Professional Diploma in Art and Ecology @ NCAD

This time last year I heard that I was successful in getting a place on this newly established postgrad diploma. It has been a game-changer.

I had been feeling the urgent need to shift my practice to engage with environmental issues so this was just the investment I needed. It is offered by the Creative Futures Academy ( http://creativefuturesacademy.ie, well worth a perusal if you’re looking for short, bespoke courses to revitalise a broad range of creative and cultural practices).

We were introduced to theorists such as Donna Haraway, James Bridle, David Abram, Bruno Latour, Maria Puig Della Bellacasa, Anna Tsing to name but a few. Our horizons broadened and and deepened and any human-centric thinking utterly challenged. We were pushed out of our comfort zone in how we might deliver our responses in the very novel ‘classroom’ setting of the NCAD FIELD ( https://www.ncad.ie/about/ncad-field/ )

A photo diary, September 2023 to June 2024:

September: 'Blackberry Bleed' The outcome of the first module, an expression of Haraway's Tentacular Thinking inspired by the spread of the juice of the Blackberry along the fibres of absorbent paper. The lines/tentacles were continued into space and two small paintings installed in the FIELD were activated and connected by the joining of hands of those present.

October/November: A collaborative ritual with Sheila Jordan and Ursula Meehan. As the older, wiser(?) members of the group we created a ceremonial blessing based on the curative properties and folklore surrounding Bramble, Dock and Yarrow, a combination of the species we had each researched for the first module.

March/April: we presented our own project/site research the would be brought to fruition in the Capstone Module in June. I was drawn to the very special ecosystem of Inner Galway Bay through exploring the story of the last occupant of a derelict cottage overlooking the sea. This led me to the Oyster, an eco warrior, cleansing the waters and creating habitat and so important as a food source. The many ancient shell middens in this area attest to the millennia of human dependence on the sea and its bounty. My work honoured the oyster and Mick Silke, a ‘terrestrial’ (B. Latour), and his way of life. I brought oyster shell forms made in clay harvested from the Galway Bay Shore to the mineral-poor FIELD watering in the clay’s nourishment in the form of ‘Mick Silke’s Clay Shell Soup’.

Land/Marks at the National Design and Crafts Gallery!

I’m very excited that Land/Marks continues its journey to the National Design and Crafts Gallery.

You can take a look at my piece, Mouth to Mouth to Mouth, here: https://youtu.be/N8a3otrk7Y4

Mouth to Mouth to Mouth sound file

This soundtrack accompanies the mixed media piece to complete ‘Mouth to Mouth to Mouth’. It uses a recording from the early 1960s of my father, Paddy McLaughlin, singing the ‘Whiffenpoof Song’ made famous by Bing Crosby and a regular in my father’s repertoire. I have recorded layers of my own voice and sounds of domestic china to suggest the handing down of song within the family.

Land/Marks

The 2020 Ceramics Ireland Triennale, Land/Marks had its first installation at Farmleigh Gallery in the Phoenix Park, Dublin in August. My piece ‘Mouth to Mouth’ was created for it. Covid impacted on the run of the show and it closed after only a few weeks.
As the pandemic loosened its grip, Land/Marks took to the road again. This time a capsule of the original exhibition was installed at the Argilá Festival in Faenza, Italy in September 2022. Ireland was the invited nation at this major international cultural event. Our capsule exhibition was housed in a magnificent frescoed hall, meaning that wall-hung work had to be re-thought. I developed a free-standing expression of the original ‘Mouth to Mouth’ and titled it ‘Mouth to Mouth to Mouth’! I made use of mirrors to create an infinity box in which similar pairs of cup forms were reflected back and forth to make a ceramic ‘DNA’ strip. The sound file remained the same.
The next installation of Land/Marks is in the National Design and Craft Gallery in Kilkenny from mid-February 2023.

A Little Bit of Heaven at X-PO, Kilnaboy, Co Clare

I was delighted to get the opportunity to exhibit at the X-PO in association with Tom Flanagan’s fantastic Folk Radio project, which ran over the first two weeks of February 2020.

You can listen back here:
https://www.mixcloud.com/X_POFolkRadio/

I made a slide show which I hope gives a sense of the character of the venue , a great place for the work:
A Little Bit of Heaven

The Song and The Object

My current research interests span Anthropology- Material Culture, Social Psychology - Affect Theory and the Psychology of Music. I have always been drawn to objects that have had a life and so carry meaning and the hope of connection to those who have held them, owned them or simply occupied the same space as them.

I am a singer and wish to discover what the human voice, through song, can bring to the emotional resonances of my visual art practice. To that end I am exploring domestic Ceramics and Song, the sort of 'delph' and song I grew up with. I want to gain an understanding of how the visual artist uses commonly understood 'languages' to create emotive spaces through a deeper exploration of evocative, familiar objects and songs.