberg’s four films - Displaced Person, Cooperation of Parts, Persistence, and Something More Than Night – create the series POSTWAR. Made between 1981 and 2003, the films explore the legacies of the Second World War and the fall of the Berlin Wall and is accompanied by the book, POSTWAR: The Films of Daniel Eisenberg (2011), edited by Jeffrey Skoller. For Edward Crouse, San Displaced Person, dir. Daniel Eisenberg, 1981, screencapture Francisco Guardian: ‘Pulling in anchors of ephemerality, reconstruction, and salvage, and treating the present as the past and vice versa in a redemptive fashion... Daniel Eisenberg interrogates the soul of history’.

Eisenberg on Eisenberg Displaced Person, Daniel Eisenberg 16 mm film B&W | 00:10:15 | 1981 This film uses the ‘old fashioned’ conventions of documentary film practice to stand history on its head. There is a narration taken from a radio lecture by Claude Lévi-Strauss entitled, “The Meeting of Myth and Science,” images from the Deutsche Wochenshau of June 25, 1940 that recorded Hitler’s dawn visit to Paris, images from American newsreels, a movement from one of Beethoven’s Rasumovsky Quartets. […] History is received through others; this film was a method of unraveling the sources of that impossible condition, and of drawing attention to our passive complicity. Its precautionary warning is: keep thinking, Cooperation of Parts, dir. Daniel Eisenberg, 1987, screencapture even when you can’t understand.

Cooperation of Parts, Daniel Eisenberg 16 mm film color | 40:00 | 1987 The fragment contains within it an implied reference to something that was once whole. It suggests damage and violence, time and distance. […] The questions about identity, of the possibility of annihilation and survival, of the ruptures of daily life, of dislocations across continents - these are not merely Jewish questions. They have come to represent the paradigm problems of this century, and can be applied to conditions surrounding many peoples all over the world. [… ] Images for the film were shot with a hand cranked 16mm Bolex and collected on a trip to Europe in the spring and summer of 1983. […] I tried to use the camera not only to record what I was seeing, but also to register my own responses to what was being seen. […] The text is spoken by myself and [comprises …] my own words […] quotes from Edmond Jabès, Roland Barthes, Theodor Adorno, Franz Kafka, and paraphrases of material from Paul Valèry and John Ashbery. The proverbs in the film have numerous sources. […] My initial impulse towards the proverbs comes directly from my experience with my father, whose peculiarly European talent for speaking in riddles, paradoxes, and proverbs peppered my daily life with images of beggars, madmen, vagabonds, wise mothers, prodigal sons, and a curious fellow named Jan Swon.

Persistence, Daniel Eisenberg 16 mm film color | 1:23:53 | 1997 Shot in 1991-2 in Berlin, edited with films by US Signal Corps cameramen in 1945-6, obtained from Department of Defense archives, [… and with interspersed] filmic quotations from Rossellini's Germany Year Zero (1946), [this film is …] a meditation on the time just after a great historical event, about what is common to moments such as these—the continuous and discontinuous threads of history—and our attachment to cinematic modes of observation that, by necessity, shape our view of events. The texts are drawn from the notebooks of Max Frisch, Stig Dagerman, and Janet Flanner–just after World War II–and my own journals from my stay in Berlin in 1991-2. Persistence, dir. Daniel Eisenberg, 1997, screencapture

Something More Than Night, Daniel Eisenberg 16 mm film color | 1:13:00 | 2003 The city is an organism that changes constantly; our knowledge of it is provisional at best. So a film that examines the urban environment under the cloak of darkness must presume to reveal a reality that we don’t know, and tries to dispel projections and fears that are for the most part located in the imagination [...] in a memory of film, television, or the novel. […] The film work tries to make clear how the urban environment conditions and reveals social space primarily through its reception by the senses. […] In thinking about our fin-de-siècle condition, and the relation of cinema to an increasingly technologized landscape, it seems that the experience of duration is quickly disappearing, replaced instead by an overwhelming absence of experience, which is becoming familiar and comfortable. […T]he discomfort in watching durational time cinematically represented on the screen is palpable, and signals an accommodation to the ever-increasing visual speed of montage and simultaneity in daily experience. It perhaps signals a discomfort in seeing the world in any kind of continuity at all, be it sensual or theoretical.

5-5:30pm Happy Hour (Gallery 1), Installations (Hallway) and Film Clips (Gallery 3)

Artists’ statements Interim Gallery: Hallway The Icon Walk, The Icon Factory installation walk | prints of the artworks from multimedia streetscape in Temple Bar | pencil paint frames| 2012

How can art be an educational tool and promote culture? What artistic practies and media can be used to communicate and encourage citizens to think differently about their environments? The Icon Factory artistic collaborative works in landscapes covered by criminality; in one part of Temple Bar, 100% of the streetscapes are used as open air public toilets, places for taking drugs, and drinking and acting violently. When locals and police give up in taking actions to change the place, we decided to display images on the adjoining walls and created the story called The Icon Walk peoples behavior began to change. Petty criminality The Icon Walk, Temple Bar, 2012, © The Icon Factory was reduced by over 80% and operating businesses felt safe and began to clean up the area. This installation of The Icon Walk includes work from the more than 40 artists that took part. The driving force behind our co-operative effort grew from the realization that a seismic systemic failure had occurred across the entire landscape of our nation. Our leaders failed us. We were without funds. But we still had our wits. We pooled our treasure–our creative energy–and embraced our future rather than wait for the past to resurrect itself. Was it not an illusion anyway? Our belief was that art civilizes and we went out to prove this principle.

Preview: PopUp Park, Upstart multimedia | 2012 This July 2012, Upstart are building an exciting new Pop-Up Park in Dublin City Centre to showcase the best in Irish design talent by temporarily converting one of the city's vacant spaces into a thriving visitor playground. This unique community initiative will reinvent an abandoned city eyesore and provide a safe and socially inclusive space where visitors can rediscover the urban landscape and explore the full potential of creativity and play as tools for greater social and personal well-being.

Gallery 3 Wordweaver: The Legend of Benedict Kiely, Roger Hudson documentary film color, selections | 2003 The film explores the fascinating life of Ben Kiely, novelist and short story writer, and major figure in 20th century Irish literature. Great friend of Brendan Behan, and enemy of censorship, life long opponent of Partition and outspoken at the Troubles arising from it, journalist and narrator on RTÉ radio, this arts documentary also describes the Dublin literary bar circle which had an impact on the prolific author’s life and work. Incidentally, it paints a portrait of this period of rapid social change in the evolution of modern Ireland. Relatively little known outside Ireland, Ben’s writing has a density and subtlety that Dreamweaver, directed by Roger Hudson, 2003, makes it well worth reading, especially his short stories. With the help screencapture of stories told by his friends and contempory artists Seamus Heaney, John Montague, Tom Kilroy, Val Mulkerns, Colum McCann, and Steven McKenna, we go on a journey through half a century of unique writing by a unique man. Wordweaver was made possible by Stoney Road Films.

untitled, City Art Squad video clips of works in progress | ongoing City Art Squad aims to bring the benefits of the arts to a wider group of people by enabling artists to reside in schools, voluntary groups, hospitals and various other community based organisations and services. In this way the artists are activating hidden talents that already exist in the community. Artists are given an opportunity to work with groups at community level, which takes them outside the gallery and studio environment, allowing for projects that come about through collaboration. The services of City Art Squad are available to all community groups in the greater Dublin area.

5:30-7:30pm. Gallery 3 Art as Public Life ‘Conversations’ Discussion Chair: Marisa Ronan, Founder of Dublintellectual Speakers: Roger Hudson, Director of Wordweaver Aga Szot, The Icon Factory Aaron Copeland, Upstart Laragh Pittman, City Art Squad Dr. Ailbhe Murphy, Vagabond Reviews

Vagabond Reviews: Cultural Archaeology Project 2009. Photo: Chris Maguire

PopUp Conversations: To the Point Reclaiming Space in the Modern City Thursday 21 June 2012

President Michael D. Higgins in his speech at the London School of Economics called for a reclamation of public space from private enterprise. But what are the distinctive virtues of the public city? For what purposes and how would space be reclaimed? Pursuing these questions, this session will evaluate the role artists play in re-making and re-contextualising the modern city, with a particular focus on the changes Dublin has undergone in the wake of the post-boom years.

5-5:30pm: Happy Hour (Gallery 1), installations and artistic films (Gallery 3)

From January 2006 to May 2008, Seoidín and Aoife trespassed a wasteland site on Military Road, Kilmainham, and developed these five works. The site consists of a dense sycamore forest, walled and inhabited by several homeless men. The works document these visits and the site’s inherent qualities.

Flash 2, film still, 2008 © Sedoidin O’Sullivan and Aoife Desmond

5:30-7:30pm: Gallery 3 Conversations with artists and scholars Generously sponsored by the National Institute for Regional & Spatial Analysis, NUI Maynooth

Invited speakers: Professor Rob Kitchin, National Institute for Regional & Spatial Analysis and Geography, NUI Maynooth Dr. Madeleine Lyes, City Intersections Seoidín O’ Sullivan and Aoife Desmond, Trespass Louise Marlborough, PrettyVacanT Dublin Chair and Discussant: Professor Mick Wilson, Founding Director of GradCAM

Pretty Vacant, Dublin 2012, © Louise Marlborough and Philip Rowley

10 PopUp Conversations: To the Point Why Dublin? Friday 22 June 2012

The ‘PopUp Conversations: To the Point’ series has referred to Dublin as an artistic and social field of possibility. These discussions, musical compositions art art films explore what makes Dublin a world city for art, culture and scholarship. We focus on the city’s history, architecture, music, sense of place and unique character, and consider the reasons behind the cultural resurgence currently under way and what challenges lay ahead.

5-5:30pm: Happy Hour (Gallery 1), musical composition and artistic film (Gallery 3) Wine reception generously sponsored by Dublintellectual.

Artists’ statement Gallery 3 Dublin: Overture to my City, Vincent Kennedy Overtures for Symphony Orchestra | 10:30 |2011 Commissioned by RTÉ in 2009, revised 2011. Performed by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gavin Maloney. Recorded live by Lyric FM in the National Concert Hall, Dublin 11th July 2011

Music has been a faithful friend: always there to uplift, distract, colour and comfort. I write music to enrich life and take my inspiration from many sources and possibilities, like a bee using the nectar of different flowers to produce a unique honey. I have been looking for the opportunity to write music about Dublin, the city in which I was born and live, for some time when RTÉ commissioned me to write music for a lunchtime concert in the National Concert Hall, Dublin. I chose the word “my”, in the title of the piece because a city means different things to different people. My view of the city, my experiences are unique to me on the whole and it is my view or more precisely part of my view of Dublin that I have set about to capture in the music.

Swimmer, Fergal McCarthy Directed by Nicky Gogan Looped video film clips | 2011 I swim in the river Liffey in Dublin regularly in an attempt to physically assimilate with a city in which I wasn’t born. I have been fascinated by Burt Lancaster's 1968 movie The Swimmer for some time. I imagined transplanting the premise to a Dublin context. The Science Gallery commissioned this project for their ‘The Future of Water’ group show at Trinity College Dublin (2011- 2012). Working with director Nicky Gogan and producer Sinead Ni Bhroin, we set out to make a film about a performance inspired Swimmer, dir. Nicky Grogan, by the concept of moving through a landscape by swimming in as performer Fergal McCarthy, 2001 many locations as possible to travel from A to B. On a Saturday in early September after several weeks of preparation we finally reached the film date. Starting at dawn at the Joyce Tower and the 40 Foot in Sandycove, I charted a watery course across the city involving swims in private and public pools, Grand Canal Dock, the Liffey, Dublin Bay, Dollymount Strand and Sutton Park School before finally finishing at sunset at Sutton Martello Tower overlooking the trajectory of my day long journey.

5:30-7:30pm Gallery 3 Conversations: Why Dublin Invited Artists, Scholars and Architects: Dr. Marisa Ronan, Dublintellectual Fergal McCarthy, visual artist Douglas Carson, Carson and Crushell Architects, RIAI Council Member and former AIA President Vincent Kennedy, composer Chair and discussant: Alan Mee, Alan Mee Architects, Director of Urban Design, Department of Architecture, UCD

PopUp Conversations: To the Point Memory as Art Sunday 24 June 2012

We reflect upon the week’s events, where we are and where we might want to go. An excursion through the Docklands, discussions with planners, community leaders, geographers and artists, and a performance | installation by Andrew Duggan, Olwen Fouéré and Ciarán Walsh directly engage the landscape that we’ve occupied during the week of the Biennial as an active participant. Film installations and conversations conclude by exploring the nature of memory and the creative practices of art as a form of memory-work.

1-3pm The Docklands Walking tour with Pauline Byrne, Head of Planning, Brady Shipman Martin Meet at Georges Dock LUAS stop at 1pm. Followed by Coffee and tea at The Point Village (Gallery 1) Field trip generously sponsored by the Department of Geography, National University of Ireland.

3:30-4:30pm: Gallery 3 Conversation about The Docklands, Past, Present and Future Invited speakers: Pauline Byrne, Planning, Brady Shipman Martin; Josephine Henry, Community Urban Planner; Marie O’Reilly, North Port Dwellers; Chair: Dr. Sinéad Kelly, Geography, NUIM

3-5pm: Point Village Plaza unravel_rois, Andrew Duggan, Olwen Fouéré and Ciarán Walsh performance/installation | 2012 Artists’ statements Andrew Duggan: When I initially considered unravel_rois piece I considered the relationship between ‘the live’ and ‘the recorded’ action. That the action of unraveling a length of yarn, through a given space, would be later edited to play in reverse. So that the film piece visually explores an idea of ‘a rewinded memory’ or ‘a repeated action designed to generate memory’.

Olwen Fouéré describes her experience of performing Andrew Olwen Fouéré performs unravel_rois, Duggan's unravel as a powerful process whereby memory, which concept by Andrew Duggan, 2012 she regards as forever mutable and often treacherous, is figuratively accessed and unravelled by the body's engagement in physical action and ‘place’. The unravelling becomes an action of ‘wrapping’ or (re-)building of place. Rewinding becomes an act of closure or denial. But which is which?

Artist’s statement: Gallery 3 I should have, shouldn’t I?, Andrew Duggan film installation | 2007 Loss, regret and absence are portrayed as an actor repeats lines from a Robert Bolt’s script. With each repetition an intimacy develops until doubt creeps in. This raises the question: when does a repeated action create memory? Each repetition creates familiarity, until it becomes unfamiliar. For me this is the interesting in between space: the unfamiliar, doubt, uncertainty, the uncomfortable point before reassertion. At what point is memory recreated? established? This applies to both performer’s act and to the action of viewing.

5:30-6pm: Happy Hour, generously sponsored by the Space&Place Research Collaborative and GradCAM.

6-7pm: ‘Conversations’: Memory as Art Invited speakers: Andrew Duggan, independent visual multimedia artist; Olwen Fouéré, independent writer, theatre artist, dancer; Ciarán Walsh, independent visual artist; Chair: Dr. Karen E. Till, Space&Place director, Geography, NUIM

12 PopUp Conversations: To the Point Biographies of Speakers, Artists and Collaboratives

Luka Bloom is one the most city centre. Browne has performed to achieve an excellence in the built celebrated Irish songwriters of his and exhibited both nationally and environment through the generation, with about 20 albums internationally and she is the integration of quality urban design to his credit. His songwriting and founder of OUT OF SITE, a initiatives and sustainable performing have been a powerful festival of live art in public space in development principles, at both the testimony to his passion for music Dublin running from 2006-2008. micro and macro level. and his anxiety about racism, In 2009 she curated Vital Signs, an environmental degradation, and exhibition of arts and health in war. Many of his songs are context for the Arts Council and suffused with a broadly Buddhist Create and she was the 2010 Jo Anne Butler is an independent sensibility and he has performed curator of TULCA a season of artist based in Ireland whose work for the Dalai Lama. Some of his visual art in Galway addresses the embedded social, many powerful tracks include: ‘The spatial and economic infrastructure City of Chicago’, ‘You Couldn't of the public realm. After Have Come At A Better Time’, ‘I graduating from NCAD, she am not at war with anyone’, worked across a variety of public ‘Monsoon’, ‘Gone To Pablo’ and art disciplines and began to study ‘Black Is The Colour’. This New Architecture at UCD in 2007. She Morning shared this route from art towards (http://www.lukabloom.com/shop architecture with Tara Kennedy /this-new-morning/) is his first and they founded Culturstruction release of new material since his in 2008 to examine the ways that acclaimed 2009 Eleven Songs. On the systems and structures of the this Bloomsday Luka Bloom is art might be used to create much- cycling around Dublin and singing Pauline Byrne, BSc (Mgmt), needed critical debate in the field songs at various breaks in his MRUP, MIPI, MRTPI, is Head of of architecture. journey; one of which will be the Planning with Brady Shipman Dublin Biennial. Martin. Pauline joined the company in February 2011 from Treasury Holdings, where she worked for 5 years as Strategic Planning Manager across the company's Irish property portfolio. Prior to Treasury Holdings, Pauline worked for WS Atkins in China, and previously headed the Urban Design & Planning Unit in Murray O Laoire Architects. Pauline has a Rob Canning studied music at the strong background in large-scale University of Wales with Anthony master planning and strategic Powers and at University College

planning, with experience working Dublin with Seóirse Bodley where

in these sectors internationally. he gained an M.Litt in

Composition in 1999. He is Michelle Browne is an artist and currently studying for a PhD in curator based in Dublin composition at Goldsmiths (www.michellebrowne.net). Her College, University of London. His practice fundamentally explores main research interest is computer- how we engage with our assisted performance and environment and she is interested composition strategies. Awards in how the design of our include first in the 1998 environment and the social Composers’ Class of the RTÉ structures that are put in place Musician of the Future impact on the way we. Her work is competition; first in the often borne out of an investigation international section of the New of urban planning and architecture, Projects include docklands Music for Sligo Composition working frequently site-specifically. regeneration in Ireland and China, competition (1999); the Macaulay 2009 she was commissioned to new town development in China, Fellowship (2001); an Emerging make Mind The Gap for The site development feasibility in Artist Award from Wicklow Absolute Dublin Fringe Festival, Ireland and China, and tourism County Council (2001); and the working with designers, planers, master planning in China. Arts Council’s Professional architects and artists to explore Throughout the development of Development Award (2004). His untapped potentials across Dublin these projects, Pauline has sought commis-sions include: The Garden of 13 the Forking Paths (2002), (for the an annual awards scheme. In Aaron Copeland is an London Sinfonietta); Mutations addition to our Building Material independent artist and member of (2003) (by Concorde); Myriorama journal, we publish an annual book The Upstart Collaborative. (Penelope Sleeps) (for the ReJoyce in the New Irish Architecture series Aaron has established eek arts Dublin 2004 Festival); and based on the awards exhibition. collective whose projects include Clints&Glikes (2004), (by the Moocher and Onesheet. He has Barrens Exhibition with funding worked as poetry editor of Punt from the Cultural Relations Magazine and was involved with Committee of the Department of City Art Squad aims to bring the Wurm im Apfel. He teaches Classical Foreign Affairs). Recent works benefits of the arts to a wider Studies, Religion and English in St. include: an Ave Maria group of people by enabling artists Michael's College, Dublin. commissioned by RTÉ lyric FM to reside in schools, voluntary for the National Chamber Choir of groups, hospitals and various other Ireland, and incidental music for community based organisations the Performance Corporation's and services. In this way the artists production, Dr Ledbetters are activating hidden talents that Experiment. Current projects already exist in the community. include a multi-channel tape Artists are given an opportunity to composition commissioned by work with groups at community Wexford County Council, a work level, which takes them outside the for bass clarinet and tape com- gallery and studio environment, missioned by Paul Roe, and a allowing for projects that come collaborative project with about through collaboration. The choreographers at the Laban services of City Art Squad are Institute in London involving live available to all community groups electronics, dancers and video. See: in the greater Dublin area. Culturstruction was founded by www.robcanning.info Jo Anne Butler and Tara Kennedy in 2008 to examine the ways that the systems and structures of the art world might be used to create much-needed critical debate in the field of architecture. Culturstruction is a critique of the impossibility of the task of ‘constructing culture’ – something too easily forgotten amidst the large scale building and

elaborate marketing campaigns of boom-era Ireland. It challenges City Intersections of accepted processes of conceiving, Douglas Carson is an architect DublIntellectual provides a forum making and managing our built and partner of the Dublin based for cross-platform interdisciplinary environments, a practice that has practice, Carson and Crushell approaches to urban challenges in become even more urgent in recent Architects. Dublin city today. The project’s years. public and scholarly remit also supports a research project on contemporary urban discourse in Dublin, fostering collaborations between numerous academic and cultural projects within the city.

He also teaches design studio in Queen's University Belfast and was President of the Architectural Association of Ireland in 2011. Ann Curran lectures in The Architectural Association of Photography at the Dublin Ireland was founded in 1896 ‘to Institute of Techology and is promote and afford facilities for Programme Chair of the BA the study of architecture and the Photography. She has a BA in allied sciences and arts, and to History from Trinity College provide a medium of friendly Dublin and a Masters in Fine Art communication between members from Visual Studies Workshop, and others interested in the Rochester, New York. Ann’s progress of architecture’. We research is concerned with what promote a public lecture series and Hal Foster defines as an archival 14 impulse, that which seeks ‘to make Dublintellectual is an exciting The Dublin Urban Salon is an historical information, often lost or project that seeks to connect the informal group, which meets to displaced, physically present.’ She university and the city in order to discuss readings related to the has exhibited in Ireland and the articulate the importance of the urban condition. U.S. She was formerly the Assistant Arts and Humanities in the public Coordinator for the Media Center sphere and to welcome and at Visual Studies Workshop, promote new and innovative ways Rochester New York. She was the of uniting scholarly research with Coordinator of the Central New cultural practice. Dr Marisa Ronan York Programmers Group based at started DublIntellectual in January Cornell University and was active 2011 as a grassroots organisation to in bringing both documentary and champion the Arts and Humanities experimental film/videomakers to in the public sphere through a mix the upstate New York media centre of small boutique events and larger and college circuit. collaborations with established and up-and-coming cultural projects across the city and nation. DublIntellectual has held over 25 Aoife Desmond is an artist who events in the last year becoming a works with photography, film, forum for advocacy as well as the drawing, sculpture, installation and exchange of ideas and the performance. She is committed to democratisation of knowledge. Our making art works that question aim is to promote cutting edge, how we live in the urban publically engaged, and innovative environment and natures role in ways of building on the synergies The relevance of the readings to the city. Wasteland areas and between the university, creative the Irish and the Dublin urban derelict sites are often the focus of industries, and private enterprise. experience is core to the her enquiry. She has exhibited Dr. Ronan is working to expand discussion, though the global frequently both in Ireland and the project to create a potential context is never far from the abroad. Recent exhibitions include: collaborative partner to the highly surface, this being Ireland, a highly ‘Conquested,’ Temple Bar successful Science Gallery, a new globalised place. To date, the Galleries: ‘En Dessous du Visible,’ type of venue where Arts and writings of Henri Lefebvre have Galerie Fin Avril, Paris; ‘Holding Humanities scholarship and the been the focus. The group is small, Together,’ Douglas Hyde Gallery, creative industries can come but open to broader interaction. Dublin; ‘On the Edge,’ Tulca 2010, together, a place where ideas meet Galway; and ‘Matters,’ EV+A practice. The Humanities Lab will 2010, Limerick. She has promote an intersection of Arts, participated in several artist Humanities and Industry to Andrew Duggan is a multimedia residency programmes including: celebrate our creative abilities as a film and visual artist the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris; nation. (www.andrewduggan.ie). The Land Foundation, Thailand; Last year his work was presented as and Space Delawab, Belfast. She part of Culture Ireland’s Imagine has received numerous awards Ireland year-long season of Irish from The Arts Council. She has a arts in America in 2011.

Masters in Visual Arts Practice from IADT.

Hosted by The Irish Arts Centre, Duggan collaborated on this project with dancer Adrienne Heaslip and sports player Paul Galvin, with filmmaker Ciarán 15 Walsh and photographer Siobhán elected a member of Aosdána, Olwen Fouéré is an actor, writer, Dempsey. The work was presented Ireland's state-sponsored academy performer and leading Irish theatre at a special pre-Armory Show event of creative artists. See: artist at Location One in March 2011, at www.benjamindwyer.com. (http://www.olwenfouere.com). ‘Making the Built Environment Born on the west coast of Ireland Work’, NUI Maynooth in July 2011 of Breton parents, her work and at TOCHE Dance Festival, includes the primary creation of April 2012. A print of Paul Galvin Daniel Eisenberg has been text, image and personae and her is currently on show at the RHA making films for the past twenty- extensive practice navigates the Gallery. four years. His work has been performance contexts of shown throughout Europe and mainstream theatre and film, the North America, with exhibitions at visual arts, dance theatre and the Museum of Modern Art, New music. In addition to working with Benjamin Dwyer is a graduate of York; the Centre Georges Andrew Duggan on unravel, Trinity College, Dublin, the Royal Pompidou, Paris; the Pacific Film Olwen has also featured in several Academy of Music, London and Archive, Berkeley; the American collaborations with internationally Queen's University, Belfast. Museum of the Moving Image in acclaimed artist James Coleman. Equally known as a guitarist and New York; De Unie, Rotterdam; composer, he has performed with and Kino Arsenal, Berlin; and at the RTÉ National Symphony film festivals in Berlin, Sydney, Orchestra, the Neubrandenberg London, and Jerusalem. Eisenberg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Irish has also edited numerous television Chamber Orchestra, the RTÉ documentaries, including Eyes on the Concert Orchestra, the Vogler Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, Quartet and new music ensemble and Vietnam: A Television History. Vox21. As a composer, Dwyer has Eisenberg has received numerous received commissions from the awards and fellowships, including a Her current projects include the RTÉ National Symphony John Simon Guggenheim creation of riverrun (Double M Arts Orchestra, RTÉ lyric fm, Ensemble Fellowship in 1999. His films are in and Events, New York Madrid, Bradyworks from Canada, the collections of the Centre and TheEmergencyRoom), a Music Network and the Instituto Georges Pompidou, the Freunde performance through the voice of Cervantes among others. der Deutschen Kinemathek, and the river in Finnegans Wake. the Australian Film and Television Recent stage work of note includes School among others, and have her translation and performance been shown throughout Europe of Sodome, my love by the French and North America, at exhibitions writer Laurent Gaudé, produced by and film festivals in Berlin, Rough Magic in association with Jerusalem, London, New York, TheEmergencyRoom, which received Rotterdam and Sydney. Eisenberg two Irish Times Theatre Awards in has also edited television 2011. The performance was re- documentaries and received configured for the ancient site of St numerous awards, including a Sophia at the Ohrid Festival in Guggenheim Fellowship in 1999. Macedonia. Recent film includes Eisenberg lives in Chicago and This Must Be the Place by Paolo He has recently composed a teaches in the Filmmaking Sorrentino, Yellow, the film by number of important large-scale Department at the School of the Amanda Coogan and Paddy Cahill, works including Scenes from Crow Art Institute of Chicago. He is The Other Side of Sleep by Rebecca (2002), a major work for large currently on a European tour of his Daly. Other collaborations of note ensemble, tape and video by visual POSTWAR film series and book include with playwright Marina artist David Farrell and based on (Black Dog Publisher 2011) and is Carr, composer Roger Doyle, the poems of Ted Hughes; Rajas, working on several new film and theatre designer Paul Keogan, artist Sattva, Tamas, a concerto for writing projects. Alice Maher, director Michael percussion and orchestra; Twelve Keegan-Dolan of Fabulous Beast Études and a second guitar Dance Theatre and theatre director concerto, which he wrote for the Selina Cartmell. renowned Brazilian guitarist Fabio Zanon. Dwyer founded the ‘Mostly Modern’ series in 1990 and is also a founder-member of the new music ensemble Vox21. He has appeared regularly on Irish national television and radio as a performer and commentator. He has written extensively on contemporary music for many journals including the Journal of Music in Ireland and the Musical Times. In 2006 he was 16 Luke Gibbons is Professor of Lisa Godson is a Lecturer in Roger Hudson is a writer and Irish Literary and Cultural Studies History of Design and Material director who lives in Drogheda. at the School of English, Drama Culture at the National College of His arts documentary Wordweaver, and Media Studies, National Art and Design in Dublin, the Legend of Benedict Kiely (2003), University of Ireland, Maynooth, currently on secondment as NCAD explores the impact of the and formerly taught at the Fellow at the Graduate School of censorship, the Troubles, and the University of Notre Dame, U.S.A., Creative Arts and Media (see Dublin literary bar circle on the and Dublin City University. He has www.gradcam.ie) where she prolific author’s life and work -- a published widely on Irish culture, contributes to a taught doctoral period of rapid social change in the film, literature, and the visual arts, programme to practitioners, evolution of modern Ireland. His as well as on aesthetics and politics. theorists and historians in the book Death comes by Amphora was creative arts including artists, published in 2007. He works with curators, musicians and architects. photomontage and has exhibited She was previously tutor in Critical these. He is also active as a and Historical Studies at the Royal performance poet and has College of Art. Her main research published Lifescapes (in Side-Angles, has focused on material culture and with Steve Downes, Pagan religion in Ireland, enactments of Publications, 2005), and Greybell social memory in the Irish Free Wood and Beyond (Lapwing, 2010). State and typographic nightscapes He is active in Drogheda Creative in New York. Recent projects have Writers, and is a member of the included research into Irish Crime Writers Association and of modernist architecture in West the Classical Association of Ireland. Africa 1945 – 1975; one output of this was a collaboration with Still Films in the making of the award- winning documentary Build Something Modern (2011). With Samantha Martin-McAuliffe His publications include Gaelic (UCD) she co-convened the Gothic: Race, Colonialism and Irish ‘Fourth Wall’ symposium on film Culture (2004), Edmund Burke and and architecture at the Irish Film Ireland: Aesthetics, Politics and the Institute (May 2011). Colonial Sublime (2003), The Quiet Man (2002), Transformations in Irish Culture (1996), and co-wrote (with Kevin Rockett and John Hill) Cinema and Ireland (1988), the pioneering study of Irish cinema. He was a contributing editor to Seamus Deane, ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (1991), and has edited two recent collections, The Icon Factory is an Re-Inventing Ireland: Culture, Society independent, not-for-profit artists’ and the Global Economy (with Peadar Josephine Henry is a community co-operative based in Temple Bar, Kirby and Michael Cronin, 2002), urban planner. She has a Dublin. Open to all artists, The Icon and ‘The Theatre of Irish Cinema’ longstanding interest and Factory Gallery is a non-commission, (with Dudley Andrew), a special experience in anti-poverty actions, free exhibition space which issue of The Yale Journal of Criticism social inclusion and participation. produce art and a range of (2002). He won a Kaneb teaching She is the Advocate Planner for attractive products that celebrate award at the University of Notre Inner City Communities for many of Ireland's cultural icons, Dame, where he co-supervised Community Technical Aid, which including The Icon Walk, an outdoor over 20 Ph. D dissertations. His provides technical support to local art installation which uses the research interests include film, communities and projects as well artworks produced by the modernism, romanticism, as carries out work on a contract collective to celebrate Irish culture. aesthetics, visual culture, critical basis for statutory, community and Icon Walk has brought a dramatic theory and cultural history, partnership organisations. She was and unprecedented change to the particularly as they bear on recently appointed as Member of area infected by petty criminality. developments in Irish culture. the newly established Propery

Services Regulatory Authority by

the Irish Minister for Justice and

Equality.

17 Gerry Kearns is Professor of methods. Dr. Kelly is Co-Director to create much-needed critical Human Geography at the National of the inter-disciplinary and inter- debate in the field of architecture. University of Ireland Maynooth. institutional Forum for Irish Urban His research interests include the Studies and jointly edits the historical geography of nationalism, working-paper series, Progress in imperialism and public health. He Irish Urban Studies. is the author of Geopolitics and Empire (2009), two co-edited volumes and over fifty articles, including most recently, on the Vincent Kennedy is a composer spatial poetics of James Joyce, the from Dublin. His compositions famine Irish in Liverpool, and the include a collaboration with Little biopolitical condition of Ireland John Nee, The Happy Prince (2012), under colonialism. He is currently adapted from Oscar Wilde's story; looking at the ways that artistic The Heart of Truth (2012) a musical Rob Kitchin is Professor of practice animates political commissioned by Gorey Educate Human Geography and Director of sensibility with respect to the Together School; The Kilcormac the National Institute of history of the AIDS pandemic and Cantata (2011) for Offaly County Regional and Spatial Analysis at with respect to the recognition and Council; Dublin - Overture to my City the National University of Ireland responses to clerical sexual abuse (2011) for RTÉ National Maynooth, and Chairperson of the of children in Ireland. Symphony Orchestra; Where the Irish Social Sciences Platform. His North Wind Blows (2011) Peace research interests include process commission; The Meath geographies of contemporary Chronicles (2011) commissioned by Ireland, mapping, software, and Meath County Council; True Minds social geographies. Professor (2010); Galileo's Tears (2009) written Kitchin has published 20 books in response to Ryan Commission and over 100 articles and book Report; Dreams (2008), Violin chapters, and is editor of concerto for Cora Venus Lunny international scholarly journals, and Dublin Philharmonic; The volumes and book series. Winds of Change (2007); Whatsa' Heaven For? (2006); Symphony no 1- The Hook, A Place and A People (2005) commissioned by Wexford County Council; Tommy Donnybrook (2004) commissioned by Lyric FM, his response to youth homelessness and addiction on Dublin streets; The Great Leveller (2004)

commissioned by CMC/TBP/AIC, inspired by James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Sinéad Kelly is Lecturer in Urban Geography at the National University of Ireland Maynooth.

He has undertaken research for a wide range of bodies including government departments, semi- stage agencies, NGOs, and Tara Kennedy is an independent community groups. His research artist based in Ireland whose work has been widely covered in national addresses the embedded social, and international media and he spatial and economic infrastructure contributes regularly to the popular of the public realm. After geographies blog ‘Ireland after Dr. Kelly graduated with a B.A. graduating from NCAD, she NAMA’ (Mod.) from Trinity College worked across a variety of public (http://irelandafternama.wordpres Dublin in 2002, and received a art disciplines and began to study s.com/). Rob is also a novelist and PhD in Geography in Trinity in Architecture at UCD in 2007. With has published three books on crime 2008. In September 2005, she Jo Anne Butler, she founded the fiction that are set in Ireland. joined the Department of collaborative practice called Geography in NUIM and currently culturstruction, which they teaches courses on urban founded in 2008 to examine the geography, urban planning and ways that the systems and property development and research structures of the art might be used 18 Joe Lee is a native Dubliner and Madeleine Lyes is Lecturer in Marlborough’s curatorial concerns independent film and video maker. Film Studies at Trinity College focus on the possibilities of vacant He has worked for production Dublin and in American Studies at space in Dublin, as well as the use companies, television stations and University College Dublin. Her of online forums as a means of video documentation/archive research focuses on questions of curation. She is dedicated to projects with Irish National civic engagement in urban spaces, building relationships and Cultural Institutions. Since the late the history of urbanism in the showcasing the work of emerging 1990s he has directed and curated United States and Ireland, and the artistic talent. Marlborough public art projects, including with concept of urbanity. This focus is currently lives and works in the Family Resource Centre in St. drawn from her doctoral work Dublin. Michael’s Estate Inchicore (mid- (UCD Clinton Institute for 1990s to 2003), and consultancy American Studies) on the New work for the Arts Office of Dun Yorker magazine and its cultural Laoghaire Rathdown County footprint within New York City, Martin McCabe is the DIT Council (2008) and Arts Service of 1948-76. Her interest in public Teaching Fellow in the Graduate Sligo County Council (2004-2010). urban space also informs her work School of Creative Arts and Media His video artworks and with Dublintellectual, a civic since 2008 and lectures in theory photomontage images have been initiative in Dublin which seeks to and criticism on the BA exhibited in various venues. Recent champion the work of Arts and Photography programme in the projects include Unravelling Humanities scholars in the public DIT. His current research focuses Developments with the Arts Service sphere. Dr. Lyes runs an events on the rhetorics of creativity in the of Sligo County Council, The Irish series called “City Intersections” post-crisis recovery. Child Abuse Prevention which provides a forum for cross- Programme, arts DVD project platform interdisciplinary ‘Taking Stock’ with Inchicore approaches to urban challenges in Community Drugs Team, CityWide Dublin city today. Drugs Crisis Campaign, Amnesty International Ireland ‘Voicing Our Concern’, and the Babel DVD project with composer Roger Doyle. He is currently working on a dance film with Rionach Ní Néill and with the (violence against women) Outreach Centre Inchicore. Ríonach founded the

Macushla Dance Club in 2007 as a Fergal McCarthy was born in means of dance participation and Limerick and is an independent performance for older Dublin visual artist who lives in Dublin. Louise Marlborough is an artist residents; Joe’s involvement with He received a degree in Education and photographer. She holds an the club began in 2008 filming and French (1993) and while in honours degree in Fine Art Palimpsest. His recent work centers teacher training college he decided (NCAD, 1998) and went on to on stories about Dublin, including to become an artist and begin to study Photography in London the film Bananas on the Breadboard. exhibit paintings in Ireland and (LCP, 2001). London. After travelling around the world, he returned to Dublin in 2000. Originally a painter, his recent work includes installations, photography and film. His current work is concerned with issues of national character and identity in Ireland. He is interested in how the spirit of a nation is expressed through myth and how writers and artists, through their work,

contribute their own myths that Her artistic practice is inspired by influence how people see architecture, structures and the themselves. McCarthy explores built environment. In 2009 how the spirit of a nation is Marlborough’s artistic career expressed through myth and how changed course as she went on to writers and artists, through their develop an innovative curatorial work, contribute their own myths practice via the setting up of that influence how people see PrettyvacanT Dublin - an themselves. In this regard he is initiative repurposing vacant concerned with the output of JM properties as exhibition spaces Synge, Paul Henry and James (www.prettyvacantdublin.com) Joyce. His largest work to date is an installation of giant red and green 19 floating houses -- a desert island -- with City Arts, her doctoral the 2012 Mapping Spectral Traces on the river Liffey, No Man’s Land research with the University of V International Conference and (2011), a co-production with Ulster focused on critical co Dance Festival, focusing on the Absolut Fringe. The Swimmer ordinates for collaborative arts dialogue between dance and place. (2012), a Dublin homage to the practice within the spatial politics eponymous 1968 film starring Burt of urban regeneration: she was Lancaster, was created for the awarded her PhD in 2011. She is Science Gallery and clips will co founder of the interdisciplinary Fearghus Ó Conchúir is an shown at the Dublin Biennial. arts and research platform independent choreographer and Vagabond Reviews with independent dance artist. Brought up in the researcher Dr. Ciaran Smyth. Ring Gaeltacht in Ireland, he completed degrees in English and European Literature at Magdalen College Oxford, before training at London Contemporary Dance School. His major creative preoccupation has been the relationship between bodies and buildings in the context of urban regeneration, a preoccupation that Alan Mee is an architect and urban has manifested itself in film and in designer working in urbanism, live performance in many countries architecture, research and in Europe, the US and China. education. His research interests Recent works include the dance include evolving definitions of Ríonach Ní Néill is currently film Mo Mhórchoir Féin - A Prayer, spatial practice at multi-scalar Galway Dancer in Residence, commissioned for RTÉ’s Dance on levels, design and public life, and affiliated with the Centre for Irish the Box series, Tabernacle, a work he has published and spoken Studies NUI Galway. She received for stage on the impact of nationally and internationally on her PhD in Geography at UCD Catholicism on the making of the the specificity of context related to and lectures in dance at the Irish body, and If the Invader Comes, the recent dramatic changes in the Bundesakademie für Kulturelle a gallery-based film installation on Irish designed environment. Alan is Bildung, Wolfenbüttel, Germany. the Martello Towers of England’s also a practicing architect and East Coast. He premieres Starlight urban designer at Alan Mee in June in the Cork Midsummer Architects Ltd. (AMA), and Festival and begins work soon on Director of the Masters in Urban Cure, a new solo work for 2013. Design Programme, at University Fearghus was the first Ireland College Dublin, and Lecturer in Fellow on the Clore Leadership Architecture. He is founder of the Programme and continues to Dublin Urban Salon. Her work is inspired by an contribute to the programme as a engagement with human and social facilitator and speaker. He is a issues, viewing dance as a form of Board member of Project Arts civic dialogue, creating spaces for Centre and of Dance Digital and is us to engage with one another and part of Project Catalyst, the our surroundings, provoke Associate Artist initiative of Project reflection and allowing us to Arts Centre. imagine ourselves, and others, differently. In 2006 she founded

Ciotóg, which aims to extend the norm of artist and performance, and of the relationship between art Ailbhe Murphy is a visual artist and its community. Ciotóg creates based in Dublin, whose alliances between dance and other collaborative practice has artforms, and between professional developed in the context of the and non-vocational artists, and community development sector. works have been presented in the Early projects include Unspoken US, UK, Germany and Ireland. Truths (1991 – 1996) and Once is Too Ríonach has also founded two Much (1995 – 2004) with the L.Y. older-people in dance programmes: C. S project Dublin 1, the Family the Macushla Dance Club in Resource Centre, St. Michael’s Dublin and Ar Mo Sheanléim in Estate and the Education and the Conamara Gaeltacht. She is Community Department of currently engaged in a research I.M.M.A. Following on from the project on older dance supported development of the cross city by Create/the Arts Council, and in project Tower Songs (2003-2006) a new film with artist Joe Lee. She curated the dance programme of 20 Ciaran O’Connor is a director and Seoidín O’Sullivan is an artist and Laragh Pittman is a visual artist producer working in film and educator. She grew up in Kitwe, based in Dublin, trained in Fine television. He founded the Zambia and later lived in Durban, Art in England and completed an company New Decade in 1990. He South Africa where she she studied MA Art in the Digital World NCAD has shot and directed several high Fine Arts. She has been living in 2010. She has been exploring profile documentaries and factual Dublin since 2000 and completed a internet based sites for collecting series for RTÉ including The Masters in Fine Art at the National archives and displaying work as Investigators: Series I and II and the college of Art and Design, Dublin well as using gallery spaces for her documentary on Chuck Feeney. He (2005- 2007) where she researched artwork The Journey of Frances has written and directed a number the cultural challenge D’Aran . She is involved in the of short film projects; his debut environmental sustainability poses curation of visual arts in Phizzfest, feature film Trafficked was released to contemporary art. Her artistic the Phibsborough Community Arts in 2010. He is currently working on practice investigates socio-political Festival with The Waiting Room, a a musical comedy drama called and ecological narratives which she project investigating Arts & Health Highway to Nowhere, written by re-presents in critically engaged and and with Arts Council funding Michael McCudden. poetic ways through a variety of taking place in September 2011. media. Her practice is largely Laragh is currently working with an project-based and often involves International Women's support collaboration with fellow artists or group to research and develop a communities. Seoidín’s case studies visual arts project through the focus on people joining together in Artist in The Community scheme action to protect or develop an with CREATE. With City Art aspect of their local commons. Squad she is involved in a number Her practice supports sustainable of projects, including the Centre models within various ecological for Arts & Health in Tallaght contexts and addresses issues of Hospital and Doubletake Studios, a land use, lost knowledge and bio supported studio for disabled diversity. Current projects include: artists managed by Tallaght The Nomadic Mapping Mapping Project Community Arts in Rua Red. with Traveller women (funded by Marie O’Reilly is a long-time Create), Field- Work with The resident of Dublin. She is an active Dublin Naturalist Field Club community leader in the North commissioned by The Red Stables, Port Dwellers Residents’ St Annes Park and TACTIC, a Association. She has campaigned collaborative project with Ralph to include community involvement Borland that is a cross national in developing plans for the laboratory for artistic intervention Docklands area. She has also where artists and activists from sought to get greater accountability Ireland and South Africa can share in the manner of planning their practices. Her practice both permissions being sought and collaborative and individual have granted. received numerous awards and she has been exhibited widely.

21 PrettyvacanT Dublin She holds a first class honours type of venue, where Arts and (www.prettyvacantdublin.com), set degree in Visual Arts Practice Humanities scholarship and the up in 2009, is an arts initiative that (IADT, 2010) and a degree in creative industries can come repurposes vacant properties as Architecture (UCD and AA together, and where ideas meet temporary exhibition spaces. To Denmark, 1995). Quinn established practice to celebrate our creative date they have conceived, the TransColonia recycled space abilities as a nation. organised and curated 12 initiative in 2010, a winning entry exhibitions across 10 locations. In in the RIAI 3Twenty10 research doing so, PrettyvacanT has worked competition and recipient of a Dun with over 60 artists and our shows Laoghaire Rathdown Co. Council The Space&Place Research have received thousands of visitors arts grant. TransColonia exhibitions Collaborative is a network of and national media coverage. include Recharge, SpaceMakers and scholars, artists, practitioners, PrettyvacanT Dublin enlivens empty Unfolding Narratives. Quinn community leaders and students city spaces through showcasing a currently works as a design studio who contribute to transdisciplinary diverse range of artwork. It also tutor in Queens University Belfast research in the Humanities, Social leads the digital conversation on in parallel with her practice as an Sciences, and Visual and the alternative use of vacant space artist. Performing Arts via its existing social media (http://geography.nuim.ie/researc channels. PrettyvacanT connects art h/space-place). Our explorations, and business and we aim to bring reflections, performances, and art to a wider audience whilst Marisa Ronan is Founding conversations delve into the myriad providing an alternative platform Director of Dublintellectual. An ways that spatial imaginaries for the for artists to display their work. IRCHSS scholar, she completed a future have been limited by linear PrettyvacanT Dublin provides one Ph.D. and postdoctoral fellowship temporal narratives–in ways that solution to the issue of empty in the field of American Studies at have excluded social groups and space but we also like to challenge the UCD Clinton Institute for natures–and consider alternative people to think about the many American Studies and has journeys and pathways toward other possibilities of empty space. published on this area. She has more socially just futures. taught undergraduate and post- Originally established at the graduate courses in the School of University of Minnesota in 1999, in English in both UCD and Trinity January 2011, Dr. Karen E. Till, a College Dublin. founding co-director, (re)launched Space&Place as an Irish initiative hosted by the Department of Geography at NUIM. It now includes staff from Geography, NIRSA, and English, and collaborates regularly with scholars, artists and practitioners from GradCAM, CREATE, IMMA and DublIntellectual. In May 2011, Space&Place formed a new network Blaithin Quinn is a visual artist alliance with the Ómós Áite and architect based in Dublin. Space/Place Research Group at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway under the directorship of Dr. Nessa Cronin, and together this alliance has hosted two international conferences,

excursions, public art clinics, an Having published on the area of exhibition and a Dance Festival. American Religiosity, Dr. Ronan Space&Place was invited to become has recently turned her attention to convening collaborative member of broader issues facing the the Mapping Spectral Traces Humanities in Ireland. She has a international network in 2011: deep passion in advocating for the www.mappingspectraltraces.org. Humanities and hopes to contribute to the establishment of new modes of thinking about how Arts and Humanities are viewed, both by the public and by the academy. She is working to expand Through an interdisciplinary DublIntellectual to create The practice she engages with the built Humanities Lab, a potential environment and investigates the collaborative partner to the highly urban condition. successful Science Gallery and new

22 Aga Szot is Co-Curator, Manager addition to numerous book temporarily converting one of the and Creative Director of The Icon chapters and articles. Karen’s book city's vacant spaces into a thriving Factory. Szot graduated with a in progress, Wounded Cities, visitor playground. This unique MFA and MS from Pedagogical highlights place-based ethical, community initiative will reinvent University of Cracow, with training artistic and activist approaches that an abandoned city eyesore and in lithographic printmaking. Her contribute to more socially just provide a safe and socially inclusive experience there has become an cities. space where visitors can rediscover important part of her work the urban landscape and explore allowing her to experiment with the full potential of creativity and traditional and contemporary Trespass (http://www.trespass- play as tools for greater social and techniques. She has taken part in trespass.blogspot.com/) is a personal well-being. national and international Dublin-based project consisting of exhibitions in Poland, Czech performance, video and Republic and in Ireland. photographic documentation and research in response to ‘Abandoned sites’ within urban environments. Established by Seoidín O’ Sullivan and Aoife Desmond, divergent artistic practices investigate and intervene in disused urban space. They research and reveal the delicate balance between nature and the built environment. Trespass investigates the different issues around land use and ownership through documentation and performative actions. Trespass explores several sites in Dublin and Vagabond Reviews was established by Dr. Ailbhe Murphy recently participated in The One Year Project 2 at The Land and Dr. Ciaran Smyth in 2007. Vagabond Reviews combines art Karen E. Till is Lecturer of Foundation where they developed a new body of work in response to interventions and research Cultural Geography at National processes in order to develop University of Ireland Maynooth, their time there. interdisciplinary trajectories of Founding Director of the critical inquiry into a range of Space&Place Research socially situated arenas of practice. Collaborative and Founding Co- convener of the Mapping Spectral Traces international network.

Projects include the Cultural Review, a collaborative arts-based

research initiative conducted with the community development The Upstart Collaborative came project, Fatima Groups United to the attention of the media and and The Arcade Project, a the people of Dublin when they research initiative with the Rialto put original art and poetry posters Youth Project, Dublin 8 which set on Dublin streets during the Irish out to explore principles of practice General Election Campaign 2011. for an arts-based pedagogy in The poster project engaged the youth work. In November 2011 Karen’s geo-ethnographic research interest of hundreds of artists, Vagabond Reviews conducted City and curatorial practices explore the writers and volunteers, capturing (Re) Searches: Experiences of interrelationships between place the imagination of the public and Being Public, an interdisciplinary and personal and social memory in featuring widely in the national and investigation of place the context of contemporary cities international media. Formed commissioned by the Art and marked by state-perpetrated originally to create debate around Public programme of the Kaunas violence. Her publications include: the role of arts in public life, Biennial, Lithuania. Current The New Berlin (UMN Press: 2005); Upstart are keen to build upon the projects include a Galway City Mapping Spectral Traces (VT College success of their debut project. This Council per cent for art of Architecture and Urban Studies: July 2012, Upstart are building an commission located in the Sliabh 2010); Textures of Place (UMN Press: exciting new Pop-Up Park in Bán Estate in Galway which has 2001) and Walls, Borders and Dublin City Centre to showcase developed in collaboration with Boundaries (Berghan: 2012), in the best in Irish design talent by residents of the estate. 23 Ciarán Walsh is a visual artist who Sean Walsh is a Dublin-based film Mick Wilson is Founder and explores the questions and social, director, with a diploma in film and Director of the Graduate School cultural and political possibilities of television from South Thames of Creative Arts and Media identity, inheritance and memory in College in London. After working (GradCAM) in Dublin. Professor a global age. As visual director of in London for three years, he Wilson is an artist, writer, educator the National Folk Theatre from returned to Dublin and took over a and graduate of NCAD and TCD. 1995-2009, he focused on the small audio-video company, Formerly Head of Research interface between folk and transforming it into Millbrook (NCAD), he is currently Head of contemporary visual cultures, Studios. He produced and directed Fine Art (DIT), Adjunct in the working with artists whose work several documentaries, including School of Computer Science at deals with issues of identity and about the Gaelic games and the TCD and Associate of HII UCD. inheritance in an open and 250,000 Irishmen who fought for He lectures internationally on art increasingly globalized cultural the British Army in the First World research, public culture, and context. rEVOLUTION (2004-6), War, making commercials to help creative education. He is Principal with Andrew Duggan and Cindy fund them. According to The Investigator for ‘SHARE’ EU-wide Cummins, was a ground breaking Guardian, Walsh’s filmmaking network for creative practice project in terms of an odyssey of making Bloom (2003) doctorates and co-editor Curating understanding of folk in almost echoes Joyce’s ‘life with and the Educational Turn (deAppel, contemporary visual and hard labour’ and his travails writing 2010). His work was recently performance contexts. Subsequent Ulysses. As a first-time director presented in the exhibition “We projects have concentrated on the working outside the system, Walsh Are Grammar” at Pratt Manhattan theme of constructed memory as financed the film privately, only Gallery, New York (February-May the basis for image systems that receiving support from the Irish 2011). give effect to social and political Film Board after he completed his strategies. Current projects include: project. Drawing the Water with Pauline O’Connel; unravel_rois with Andrew Duggan and Olwen Fouere; The Irish Headhunter with TCD, OPW, Heritage Council; Áras Éanna Inis Oirr, Oireachtas na Gaeilge, National and Museum of Ireland (Country Life) and Cambridge

University.