Image: Rick Lowe, Victoria Square Project, 2017-18, social sculpture, Elpidos Street, Victoria Square, Athens, documenta 14. Photo: Freddie Faulkenberry.
Create Networking Day for Collaborative Arts
Event · Seminar · Talk
Create Networking Day for Collaborative Arts, Friday 1 December 2017
O’Donoghue Centre for Drama Theatre and performance, NUI Galway
Registration & Coffee Conversations from 10am
Welcome Address: 10.45 am
This year Create’s National Networking Day will focus on art, diversity and transformative practice. At the level of geopolitics globally we are witnessing vulnerable populations on the move at an unprecedented scale. At the same time, at the level of the nation state, we see the consolidation of some familiar exclusionary discourses around notions of national identity. How can artists working collaboratively respond? How can collaborative arts and cultural practices challenge dominant and exclusionary narratives? How can we engage in inclusive ways to democratise public space at the level of the neighbourhood and the city? Over the course of the day we will explore; the politics of identity and how it defines our bodies, ways of integrating the narrative of Traveller history, approaches to making large-scale interdisciplinary performance reflecting the diversity of place and collaborative arts practice connected with questions of race, neighbourhood and displacement.
The day will be launched by Sinead O’Reilly, Head of Local Arts and Arts Participation for the Arts Council. Presenters include Selina Thompson, who is an acclaimed artist and performer based in Leeds. Her work is playful and participatory, focused on the politics of identity and how this defines our bodies, lives and environments. Selina will draw on her Resort Residency 2016 with Create / CAPP and Fingal Arts Office in her keynote. Following her presentation Selina will be in conversation with Blessing Moyo a human rights activist based in Galway and founder of the One World Tapestry initiative.
Artist Seamus Nolan and ethnographer Eve Olney will be joined by representatives from the Galway Traveller Movement. This conversation is taking place in the context of Seamus’s and Eve’s collaboration with Pavee Point on the Create, Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane CAPP Commission. The project seeks to open a dialogue around what an appropriate approach to integrating the narrative of Traveller History into the ‘National Project’ might look like. Chaired by Ann Lyons from the Community Knowledge Initiative at NUI, the panel will be questioning the representation of ethnic minority cultures in national archives.
In two separate presentations filmmaker Jijo Sebastian will explore questions of art and politics in collaborative filmmaking and Chris Baldwin, Artistic Director of Galway 2020 will share his approach to making large-scale interdisciplinary performance about place, for that place and in deep collaboration with the people of that place.
In breakout sessions with guest contributors we will further explore questions of art, diversity and transformation as they relate to questions of language, migrant and refugee experience in Ireland and change and agency in collaborative practice.
In our final keynote of the day US-based artist and 2017 Blade of Grass Fellow Rick Lowe, will talk with academic Charlotte McIvor about his current work the Victoria Square Project which uses documenta 14 to consider the situation of immigrants and refugees in relation to native Athenians in Victoria Square, Athens.
The day is interactive, with opportunities to exchange insights and experiences and to exchange about the latest innovative collaborative arts projects taking place nationally and internationally.
We are delighted to be partnering with the Galway Arts Centre on the Networking Day. To conclude the day please join us at Galway Arts Centre for a wine reception from 6.00pm – 8.00pm to launch their A5 Art Fair.
