Press Release | Works | Schedule

Public Gesture: Press Release

Public Gesture: An Exploration of Practice-Led Research.
MAVIS, IADT & Dutch Art Institute, ArtEZ Institute of the Arts

The LAB, Tuesday June 9 - Friday 19, 2009. 10am - 6pm. (Closed on Sunday 14 June).

From the 9th to the 19th of June 2009, students from the MA in Visual Arts Practices (MAVIS) will collaborate with visiting artists from the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) on a programme of events to unfold over eighty hours at The LAB, Foley Street, Dublin.

Public Gesture is not a conventional end of year student show. Instead it is a group project, which aims to explore and investigate the various concerns of the MAVIS and DAI students in a dynamic way. MAVIS students include art-practitioners, curators and critics, and this breadth of interests will be reflected in the diversity of the projects and events programmed for the show.

Public Gesture will run over ten days and will include work from all media, photography, moving image, painting, drawing, performance, sculpture, as well as interviews, talks, discursive spaces, event spaces and the production of a zine. Public Gesture will also include curated work by artists outside the course. The programme will be experimental, shifting and temporal. Works may be shown for just a few days and are intended to open up different conversations in different contexts.

MA in Visual Arts Practices is a Masters of Arts programme, provided by the Institute of Art, Design & Technology and based in the Dublin city centre at The LAB, Foley Street. MAVIS attracts and engages students seeking to explore the intersections and tensions between contemporary practices of art-making, criticism and curating.

Dutch Art Institute (DAI), a Masters programme provided by ArtEZ Institute of the Arts, targets energetic and inquisitive artists with a critical attitude towards traditional art centres and their hierarchies, by providing them with an international platform for exchange and dialogue with peers as well as with established visual artists, theoreticians and practitioners from other disciplines.

The DAI students are visiting Dublin as part of their research into the exhibition If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution: Edition III - Masquerade, at Project Arts Centre.

For further information on Public Gesture and press images please contact Aoife O'Toole. Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The schedule is available on http://www.mavis.ie/publicgesture

Dutch Art Institute /Master Programme /ArtEZ Institute of the Arts. Postbus 1440. 7500 BK Enschede, NL
http://www.dutchartinstitute.nl

MA Visual Arts Practices, School of Creative Arts, IADT, Dun Laoghaire Co. Dublin, Ireland
http://www.mavis.ie

Public Gesture: Works

	Jennifer Brady | curates The Edge of the World Problem The title of this sculptural and video installation refers to a term used in historical miniature wargaming whereby the precise replication intended by gamers is compromised by the existence of the ‘edge’ of the table or board on which the game is being played. The work is concerned with this notion of real and imagined space in gaming culture and features video documentation of the activity and a model from Green Machine Gamers, a Kildare based wargaming club.
	Liz Burns | curates the work of Noëmi Lakmaier ‘We are for you because we are against them’, is a performative installation by artist Noëmi Lakmaier that invites the public to take on the role of voyeur, and observe an elaborately staged dinner party. Eight pre-selected volunteer diners will participate in this public gesture which combines both elements of the uncanny and absurd. www.noemilakmaier.co.uk
	Elaine Byrne | Anything could’ve happened Elaine's work is a reflection of her experience working with children who live in the locality of The LAB where she has been exploring personal notions of public art. This experimental process has thrown up questions regarding the complexities of public art projects and the difference between social work and art.
	Dan Chester | The Young Europeans? During the 1980s Ireland promoted itself using the slogan the “The Young Europeans”. A dynamic, exciting and prosperous Ireland was in the making. The work includes both a screening every hour of an original IDA promotional film that looks at the investment of Multinational business in Ireland during the 1980s. Separately a series of drawings of currently abandoned factory spaces will be show.
	Sinéad Curran | Public Tutorial Sinéad has worked for a number of weeks on a process of interaction, in the form of workshops organised for children in the community. This is a site-specific, public art project with no end result in mind. Invited by Sinéad, artist Ronan McCrea has agreed to conduct a tutorial with her in public, where the conversation will be focused on the question of the difference between an art project and social work.
	Buba Cvoric and Marina Tomic | Performance The first day after we arrive in Dublin, we were planning to do the performance where we will build up the discussion about our further works. What we know for now is that we will do one long duration performance each day, choosing different locations, time and durations. We want to focus our work on the question: what is left for us to learn in everyday life and its routines?
	Monica de Bath | An chloiseann tú an ghaoth? ‘An chloiseann tú an ghaoth? Do you hear the wind?’ is the title of this series of work which references the Monto girls who came mostly from rural Ireland. Monica's practice explores the connections between people and the place with which they work and interact.
	Frances Fagan | Displacement Creating a decoy to cover up the vulnerability one feels is common practice for many of us. The work portrays an isolated fragile image in contrast to the openness of the endless blue. Architecture is a channel for investigating this concept.
	Angela Fulcher | Untitled Angela is interested in models of sociality and collectivity. This particular work presents the multiple outcomes resulting from an investigation into the structure of the geodesic sphere.
	Fiona Fullam | Performance and Compulsion This work encompasses both the presentation of a video artwork and a conversation between performance artist Amanda Coogan, psychologist Stephen Kealy and visual artist Fiona Fullam, exploring the thinking around performance, durational art and obsessive-compulsive disorder OCD, repetitive action and other ways of thinking.
	Laura Gallagher | What do we imagine a painting to be? This work puts forward the suggestion that a painting doesn’t  have to be a static or fixed thing encountered only within a gallery space. The relationship between the painting and the space it inhabits is investigated through movement, while also emphasizing both curiosity and the ridiculous in the work.
	Julie Gill-Frisby | Untitled Small objects will be placed on floor and sketches derived from these will be placed on the wall as they are made. The work strives to communicate the complexity of the human condition and our psychological attachment to place.
	Rana Hamadeh | GRAPHIS N° 127, issue # 1 This work is an accumulation of conversations, discussions, fictional narratives and associations whose main focus is a war document, GRAPHIS N° 127, I had brought with me from Beirut. History, language and objecthood are put into question as their meaning, content and context shift throughout the course of the project. When does language become the object; the object the image; history the play among several tenses; and war a game of cards? Do we have one collective ethical stand towards each of these moments?
	Janet Healy | EVICTION Inside:Out Graffiti/Street Art forces us to rethink traditional concepts of the art exhibition, both in terms of form and content. Janet will present a selection of prints by artists whose core practice strays from the arts system in favour of difference spaces. During this time she will conduct a series of meetings with street artists and their supporters to explore internally or externally imposed art conventions within the confines of public presentation.
	Kevin Holland | NEWSFORUM A forum is defined as a place, a periodical or a meeting for discussions. “NEWSFORUM” is a unique combination of all three where newspapers are both the material covered and the covering material!
	Laura Kelly | Perilous Accord A skeletal form of a spatial, three-dimensional drawing will be created initially and then added to over a period of days. The work grows out of an interest in chaos theory and, specifically, the notion that a system is at its richest as it nears the boundary of entropy or incoherence.
	Simon Keogh | Mnemonic Gaps The work documents a number of gaps found within the Dublin cityscape using a narrated story mediated with comic strip still images. Within these interstitial and spatiotemporal gaps a man has polymorphous conversations with strangers and other encounters. To some obscure, ambiguous, inaccessible and to others absurd, uncomfortable and surreal.
	James P. Kinsella | Take Me Up To Monto The work is primarily concerned with constructed environments where the viewer can participate, read and interact within the gallery. The atmospheric space tries to disconnect the ‘WE’ from the outside world and engage you with the Monto world of Dublin’s 19th century red light district.
	Joyce Little | Sell-by date This work, a sculptural installation of ladies nylon tights, explores not only the taboos of our bodies but also the limits we endorse to correct ‘our flawed’ image. The media endorses only one kind of body image, one which is everywhere and unavoidable. How then do women feel about their bodies?
	Seda Manavoglu | I Wish... The nomadic Turkic tribes adopted an Islamized Shamanism so to say. Until today, pre-Islamic features of religion and daily life exist. One such old Shamanistic tradition is the hanging of ribbons for good luck and wishes addresed to the great god of the sky: Tengri (Tanri meaning God in Turkish today). This God needed no temples because the whole world was his temple. Trees on mountain tops and branches were the places where people could be nearest to him. Also near graves and monuments of different (local)  saints. Many Turks today still practice this tradition.
	Anna Macleod | County/Country, a landscape project This work is landscape project articulated as a temporary reading room. Functioning as cultural and historical artifacts, regional newspapers invite a multiplicity of readings to how the country is linked to contemporary concerns.
	Paul McCarthy | Anonymous Reclining Figure This is an investigation into a figurine that is placed in the front windows of many hundreds of Dublin homes. It occupies a place on the threshold of the private interior and addresses itself to the public exterior. It has no known creator, has no name or title and depicts no known person. It is ubiquitous and anonymous at the same time.
	Ailve McCormack | Space Exploration Ailve is performing a research project focusing on people’s reactions to, and thoughts on the gallery space. Through participation with the audience, Ailve will be examining the significant role architecture plays within an exhibition.
	Julie Merriman | Untitled (ship IV), Untitled (ship V) Julie Merriman will be exhibiting two new drawings which reflect her current interest in naval architecture and engineering.  She will be in the gallery on Wednesday 10th of June at 5pm, in conversation with curator Sarah Searson and would welcome the opportunity to talk with the public about this work, her research and the larger project from which it originates.
	Anne Morgan | Are you talking to me? This work aims at extending the exhibition viewer’s role within the gallery space.  An act of contribution in exchange for an offering, stretches the responsibility of the viewer in their relationship with the exhibition and provides the opportunity for active engagement and undetermined productivity.
	Maeve Mulrennan | Lecture on her current curatorial practice Maeve will give a talk on the development of her current curatorial practice, making specific reference to the research and development of her latest exhibition, ‘In Search of Utopia’ featuring Michelle Browne, Dorothy Cross, Dennis Del Favero, Cao Fei, Louise Manifold and Ailbhe Ni Bhriain at Nuns Island Theatre, Galway and Ladies Beach, Salthill.
	Aoife O Toole | curates the work of Eve Parnell Irish Skies IV, a work by Eve Parnell considers history, communication and society, with a finely realised tension between the fan as an art object and the socio-political concerns of the imagery played out across its surface.
	Padraig Parle | Toxic Debt In this era of economic uncertainty Padraig Parle’s billboard installation has provoked reaction from both the media and the public. Despite The Irish Sun newspaper branding Parle a ‘prankster’, this site-specific installation and performance is more than mere mischief. It’s a reaction to Ireland’s current economic climate and insists the public do not forget where the blame lies.
	Barbara Philipp | Bread and Butter Ireland has a long economical history with the trade of butter. What did this mean for the society? And how were women involved with this market? I plan to treat the butter as material, which forms a bodily prosperity: sculptures out of butter, which can undergo different stages of transition regarding time and temperature. Every woman in town is invited to come and to give the fat a form.
	Paul Regan | Foley Street, May 28 2009 This work is part of an ongoing experimentation with displacements and misappropriations of religious subjects through spaces, both psychological and environmental, in relation to perceptions of crime, faith and fact. A temporary installation took place outside the LAB on the night of May 28, 2009 involving the recreation of an unmarked Garda car having apprehended a vehicle. The contents of the targeted car, forty cartons of communion have spilled out on to the street and those involved are not at the scene.
	Emma Roche |Maybe it would be better if I worked in groups of 10?: Factory Experiment A live experiment co-ordinated around an assembly line: There will be the possibility of success. A question of possessive individualism will be raised. There will be the possibility of failure. Speed of production will be noted. The potential for collectivity will be present. Uniforms will be worn and spillages will be cleaned.
	Kevin Ryan | Divergent voices A one-day event where students from Marino College and the MAVIS programme can explore ideas and share knowledge on the language of film and video. This activity aims to test the LAB as both a space for diverse and divergent practices and its role as a forum for a range of activities, audiences and local participation.
	Jonathan Sammon | Rusted satellites gather and sing The work is comprised of a number of drawings that the artist will produce in the gallery over a period of three days. The individual drawings, depicting figures in various states of activity, will be connected to one another to form a narrative that reflects the artists’ interest in science fiction literature.
	Eva Schippers | Art needs an audience During the 10 days I will write on the glass window in reverse, to address and register the (unexpecting) audience. My focus will be on trying to communicate and show that the audience is as important as the artwork. This is a performance that thrives only on external impulses, and where the silences will be filled in with repetitive words.
	Celine Sheridan | Build me a … Celine explores notions of domesticity, family and the local through drawing and narration. An artist’s book entitled ‘Build Me A Studio’ will be featured alongside the research used to develop it. Her installation includes an experimental stop-motion animation as well as architectural drawings with a twist.
	James Skunca | Dérive through Dublin & audio performance using a Type-Speech-Engine The Dérive - As I've never been to Dublin before I wish to see the city and experience it, and will make use of a camera and an audio tracker. At certain times I'll share my visual and acoustic footage with the public. The Audio Performance - My written texts will be played with a type-speech-engine and transmitted via a loudspeaker in the gallery. My aim is to form a public space and interact within it. This project is experimental and gladly shared with other participants.
	AoifeTunney | Jumble Sale, Corner Shop Each artist is asked to bring from their studio and their home, two items. One piece of their own artwork and one item they love but they are willing to let go. All items are priced €10.
	Niall Walsh | Truth and lies I am proposing a multiplicity of meaning arround the words ECONOMY and COMMUNITY. Locating meaning outside the realm of the traditional by using unconventional materials in their illustration.
	Veridiana Zurita | Mute Project It is a study about how the body can tell. A search for the speech body. The unknown dance from bodies during telling situations. The edition looks for the mute speech and the screaming body.

Public Gesture: Schedule

* Location and time of Buba Cvoric and Marina Tomic | Performance and Barbara Philipp | Bread and Butter to be confirmed.