Members
Where does the authority of society begin and how can individual expression co-exist with social control?
My work is generated by a direct response to and observations from my surroundings and their social contexts. My strange seemingly out of place activities, awkward objects and vessels disrupt the surface and merge with the habitual traffic of the environment from which they have been appropriated. Taking play as my means of articulation transforms the world into an adventure playground and everything in it including myself into potential playthings. This turns a chaotic disposable culture into a consumable, complex, sustainable and cooperative environment of loose parts. Jeff Ferrell stated that the policing of public space spawns a parallel policing of perceptions therefore can playing with public space likewise play with perceptions? Experience shapes the brain and changes in the physical world have a dynamic relationship with changes in perception. Disrupting perceptions in a playful way can reveal attitudes to alternate kinds of behaviour which can be potentially contentious. By re-appropriating spaces and objects in the public domain for playful interventions I hope to reveal existing social architecture through focusing on particular aspects of its material landscape such as waste. The people who inhabit these spaces are invited to partake in absurd activities and share their wealth of experience, skills and knowledge. These diverse vicarious and people-centred activities all create the potential for self awareness through play. The final destination is undetermined and undefined but the mindful journey has purpose.
I am influenced by political, social and cultural ideologies and the development of the discourse between these environments. I use a wide base as the underpinning within my practice and then develop cohesive layers from the arenas of science, music and literature to enhance processes and exchange. The use of the term social sculpture is given to my practice to realise the importance of its engagement between concept and audience, but not as a definitive term as often this can be misleading, as I like to be nomadic in my approach to every engaging intervention/action and its individual appropriate art genre.
Colm Clarke develops his praxis as a tactile strategy focusing on the body and the relationship between the individual and the environment. His research focuses on the physical/conceptual dimensions of phenomena such as vibration and resonance in considering the mechanisms of entanglement and aesthetics of power.
Brian Connolly is a multi-media artist who’s works often relate to ‘place’ or context. He employs a wide range of artistic processes, including Installation Art, Performance, Public Sculpture, and collaborative projects.
Many former Installation works have dealt with issues of power and dualism through the use of multi-media/Video technology, and a range of optical devices, as well as other found and manufactured objects and materials.
He currently employs two distinct Performance strategies: The first, is geared to entice a non ‘art’ audience and takes the form of Market Stall intervention. Surreal humor is employed to question aspects of consumerism and global political and social ethics.
His other live works are often durational and are made more for an informed art audience. These Performance works, generically entitled “Install-actions”, are often visually elaborate and contain both political and spiritual metaphors.
He has exhibited in diverse contexts throughout Europe, Canada & Mexico.
He has also created a number of public Sculptures in Ireland and Italy, and has worked in combinations of bronze, ceramic - mosaic, stone, concrete, fiber-optics etc. He has experience of working as an artist on design teams and was an Artistic Advisor and has instigated a range of national and international artist projects and opportunities. He is currently an Associate Lecturer in Sculpture at the University of Ulster at Belfast.
Leo Devlin, born 1983, Omagh, N. Ireland
Selected performances art festivals and events include; International Multimedia Art Festival- MAN Gallery (Odazi), VIP Gallery (Novi Sad), The Students Cultural Center (Belgrad, Serbia), ARES International performance art exchange (N.I), Queen Street Studios Gallery (N.I.). La Bas Dynamical, (Helsinki, Finland), Live Art Falmouth 08 (U.K.), Cavan Fringe Festival 08 (Rep.of Ireland). Forthcoming works in 2008 include a series of performances in Chile (South America) and Proximity Effect, Plymoth Arts Center (U.K.).
In 2007 he was joint winner of IMPACT 07, Bergheim, (Germany) Devlin received a B.A. honors from the Universuty of Ulster (2006), he was a Co-Director of Catalyst Arts gallery (2006-2008) and is currently a director of Flaxart Studos and Gallery Officer of the Northern Irish Arts & Disability Fourm. His work has been supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Arts and Disability Forum.
He lives and works in Belfast.
Julie Fiala
French-Canadian artist Julie Fiala is a researcher interested in performance art, forms of cultural activism and community arts. She holds degrees from Queen’s University, Canada (BFA 2002) and the University of Leeds, UK (MAFA 2005). Her PhD research on the topic of listening in community arts was hosted by the department of Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation studies at Trinity College Dublin in Belfast. Julie has presented her art projects internationally in countries including the UK, Ireland, Canada, Russia, the US and the Czech Republic. Her performances have taken place on red couches, in neighbourhoods and parks, door-to-door, floating in swimming pools, on tables in lecture theatres, as well as in other places of art and life.
I believe that the self is an ever-changing position, which I have come to accept as an art in the making.
In my performances I aim to be fully present in the moment and use my voice to express and share my perceptions, feelings, thoughts and associations. Words may intrude or emerge, but the performances tend towards abstract sounds. When words form part of an event they are often dissected and de-constructed so that focus can be given to discreet syllables, sub syllables and the sounds which form the basic elements of spoken word. Patterns are identified and new patterns are formed.
Ideally there is an organic development within each performance.
When working with collaborations the theme will include the dynamic of our mutual responsiveness. When performing solo, the theme will include environmental perceptions, inner perceptions and responsiveness to the voice’s natural inclinations.
Caroline Murphy is interested in sound and interaction. Using musical instruments and found objects, Caroline reflects, responds to, comments upon or compliments happenings within the physical space to create mutual understandings relevant to the particular time and space.
Art is the demonstrated wish and will TOWARDS resolving inner and outer conflict, through action, be it spiritual, religious, political, personal, social or cultural--or any interfusion of these.
GOING CHANGING SAYING BEING HAVING TRAVERSING BEING COMPARING SEEING PROVIDING KEEPING BEING GOING BEING ABANDONING INVOKING STEPPING SAYING BEING CONCEALING BECOMING BUOYING SEEING ARRIVING ASKING ANNOUNCING FLOWING INCLUDING SAYING DOING DEVELOPING CARRYING NAMING KNOWING OPENING MOVING RESISTING STARTING ENSURING SAYING BEING PUTTING ISSUING BEING BEARING FIGHTING REQUIRING FACING CALLING FINDING CONNECTING RUNNING STORING MARKING RECOGNIZING SAYING REACHING BEING DENYING EMERGING MELTING STARTING HEARING MEANING MOVING AFFECTING HEARING BEING PAUSING TELLING BEING EXPECTING THREATENING ALLOWING RETURNING BEING BRINGING INCLUDING CLOSING PUTTING MOVING BOWING SHORTENING OWING BEING CHANGING LASTING VANISHING BEING MEANING TAKING TELLING BEING APPEARING CHANGING ARRIVING BECOMING TAKING CARRYING LOSING RETURNING ADDING CONSIDERING STIRRING AFFECTING MAKING GETTING GOING PLACING STARTING RUING BEING VOWING SWITCHING
Hugh O’Donnell was born in Dublin and moved to Belfast to study a degree in sculpture and an M.F.A in Fine Art. He works mainly in performance art and also works with drawing/ installation and sometimes video.
He has made work in places such as TRACE:installaction art space Wales, BONE festival Switzerland, FADO Toronto Canada, Le Lieu Quebec, Arts and Disability Forum gallery Belfast and many more. He is an active committee member of Bbeyond.
He likes buckets, high heels, tomato’s, hand bags, whistles, liver and finding objects.
'Chair' Hugh O'Donnell 2010
'INVERT' Toronto Free Gallery 2010 Documentation Shannon Cochrane FADO.
Encountering a place's territoriality, frequently referencing Ireland, Sinead O'Donnell has been creating performance/installation/site/and time-based art since 1998. She chooses actions or situations that demonstrate complexity setting up confrontations between matter and memory, timing and spontaneity, site and space, intuition and methodology. Her work has been seen in Ireland, South America, Middle East and Eastern Europe. Support for her independent practice has been granted by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Socrates Erasmus, Arts & Humanities Research Council, and the British Council.
'Violent' series, Plymouth Arts Centre,'Pigs of today are the hams of Tomorrow, RedApe, 2010.
'Violent' series, Toronto Free Space, FADO, 2010'.
Born 1948 Mecklenburg, Germany
Member of NI Workshop of the Free International University at Documenta 6, Kassel, Germany,1977
Founder Member of Art and Research Exchange, Belfast
Coordinator Media Workshop, Belfast, 1979
Invited to represent NI Workshop at Beuys Exhibition, New York, 1979
Community Worker, Centre for Neighbourhood Development, Belfast 1982
Voluntary and Community Sector Trainer, Belfast 1986
Deputy Director for organisational development, NICVA, Belfast, 1996
Founder member, Bbeyond, Belfast 2000
Director Face Inclusion Matters (youth work agency) 2002 - present.
My art comments on belief systems, societal events, political developments, absurd ideas and conventions of communication and human interaction. Performance / live art allows me to use process to illustrate how our world changes while we are not looking, and how we then misinterpret what we have not seen but think we know intimately.
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Statement
My positioning within the cultural map of time is the result of humanity’s constant search for identity and meaning. My working practice is concerned with the poetics of being in relation to place (the present/environment) and intellectually how we have arrived here (through our past/histories), and the potentially to navigate our future/s.
My specific interest in art has evolved into the metaphysical aspects of being and the dualism that arises, between our transient ephemeral realms and different natures of our physical bodies in relation to being constant spiritual embodiments. The relationship between being and the world we experience around us, informs the world/s we live in, from the private to the community.
Art through its creative process is an integrated and alchemical transformation of the self and consciousness. It has a vital role for the well being of the individual in todays’ society. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world”.
Anne Quail
Anne Quail is a multi-disciplinary artist utilising performance, lens-based media anddrawing. Her practice operates in the communal space of Art><Being, taking the lived moment as the material presence, from which she works a position that is both familiar and strange.
“I am interested in the working action that transcends the perceived object subject dialect and the subsequent embodied meaning that arises from this communion.”
Pavana Reid
