TRADE is a collaborative visual arts programme between Leitrim and Roscommon County Councils providing knowledge, resources and opportunities for visual artists to engage internationally. Rather than considering 'rural' as 'isolationary', TRADE emphasises that art is a global construct and encourages a freeflow of ideas and opportunities both for local artists to engage internationally as well as for international artists to participate locally.
Founded in 2004, TRADE (then called Artist as Traveller), invited artists such as Hou Hanru, Hüseyin Bhari Alptekin, Shin Egashira and Julie Bacon among others. Trade 2005 invited artists' agencies including N55, myvillages.org and M & M proyectos. Since 2006, TRADE consists of two elements -- a residential programme and a seminar event. Under our first residential programme, artists Alfredo Jaar and Rebecca Fortnum each worked with a group of artists from the two counties over the course of a year. The outcomes of these residencies were presented at the TRADE seminar the following December.
TRADE comprises of the following
- A biannual three day seminar
- A biannual residency programme to work with a leading international artist in Roscommon/Leitrim
- A biannual travel award
TRADE is a partnership programme of Roscommon and Leitrim Arts Offices, supported by Roscommon and Leitrim County Councils and the Arts Council of Ireland.
Artists in Conversation
The Dock, Carrick on Shannon, County Leitrim
Friday 4th - Saturday 5th December 2009
John Gibbons and Darren Almond are currently leading two programmes of work with eight artists from Roscommon and Leitrim. At the seminar, Gibbons and Almond will give presentations about their own practice, whilst the two groups of artists they have been working with over the last number of months will give group presentations about their experience of the TRADE programme. Almond and Gibbons have invited Rod Menghan and Brian Dillon to also give keynote presentations at the seminar. Other speakers over the weekend include Katie Browne, Anna Mcleod and Christine Mackey, who have been participating in international residencies sponsored by TRADE.
The weekend is facilitated by Aideen Barry, Valerie Connor, Tessa Giblin, Mike Fitzpatrick and Declan McGonagle (Chair).
Darren Almond will be working on and presenting a piece, 'The Marathon Monk' (Working title) -- a five channel projection piece which follows the path of a Tendai monk as he journeys through the forest of Mount Hiei which looks over the ancient city of Kyoto, Japan. Darren was able to get direct access with the monastery and was given permission (the first of its kind) to film a monk during part of his 100 day training. This a seven year journey for these monks who are known as the Kaihōgyō, who run 2 marathons a day for a 100 days. If the gyoja successfully completes the 100-day term, he can petition to try the 1000-day term. This term will take seven years to complete. The process of such a physical and mental test is to gain enlightenment and achieve the status of a living Buddha.
SCHEDULE
FRI 4TH DECEMBER
10.30 REGISTRATION & COFFEE
11.00 INTRODUCTION
11.10 DARREN ALMOND WITH DECLAN McGONAGLE
12.00 BRIAN DILLON WITH TESSA GIBLIN
12.50 LUNCH
2.00 JOHN GIBBONS WITH MIKE FITZPATRICK
2.50 ROD MENGHAM WITH VALERIE CONNOR
3.40 COFFEE
4.00 OVERVIEW OF EMERGING THEMES WITH CHAIR AND FACILITATORS
5.00 OFF-SITE PERFORMANCE/PROJECT
CATHY CARMEN / SEAMUS DUNBAR / CATHAL ROCHE / ANNA SPEARMAN
THIS PROJECT WILL RUN UNTIL 10 DEC 2009
6.00 BUS DEPARTS DOCK FOR SECOND EXHIBITION/EVENT
6.15 OPENING OF 'SEQUENCE' - ALMOND RESIDENCY ARTISTS EXHIBITION
PADRAIG CUNNINGHAM / JOHNNIE LAWSON / RÓISÍN LOUGHREY / MARGO McNULTY / WITH DARREN ALMOND
THIS EXHIBITION IS OPEN DEC 4 ,5 & 6, 12-5pm AND 7-11pm BY APPOINTMENT: 086 876 4027
7.30 BUS DEPARTS DOCK FOR RESTAURANT
8.00 DINNER
SAT 5TH DECEMBER
9.45 COFFEE
10.00 TRADE RESIDENCY ARTISTS GROUPS WITH AIDEEN BARRY
10.45 INTERNATIONAL BURSARY ARTISTS WITH TESSA GIBLIN
KATIE BROWNE / CHRISTINE MACKEY /ANNA MACLEOD
11.20 COFFEE
11.40 IN CONVERSATION 1
12.20 IN CONVERSATION 2
1.00 IN CONVERSATION 3
1.40 FEEDBACK SESSION WITH CHAIR AND FACILITATORS
2.20 LUNCH
3.15 END (RESOURCE ROOM REMAINS OPEN UNTIL 5PM)
TRAIN DEPARTS CARRICK ON SHANNON FOR DUBLIN CONNOLLY AT 3.46
IN CONVERSATION
After hearing keynote speakers on Friday morning, delegates will be invited to suggest particular questions or topics they would like to discuss with them in greater detail. These suggestions will be collated and a number of them used as the topics for the In Conversation sessions on Saturday. There will be three consecutive In Conversation sessions with a keynote speaker, a facilitator and a maximum of ten delegates. This will enable each delegate to engage in genuine debate on issues of interest/concern with three of the keynote speakers.
RESOURCE ROOM
The Resource Room provides a range of material and tools for artists including -
- An extensive selection of brochures and application forms from established international residency centres.
- Advice on funding, submissions and sample applications for residency programmes.
- Information on how to develop a web identity, how to network with international artist communities.
- A collection of related publications from Leitrim and Roscommon County Libraries.
HOW TO GET HERE
Carrick on Shannon is on the N4 Dublin to Sligo primary route. It is serviced by the Dublin-Sligo train route as well
as by Bus Éireann. Please contact Bus Éireann for relevant bus schedules.
Train times for Dublin (Connolly) - Carrick on Shannon:
Friday 7th Dep: Dublin 07.05 / 09.05 - Arr: Carrick on Shannon 09.15 / 11.15
Saturday 8th Dep: Carrick on Shannon 15.46 / 17.46 / 19.45 - Arr: Dublin 18.00 / 20.02 / 22.02
FEES
Artists: €30 | Members of organisations: €120
Fee includes lunch and dinner on Friday, and lunch on Saturday.
BOOKING
To book for TRADE, please contact The Dock Arts Centre, Carrick on Shannon on 071 9621694
or email lodowd@leitrimcoco.ie. Further information is available from www.leitrimarts.ie/trade
ACCOMMODATION
The following accommodation is available within walking distance of TRADE:
Courtyard Apartments 086 046 8900 | Cryans Hotel 071 967 2066 | Bush Hotel 071 967 1000
Hollywell B&B - 071 9621124 | Landmark Hotel 071 962 2222 | Shannon View House 071 9620594
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
DARREN ALMOND
Darren Almond was born in Wigan in 1971 and studied at Winchester School of Art. Darren Almond's diverse work,
incorporating film, installation, sculpture and photography, deals with evocative meditations on time and duration
as well as the themes of personal and historical memory. His solo exhibition Darren Almond: Night as Day at the
Tate in 2001 consisted of long exposure photographs of remote landscapes taken at full moon, this body of work
has taken him on journeys to remote places including Antarctica, Siberia, Uganda and Japan. The idea of the journey
permeates into his film work with his fascination of trains and the railways networks . With 'In The Between' he
follows the path of the highest railway as it penetrates through the autonomous region connectig Bejing , China to
Lhasa in Tibet, Schwebebahn Monorail in Germany , one of the most unique public transport systems in the world
and Geisterbahn, one of the oldest ghost trains in Vienna. Recent solo shows include Parasol Unit -- Foundation
for Contemporary Art, London, White Cube, London, "K21", Dusseldorf, The Renaissance Society, Chicago and Tate
Britain, London. His work was shortlisted for the 2005 Turner Prize.
BRIAN DILLON
Brian Dillon is the UK Editor of Cabinet Magazine. His writing has appeared in Frieze, The London Review of Books,
The New Statesman, Modern Painters, Art Review and The Wire. His first book, In the Dark Room, won the Irish
Book Awards non-fiction prize, 2006. He is currently working on Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives, to be
published in 2010.
JOHN GIBBONS
Born in Ennis, County Clare, he studied at Limerick School of Art, Crawford School of Art and St Martin's School of
Art, London. He was awarded the Macauley Fellowship in Sculpture in 1975 and has continued to receive many
awards since then, including the Bryan Robertson Trust Award in 2008. He has had solo exhibitions in Ireland,
Britain, Spain, Hungary, Germany and the USA. He is represented in major museum collections including, Tate,
Edmonton Art Gallery, Alberta, Canada, The Czech Museum of Fine Arts, Prague, The Modern Art Centre / Calouste
Gulbenkian, Lisbon, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, Spain. His interest in memory is a recurring
theme in his work drawing on person individual experience, genetic inheritance and the memory contained within
all material. John's work displays an inherent order and symmetry, together with an intense connection with
both physical and spiritual aspects of human experience. His Mayo drawing's, made over the last two years on a
Ballinglen Arts Foundation Fellowship were recently shown at Jesus College, Cambridge. 'John Gibbons Portraits'
is currently showing in the National Portrait Gallery, London (until the 14th. March 2010) and his forthcoming solo
exhibition at Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin is in March 2010.He was made Emeritus Professor on his retirement from
Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton in 2008 and has recently been elected to Aosdana. Based in
London he spends part of the year working abroad including drawing on the West coast of Ireland.
ROD MENGHAM
Rod Mengham is Reader in Modern English Literature at the University of Cambridge, where he is also Curator
of Works of Art at Jesus College. He is the author of books on Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte and Henry Green, as
well as of The Descent of Language (1993). He has edited collections of essays on contemporary fiction, violence
and avant-garde art, and the fiction of the 1940s. He has written on art for various magazines and composes the
catalogues for the biennial 'Sculpture in the Close' exhibition, which he also curates, at Jesus College, Cambridge.
He is also the editor of the Equipage series of poetry pamphlets and co-editor and co-translator of Altered State: the
New Polish Poetry (Arc Publications, 2003). His own poems have been published under the title Unsung: New and
Selected Poems (Folio/Salt, 1996; 2nd edition, 2001).
RESIDENCY ARTISTS
CATHY CARMAN / SEAMUS DUNBAR / CATHAL ROCHE / ANNA SPEARMAN
working with John Gibbons
Working with John Gibbons has led our group of independent artists into the 'performance' of weekly cross-arts
improvisation sessions. On our journey, improvisation and play have come to follow our many group discussions,
home cooked meals, site and studio visits. Our shared and private creative work have become a playful continuation
of that group dialogue. Working in this way, we have established a collaborative practice in which we work independently,
in subgroups and as a single unit. As we continue on our journey, work expands through a democratic
exchange with Carrick on Shannon. Time becomes marked by new events, the ebb and flow of relationships. For
the seminar the group will present aspects of their journey through discussion, live performance and a visit to our
TRADE shop in Carrick on Shannon.
PADRAIG CUNNINGHAM / JOHNNIE LAWSON / RÓISÍN LOUGHREY / MARGO MCNULTY
working with Darren Almond
TRADE has become a point of departure, allowing us to examine our practice as individuals while working in a
collaborative environment. Over the duration of the residency we undertook the exploration of what was
developing into an integrated process both as individual practitioners and as a group. Mediated by Darren, TRADE
became a dialogue of ideas, peer critiques and resources. Individually we hoped that the dialogue with Darren, and
between ourselves, would create a shift in our work, balancing the exploration of new area's of interest with
targeted focus on each individual's practice. Each artist involved aspired to creating new work resulting from the
dialogue and experiences. The outcome of the residency for us has been the formulation of a collective exhibition
with Darren in an alternative space. This exhibition will open in conjunction with the TRADE seminar and will inform
our presentations at the event. Exhibiting on a common ground, in five retail units, will bring our work into focus
and provide an opportunity not only to show alongside Darren but to demonstrate the relationships that have
developed through TRADE.
BURSARY ARTISTS
KATIE BROWNE / CHRISTINE MACKEY / ANNA MACLEOD
TRADE is about providing opportunities for artists from these counties to engage internationally and for
international artists to engage with artists here. As well as inviting artists to conduct residencies in Roscommon and
Leitrim we offer opportunities for artists to participate in an international programme which they have developed
for themselves. This may be a formal residency, a period where they will receive mentoring from an international
artist, or any other programme of work with an artist or agency abroad. This year Katie Browne worked with
artists in Brazil while Anna Macleod and Christine Mackey participated in programmes and exhibitions in Poland
and Greece.
FACILITATORS
AIDEEN BARRY
Aideen Barry is a Visual Artist, working in the mediums of performance, film, sculpture, lens based media, musical
composition, drawing and animation. Recent Exhibitions in Ireland include: the disjoined and the morphological
at The Mermaid Arts Centre (Bray), and of hypothetical evolutions of an other, Galway Arts Centre, and Futures at
the Royal Hibernian Academy. Barry has shown internationally at Centre Cultural des Irlandais, (Paris), and more
recently in Sound Design for Future Films at Moderna Museet, (Sweden), The Wexner Centre for the Arts in Ohio
(USA), and The Walter Phillips Gallery (Canada). In 2008 Head Barry represented Ireland at The LOOP Biennial in
Barcelona, Spain. Barry recently undertook residencies at the Banff Centre in Canada, Seydisfjourder, in Iceland, and
the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. In 2010 Barry will represent Ireland at Liste, Young Art Fair in Basel, Switzerland,
and will exhibit at Joyce Yahouda Gallery in Montreal and will launch her first Artist's Monograph at the Butler
Gallery in Kilkenny. Aideen Barry is the West of Ireland representative for Visual Artists Ireland. She lectures at the
Galway/ Mayo Institute of Technology, Art & Design department in Galway. Barry lives and works in Co. Galway.
VALERIE CONNOR
Valerie Connor was the commissioner and curator for Ireland's national participation at the 50th Venice Biennale
of Art and 26th Bienal de Sao Paulo. She is an adviser to The Arts Council of Ireland and serves on the board of the
Irish Museum of Modern Art. As Visual Arts Director at Project Arts Centre throughout the redevelopment of the
building, she programmed projects 'off-site' and for the new gallery, moving into independent curatorial work in
collaboration with other producers, artists and local authorities. She has written an op-ed column for Contemporary
magazine and has had criticism published in academic anthologies, art periodicals and exhibition catalogues. She
exhibited with the artist group Blue Funk and now lectures in photography at the Dublin Institute of Technology.
MIKE FITZPATRICK
Academic, Curator and Artist. Head of School, Limerick School of Art and Design. LIT Director/Curator of Limerick
City Gallery of Art 2000-2009. Irish Commissioner, 52nd Venice Biennale. Education: Independent Study Programme,
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Studio Fellowship at PS1 Museum, LIC, New York, University of
Liverpool, MA Fine Art from Birmingham Institute of Art & Design, Academia De Brera, Milan, NDAD, Limerick School
of Art and Design. A member of IKT, Organisation of International Curators. Committee member of ev+a, the Exhibition
of Visual Art, Limerick. Curated exhibitions include Noughties but Nice, 21st Century Irish Art, Connolly Cleary,
Tina O'Connell, Andrew Kearney, Caroline McCarthy, Gerard Byrne, Ann Ryan, Sean Lynch, Jack Donovan, Amanda
Coogan, Mark O'Kelly, Donald Teskey, Tom Molloy, William Kentridge and Lindsay Seers. Curated the Visual Strand of
Kilkenny Arts Festival 2005 and 2006 with the exhibition 'Failure'. Initiated the Shinnors Scholarship MA in Curatorial
Practice at Limerick City Gallery of Art in 2003. Writings include essays on Sean Lynch, John Shinnors, Gillian Kenny,
Amanda Coogan, Walter Verling. Eamon O'Kane and Jack Donovan. Solo Exhibitions include 'Dealer Ties' Higher
Pictures, New York, 'Everything Must Go' Art in General, New York, 'Selling America' Silverstein Gallery, New York and
Galway Art Centre, BIAD Birmingham, Limerick City Gallery of Art, OMAC, Belfast and Project Art Centre, Dublin.
TESSA GIBLIN
Tessa Giblin is Curator of Visual Arts at Project Arts Centre in Dublin. Since 2006, she has curated and programmed
exhibitions, projects and public discussions, including PHILIP, BLACKBOXING, NONKNOWLEDGE, The Flight of the
Dodo, The Prehistory of the Crisis (I) & (II), and Every Version Belongs to the Myth, and solo exhibitions with Aurélien
Froment, Rosa Barba & David Maljkovic, Jeremiah Day & Simone Forti, Jesse Jones, Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren
de Haan and Seamus Nolan. She completed the de Appel Curatorial Training Programme in Amsterdam in 2006,
following which she became Head of Exhibitions at Smart Project Space. Tessa was Assistant Curator of ARTSPACE,
Auckland during 2004-05. A graduate of the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, NZ in 2000, she founded
and directed the public project Gridlocked and gallery Fresh in Christchurch, and co-curated Scape, Art & Industry
Biennial 2004, with Tobias Berger. She writes for artists, magazines and exhibitions. Tessa led the Curatorial
Seminar module for the MA in Visual Arts (MAVIS) of IADT, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland, during 2008/2009, and they
together presented Curatorial Session in May 2009 at Project Arts Centre.
DECLAN McGONAGLE (CHAIR)
Declan McGonagle began his career as the first organiser at the Orchard Gallery in Derry. He went on to be Director
of Exhibitions at the ICA, London, and then Director at the Orchard Gallery. After eleven years as Director of the
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, he held a string of other key roles including Irish Commissioner for the Venice
Biennale in 1992, the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1994 and Director of Dublin's City Arts Centre's Civil Arts Inquiry.
He was Director of Interface, Centre for Research in Art, Technologies and Design and Chair of Art and Design, at the
University of Ulster, Belfast from 2004 to 2008. He is currently the Director of the National College of Art & Design
in Dublin.
PREVIOUS TRADE EVENTS
In 2007 the seminar explores the different methodologies artists use to make art. We investigated why processes are developed for particular reasons and how this is evident in the final artwork. We looked to see what aspects of a process are attributable to the artist’s methods and what aspects are attributable and relevant to the situation where the work is made.
The seminar featured national and international artists, curators and thinkers including Alfredo Jaar (Chile/USA) and Rebecca Fortnum (UK) who have each been each working with a group of five artists from Leitrim and Roscommon for a number of months. The programme also featured writer and critic Patricia Phillips (Head of Art at Cornell University) and artist Phillida Barlow (Professor of Art at Slade School of Art).
Irish artists presenting at TRADE included Carol Anne Connolly, Gareth Kennedy, Alice Lyons, Christine Mackey, Anna MacLeod, Angie Duignan, Francis McGonagle, Cathy Reynolds, Holly Asaa, Laura Gallagher and Kristy Varenga.
Conversations with keynote speakers and artists presenting at TRADE were chaired and facilitated by Declan McGonagle ( University of Ulster), Mike Fitzpatrick (Limerick City Gallery), Siún Hanrahan (Artist/D.I.T) Ailbhe Murphy (Artist/Consultant) and Sarah Searson (Curator/Consultant).
In 2008 the AFTER project arose out of TRADE - visit their website to learn more.
Also of further interest see...
TRADE 2005 and Artist as Traveller 2004