MTU Gallery at 46 Grand Parade 

Open:  6 – 20 February 11am - 4pm Mon – Fri  

Opening Reception: Wednesday 5th February 6-8pm, with opening address by: 

Professor Alistair Payne PhD, Dean of the Faculty of Creative and Performing Arts and Media MTU 

Embodying Archives is an exhibition of artwork / research practice by staff who work within the Department of Arts in Health & Education, MTU CCAD Grand Parade campus. It is a mixture of process-driven and mixed-media pieces which explore a variety of subjects including; emotions and the senses, storytelling, cultural inclusion and engagement, memory and nostalgia, navigating grief; celebration of nature and what it means to be part of a creative community of staff and students. 

The unified voice within this exhibition was not presupposed by an over-arching curatorial voice. Instead, a commonality emerged through each staff members articulation of the issues and themes that motivates and inspires their practice. It was illuminating -and perhaps somewhat surprising – that those connections manifested without script or manifesto. A unifying sense of mission and purpose came from shared sensibilities, united by a desire to support learning and empowerment of the many students who engage with staff across the department. The range of creative work in part reflects the wide variety of programs and courses that staff deliver; Masters in Art Therapy, Professional Master of Education, Masters in Arts and Engagement, Creativity and Change, as well as other community-based initiatives and projects. 

Therein, the value of connecting to narratives that delve into personal (and shared histories) emanated from finding meaning within an evocative image, space or object – the process of gathering, selecting, layering and tapping into archives of experience and memory - were therefore, already at hand. Each individual has a distinct voice, linked by this common purpose where art and creativity is not seen through the lens of technical skill or an intellectual polemic – but rather, a tacit acknowledgment that the past, present and future are interconnected and remind that more connects, than divides us.  

About the artists’ work:

Marianne Adams’ book and image are an exploration of land, shoreline and water, that tracks the structure and texture of life’s journey. The text weaves a mythopoetic biography, illustrating our yearning for connection with others, with ourselves, with the flow of life and, how these ‘dynamic geographies’ alchemise each other. Let go of who you think you are, what you think you know. Dip into the text, paddle or immerse yourself more deeply, and see what stirs.

Chriszine Backhouse’s film ‘Rising Voices’ captures a performance by Elevate Youth, which was a collaboration between the Irish Refugee Council and Creativity and Change. The young people explored the theme of power and conflict through spoken word poetry, dance and music. The piece was performed at the Cork Midsummer Festival, Electric Picnic and in Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin. It was funded by Irish Aid, Creative Ireland, and the Communities Integration fund.

Aideen Cooney uses poetry, film, images and installation to look at the invisible threads of connection and meaning making - an archive of remembering, dreaming, gathering and layering of what was, with what is.

Emma Cubitt explores themes of fragility, emotion and memory through acrylic and charcoal portraits and still life. Reflecting a personal narrative on moments of time, the inevitable commonality of the passing of time, and how the learning and creative community can respond.

Mark Ewart’s mixed media artworks were created by reappropriating paintings and drawings created in 1993. An archival throughline links memory, identity and stories of wartime experience and the indoctrination of conflict. The work is about the passage of time, dislocation and intergenerational regret. Collaboration within a school setting partly inspired the act of looking at old artwork with new eyes, with the aim of enhancing its meaning and relevance.

Louise Foott’s large drawing and film looks at the arts within wellbeing for her Professional Doctorate. The research is incorporating arts-based methods to collect data, but also to process thoughts and ideas exploring the role of embodied learning in research. The senses, emotions and personal narrative are involved in all meaning-making. Can we learn through our bodies and look with our hearts?

Eimear McNally’s ‘Pause Explore Flourish’ collaboration is a participatory installation that invites the visitor to experience an embodied moment while connecting with their own creativity. It seeks to nurture wellbeing through engagement in creative processes of reading, making, listening or writing. The project was coordinated by Jess Marbe in collaboration with MTU CCAD students, Úna FitzGerald, Paula Mongey, Laura Hedderman, Gala Tomasso, Rachel Lartey, Kay O’Donoghue, Valerie Dunne. Illustrations are by Eimear McNally.

Jess Marbe was a creative collaborator with her husband Hermann before his death in 2018. This collaboration continues in new forms since his death, through the establishment of The Slow Camera Borrowing library, workshop programmes and now through the creation of a living photographic archive. In the work presented here she explores the theme of what it means to co-author work after the death of one partner in the authorship. It reaches for new visual and intuitive dialogue. It demonstrates how you can stitch together then and now, how you don’t always have to fill in gaps, how you can carry the imagination over to a new time.                          

Aoife Ní Labhradha’s ‘Ar Imeall Cumha’, is an installation of found objects, felted pieces and paintings. It explores the navigation of grief through a creative and collaborative journey into the archives of memory, meaning and connection, tracing the elements of what is seen and unseen.

Avril O’Brien Inspired by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s ‘The Red Shoes’ (1948), this work explores the compelling nature of artmaking. Partially a manifesto, the work is a call to Art using mixed media/textiles; charcoal and pencil on paper Installation.

Helen O’Keeffe’s immersive and interactive installation ‘Mixtapes’, connects culture and community. This is part of an Arts Council-funded wider research piece looking at the immense potential of hip-hop practices to engage, include and empower young people and to break down institutional barriers and strengthen bonds. Gallery visitors are welcome to enter, play, create and record their voice to the conversation.  Artists and participants are invited to collaborate and explore pop-ups in the micro-gallery space.

Catherine Phillips ‘Past is Present’ is a mixed media piece of current work using charcoal, ink, pencil, chalk and collage. It explores and plays with the transformation of past experiences into the present moments within the making of the image.

Grainne Young’s ‘Pathways to Mother’ is a silent film documenting a sensory and sometimes clumsy walking meditation through various earth terrains.  Gráinne's driving force for this process embodies a prayer to connect with her ‘ecological self’: the desire to identify with other living beings, widen and deepen her sense of who she is while in relationship with Mother Earth.