The Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre presents Idir Sholas, the MA Art and Environment (TU Dublin) graduate exhibition, which opens to the public on Friday February 25th at 6pm and will run until March 26th.
The inaugural event will be launched by Dr Ailbhe Murphy, director of Create, the National Development Agency for Collaborative Arts.
The exhibition at Uillinn showcases the work of the seven TU Dublin graduates of the masters degree programme, Deirdre Archbold, Ann Burns, Guy Dalton, Sinéad McCormick, Sylwia Migdal, Katie Nolan and Ruairí Ó Donnabháin, and includes a diverse range of media encompassing multi and digital media, film, photography, sound, virtual reality, performance and installation.
Ann Davoren, director of Uillinn said: ‘We are really delighted to present the first graduate exhibition showcasing the exciting and innovative masters programme. The work in the show is ambitious and inventive, reflecting the capability of this student group and the calibre of the programme, the first ever masters degree to be located in West Cork. As with the foundational BA in visual art degree programme located on Sherkin Island, this archipelagic masters is a significant arts and cultural resource for this region and has extended the range of creative opportunities not only for islanders, but for the broader West Cork community.’
The MA art and environment (MAAE) uniquely combines post-studio art practice, interdisciplinary research, virtual teaching, island studies and community engagement. Taking contemporary art’s relationship with environments – ecological, spatial, political, economic – as its object of study, the MAAE instructs students in artistic practice shaped by ‘archipelagic thinking’, and a pedagogy that is ‘world-centred.’
Located in the West Cork archipelago and Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, the programme is supported by a team of artists, lecturers, and researchers based in the Dublin School of Creative Arts (TU Dublin) and by an interdisciplinary, island-based and international, network of peers and colleagues. With its focus on environmental art practice and community art-related knowledge, the students are actively involved in contemporary culture as organisers, makers and commentators.
Reflecting on the student experience, course coordinator Dr Glenn Loughran says: ‘It is now clear that islands are crucial to our understanding of climate change. Developing an arts pedagogy within this context has been an important development for the school and the college. The students have benefitted hugely from their engagements with island communities and experts from the fields of environmental art, island studies, community engagement and technological discourse. The exhibition, Idir Sholas, represents the student’s journey, over the past 17 months, through the bio-technosphere at a time of great intensity and urgency.’
