An exhibition of engaged arts-based research projects by MA Arts and Engagement (2023-2025)
Artist Statements:
Thomas Dowling:
Is this really it? Advertising, individualism and destructive growth-at-all-costs. Can we come up with another way of living in the world, and how do we achieve that? These are the questions Thomas is most concerned with in his work. Blending different art forms but mostly yapping away to an audience, Thomas is interested in exploring alternatives and acts of resistance against the late-capitalist hellscape we have been born to.
Sheila O’Callaghan
Sheila O’Callaghan is a visual artist based in Limerick, Ireland. My work primarily uses various mediums, with a strong emphasis on oils. Growing up in West Cork, amidst the area's natural beauty, has deepened my appreciation for folklore, nature, animals, and rural environments, all of which significantly influence my paintings.
I grew up surrounded by folklore stories about the "Apple Fairy Tree" on my family's farm in rural West Cork. These stories, rich with the superstitions passed down by the older generation, ignited my deep curiosity.
My work explores the question, “Can Fairy trees serve as a meaningful medium for exploring County Cork mythology, folklore and the connection to the land, through the collection and sharing of local stories” by using arts-based research methodologies with voluntary participants.
I have just completed an MA in Arts and Engagement at Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork.
Felix Power
“Where’s the I in Ireland?” is an ongoing project exploring personal experiences of place and Irishness. Setting aside any hopes of finding a universal answer or singular truth, this project asks questions such as; What places have shaped you? What makes you feel Irish? When do you feel most Irish? Who is Ireland to you? Can creativity unlock new ways of answering questions like these? By being ridiculous, can we come up with some seriously interesting answers?
Eileen O’Connor
I am interested in where art, knowledge and community intersect and in the web of interconnectivity and interdependence between communities and how the development, empowerment and liberation of the individual sits in all of that.
My interests and methodologies include dialogical aesthetics and art as research, especially the curation of slow art spaces and exploring ecologies of people.
Using a participatory art-based process to archive what is happening in public library maker-spaces, this research project explores the potential of the maker-space as a public sphere space that can act as an interchange for knowledge and transformative action.
The project propels a shift in the conversation away from logistics and equipment towards a discourse which foregrounds transformative potential.
This is achieved by bringing together a community of librarians and makers to explore this thesis in the setting of a public library maker-space where they collaborate as co-creators and arts-based researchers.
Valerie Haslam
Valerie is a is a multidisciplinary socially engaged artist, researcher, creative associate and graphic designer, passionate about everyday creativity and blending several practices together through arts, crafts and digital media.
Through forming a community and in developing a series of crafting workshops to artistically explore and determine can crafts evoke emotions for the participants in this research, a written, visual and dialectical record of intergenerational skill and knowledge sharing was developed. By handcrafting artefacts, encompassing the participants values, culture, traditions, and memories that preserves their heritage, a clear reciprocity of care was demonstrated. The MA in Arts and Engagement culminates with her research project reflecting on the outcomes and concepts discovered within the process of hand making artefacts.
When she is not engaging creatively with young people as a Creative Associate, she is a managing director of Schema Creative Limited, combining experience in design communications, eCommerce and project management, to provide specialised services for businesses.
Jacqueline MoreiraDaSilva
Memories of Skin. Bones. Heart. Body. is the coming together of the research project from the Brazilian emerging socially engaged artist, poet and performer Jacqueline Moreira da Silva.
Through the use of collaborative creative methods, the work explored women’s embodied memories as a subtle way of challenging the current societal disconnection from the self, from each other and from nature. The work is an invitation of discoveries, reflection and a closer look on memories held within.
Pili Loring
