Breach, the temporary auditorium space at the Old Co-op, Callan, Co. Kilkenny has been in use since 23rd July for a variety of events including indoor and outdoor film screenings, a teenage battle of the bands, street spectacle rehearsals, talks, a contemporary dance performance by integrated dance company Croi Glan, and the Commonage Seminar. Upcoming events include a public conversation on a future for theatre in Callan with playwright Thomas Kilroy taking place on 27th August, 8pm.
26th July – 7th August at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Kilmainham, Dublin 8
Subjective observation of pace and patterns of use at the Irish Museum of Modern Art / The Royal Hospital Kilmainham has led to prototypes or micro solutions for generous uses of the museum building and grounds. An elasticated barrier creates and leaves space – maintaining a safe distance from which to peruse an artwork, or creating an accommodating support for a viewer to rock gently against.
Outside the main Museum reception a leaning table highlights the potential for the formal neo-classical geometry of the building to have accommodating edges.
Drawing on Hertzberger’s ideas of ‘making space and leaving space’ Polyvalency is work in progress resulting from a research residency exploring issues of access to and mediation of contemporary art carried out in tandem with direct investigation into the built environs of IMMA / RHK and its grounds. Between March and June 2011 the research residency undertaken by Culturstruction at IMMA included exploring rights of way, generous spaces, exclusion zones, collective endeavour, raucous celebration and ways in which barriers simultaneously protect and exclude.
Location: Old Co-Op Building, Green Street, Callan, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland
Publicly accessible: 23 July – 14 August, 11 am – 6pm daily and for programmed evening events
Bats, cats, pigeons and other interlopers have contributed to providing a new perspective on this derelict building. Breach is a built curatorial gesture for Commonage 2011, temporarily weaving through Callan’s disused agricultural Co-operative Farm Store. Taking an asset-based approach the design integrates locally sourced materials and skills, carefully drawing out opportunities observed in the existing infrastructure of the building itself and of Callan town. Exploring the generosity of potential use whilst also acknowledging safety concerns, Breach is a corrugated galvanised barrier that simultaneously excludes (cordening off access to unsafe areas of the site) and accommodates (providing sheltered seating and performance spaces).
Breach has been developed in direct collaboration with the Abhainn Ri community festival of inclusion and participation as a space for gathering where the programming of both Commonage and the Abhainn Ri festival intertwine. Events to take place in both indoor and outdoor spaces created in the courtyard arena include music, dance, screenings, and the Commonage Seminar. This project has been directly supported by the Arts Council’s Artist in the Community Scheme managed by Create – the national development agency for collaborative arts.
Nice post and great images about our event last Thursday about St. John’s Eve in the Royal Hospital meadow /Irish Museum of Modern Art.
http://onewildlife.org/2011/06/24/gathering/ - n
Thanks Clare
‘St. John’s Eve’, a celebration of rights of way, in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
St. John’s Eve, Thursday 23rd June 2011
9.30 – 11pm
Access will be via the west gate entrance to the Royal Hospital (near Kilmainham Gaol).
Weather permitting, this outdoor event will take place in the Hospital Meadow.
Originally the site of St. John’s monastery, the tradition of celebrating St. John’s Eve (Midsummer Bonfire Night) at Bully’s Acre, Kilmainham became noted for its ‘nocturnal revels’. Journals of the time make reference to what are described as ‘raucous’ celebrations. Traditionally common land (and a pauper graveyard) Bully’s Acre, and more specifically the rowdy celebration of St. John’s Eve, became the pinch point of tensions between the local ‘Liberty Boys’ and the Royal Hospital governors following the building of the Royal Hospital in 1680. Efforts by the governance to put an end to the tradition were thwarted by the public right of way which ran through the hospital fields. The St. John’s Eve celebration became an event through which the local population annually exercised and activated this right of way through the Royal Hospital Grounds.
‘St. John’s Eve’ is a small event through which this public right of way and tradition of celebration is temporarily uncovered. Some refreshments will be served. ‘St. John’s Eve’ is part of a research residency investigating access and engagement currently being undertaken by Culturstruction at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
We have recently been working with Michelle Browne and students from five secondary schools across Dublin City on a project aiming to give a voice to teenagers experiences and ideas for public space in Dublin. Working with Michelle our approach to this work was to investigate the potential for teenagers to influence architecture, planning, design and decision-making process around public space in the city.
A presentation day on the 9th of May at the Woodquay Venue in Dublin’s Civic Offices marked the culmination of the collaborative workshop and fieldwork process and included short presentations by the students to the staff of Dublin City Council. Students presentation topics included inter-generational use of public space; noise and shared space; self-managed spaces for teenagers; the right to gather in public space; the placelessness of teenagers in public space; the shared needs and uses of public space between teenagers and homeless people.
The day also included the first screening of the ‘The Proposal’ a five-act short filmed document for public space by students from five secondary schools across Dublin City. In these filmed proposals the teenagers proposals are temporarily staged and enacted. Proposals ranged from temporary built structures and mobile devices to public protest and suggestions for re-thinking public attitudes and management structures for public space – proposals that cannot easily be represented in plan, section or perspective drawing. ‘The Proposal’ was filmed by Areaman Productions.
Participating schools were
Manor House School, Raheny / Maryfield College, Drumcondra / St. Dominics Secondary School, Ballyfermot, Dublin 10/ Trinity Comprehensive, Ballymun, Dublin 9 /Presentation Secondary School, Warrenmount, Dublin 8
Further images, films and a pdf document from the presentation date will be posted at a later date.
The project was initiated by Dublin City Council Arts Office as part of the Open Spaces research programme.
Some information about an exhibition we recently have been involved in below.
Hope to post some images of our work for this show in the coming weeks.
Only when the tide goes out do you discover who has been swimming naked’. Warren Buffett
Curators Nora Hickey and Eilis Lavelle of Mermaid Arts Centre invited 25 contemporary Irish- based artists to consider and respond to Buffett’s metaphorical citation. The Swimming Naked Prophecy is a group drawing exhibition featuring new work specifically made for the exhibition offering a range of responses by visual artists to Ireland’s current social, economic and political circumstances and the current mood in Ireland. This work was first shown in Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray from December 2 2010 to February 12 2011 and continues to tour to a small number of venues including the Riverbank Arts Centre in Newbridge and the Garter Lane Arts Centre in Waterford.
Invited artists were Aideen Barry / Stephen Brandes / Alan Butler / Mark Clare / Felicity Clear / Róisín Coyle / Culturstruction (Jo Anne Butler + Tara Kennedy) / Jennifer Cunningham / Clodagh Emoe / Fiona Hallinan / Seán Hillen / Jesse Jones / John Jones / Vera Klute / Sam Keogh / David Lilburn / Sean Lynch / Brian Maguire / Bea McMahon / Tom Molloy / Theresa Nanigian / Sorcha O’Brien / Dominic Thorpe / Saskia Vermeule
We will be hosting an open studio from 5 – 7.30pm this Friday at Studio 14, The Stables, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Kilmainham, Dublin 8 as part of IMMA’s 20th Birthday Celebrations. Tickets to the 20th Birthday event are free but must be booked in advance at www.imma.ie
Culturstruction are currently undertaking an invited research residency at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, February to June 2011
