Fractured Space

Still from the live fracturing on the opening night of In the Making: 10 Years of Ormond Art Studios

28th Nov - 1st Dec
Projection Installation
Exhibiting at the Dublin Civic Trust Building, 18 Ormond Quay, as part of the Ormond Art Studios’s exhibition In the Making: Celebrating 10 Years at Ormond Art Studios.

---

Fractured Space is a site specific, projection piece. The space we are exhibiting in is a beautifully restored house, brought back from ruin and into the past, frozen as it once was. Because of this, it’s not possible to interact with the space as I normally would - a gallery space is made to be a canvas that an artist can manipulate to show their ideas and creations to their desired effect. 18 Ormond Quay is a space all of its own. 

Exhibiting in a space that I couldn’t interact with in the typical way lead me to want to create a piece that would change the space without touching it. Previously, I created Fractured Landscapes, a series where I manipulated images to create new places, reflecting on the strange pressures I had placed on the landscape to provide me with a sense of place and connection. Evolving this fracturing to create a new space within the exhibition space felt like a way I could combine this place that I couldn’t change with my work. 

For the opening night this will be a live piece, changing as people interact with it, allowing them to mould the artwork and the space. For the remainder of the exhibition it will be a fractured video I filmed during our time installing our work for the exhibition.

---

As it says at the top, this exhibition is open until December 1st, from 12:00 - 17:00 each day. For more information about it, check out the Ormond Art Studios website.

Culture Night 2019 at Ormond Art Studios

Already it’s almost a month in Ormond Art Studios, and my first studio event - Culture Night 2019.

Culture Night is a moment of mild mayhem on an often damp September evening. All of Dublin’s creative centres (and many not-usually creative ones too) open their doors to the public for the one night, and one night only! And while I’m focusing on Dublin (because that’s where I am), it’s not a Dublin exclusive event, but a country wide night of fun, free events. This year is the first year I had the chance of being in the festivities, and as I laid out notebooks and prints in the small space that was slowly becoming mine, I wondered who would come, what would they expect, and would it just be an awkward evening of staring at the floor?

Unwrapping some test prints for my walls before Culture Night

As anyone who has worked in a customer-facing job will have experienced, you often create and your own little spiel, and as I welcomed people into the studio I found myself excited to share the space and what I knew about it with each visitor that came through the door, settling on a simple list to go through each time:

We are Ormond Art Studios, an artist run collective currently home to 8 artists - although at that very moment we were 9 as Alex Keatinge, the winner of the studio’s Graduate Residency Award, is with us for the month of September. The studios is our creative space - so we each have our own desk to work at. Because we are an artist-led group we each also have our own admin-style tasks to take care of in the running of the space. We’re split between two rooms, with three artists in one and six in the other. Because this is where we all work we don’t open our doors to the public all that often, but for culture night we decided it would be great to open the door and let people see what we’re each working on. Next week we’ll be clearing out that room to make an exhibition space for Alex (or Graduate Resident), who will have an exhibition opening in there towards the end of next week. The week after we’ll have an evening of artist talks, featuring Alex and two of the runners up of the Graduate Resident Award.
This year also marks the 10th Birthday of Ormond Art Studios, so we will be having a group exhibition a few doors down (No. 18) in the Dublin Civic Trust Building. It will feature work from all the artists who are currently members of the studio, as well as a publication featuring many of our previous members. The exhibition is opening on the 28th of November!

The studio had a record number of people visit over the evening, and as I walked out the door at 21:45 my head was tired but my heart happy. Thank you to anyone who I met there that night, I’ve had lots to think about since then! It’s interesting to explain your work again and again; it’s like a quick crash course in learning how to talk about that specific work, as well as getting to gauge reactions and interest from people. Lots of ideas going forwards. Below is the text I put on my wall to introduce people to my space whenever I wasn’t there, and the other is the poster of the upcoming studio events!

View fullsize

View fullsize

Joining Ormond Art Studios

This weekend I’m conducting some slightly awkward bus shuffles through Dublin city, carrying bulky bags of books and cutting boards. There can only be one reason - I’ve joined an artist studio!

Ormond Art Studios lives in a building with a grey-blue door on the quays in Dublin city centre, and it is where I’m going to be sharing a space with a wonderful group of artists for the foreseeable future. We each have our desks to fill with things, and white walls to flick ideas at. Have I ever been this excited to stare at a white wall? Possibly not.

I’ve spent the last three years on the move - part-time in the city, part-time walking around this small Irish island. Now I’m back in Dublin, about to launch into the second year of my masters. I have found for my creativity (and my sanity) I need to be able to bounce ideas off of other people, and be inspired by what they’re making. I also want to learn how artist-led spaces work and grow - and as artists’ presences become online, as more creatives promote and share their processes digitally, I believe that the importance of having a physical space and place to share and discuss work is vital.

Here’s my little about page on the Ormond Art Studio website, and here’s a link to the Ormond Art Studio Instagram. Below is a couple of shots of my empty space. I can’t wait to make things here.