ddresses contemporary and historical violence, human rights, and institutional abuses. In recent years, his focus has expanded to include an exploration of individual and collective perpetrator trauma and, in 2022, he received a PhD at Ulster University for research on Performance Art from Ireland and Perpetrator Trauma.
This is one of six project awards commissioned as part of BUILDING AS WITNESS and supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012 - 2023.
Dominic Thorpe Research, 2023 © the artist
JAN McCULLOUGH: Night Class
13 April - 3 June
Jan McCullough’s work concentrates on how the invisible labour and the evocative gestures of ordinary people, the objects and goods they produce, and the everyday spaces where they work, can be represented within and outside of the institution.
Presented at a pivotal time before the building undergoes a period of extensive renovation, McCullough will create photographs and site-specific sculpture from her research into the history of Crawford Art Gallery. The project will respond to how acts of labour and the people who perform it are intertwined with the building’s fabric.
Jan McCullough Research (2023) © the artist
CURTIN // KEATING: Sit Stand Smoke
Linda Curtin and David Keating’s SIT STAND SMOKE is a brief adventure in a virtual reality (VR) experience with art historian Éimear O’Connor giving insights to the characters that appear in Seán Keating’s iconic painting Men of the South (1921 - 1922).
Eventually, Keating himself shows up with his own view on proceedings. Often considered a traditionalist, the artist seems unexpectedly curious about the new technology on display.
Funny, surprising, and presenting more than the occasional contradiction - one might be reminded of Seán Keating’s own personality, and of his passions and obsessions.
Curtin and Keating Sit Stand Smoke (Hero), 2023 © the artists
TEELING AND TAYLOR: in the glow of a frozen flame
Printed publication available in the gallery and online version via website.
This collaborative project between visual artist, Brian Teeling and arts writer, Jennie Taylor explores Crawford Art Gallery’s buildings and its immediate surroundings through a printed publication which is populated by photographic images and pieces of flash fiction. Capturing and entangling a stillness as a witnessing object and the frantic movements of a living gaze, in this publication time fictionally folds and collapses to bring details from 1921-1924 into a dislocated moment.
Teeling and Taylor’s work is drawn from research of the buildings’ architectural features, the permanent display in the Sculpture Galleries, a selection of buildings located in Emmett Place, events that occurred and were visible from the Gallery during 1921-1924 and the lives of local artisans from the same period.
Teeling and Taylor in the glow of a frozen flame © Brian Teeling
URSULA BURKE: These Fragile Monuments
Ursula Burke will create a tapestry frieze which investigates Irish historical, art historical and contemporary representations of guerrilla warfare. The tapestry is inspired by the work of Norwegian tapestry artist Hannah Ryggen (1894-1970) who made a series of powerful tapestries representing images of resistance and highlighting the brutality of Nazi occupied Norway during World War II. The artist has invited Ukrainian weaver Zhanna Petrenko to weave the tapestry, creating a thread between two countries and periods of time - Ireland and Ukraine, both suffering oppression at the hands of a more powerful neighbour and both having common experiences of the devastating effects of famine.
Burke will also create a sculpture of a battle - bruised dog modelled on ‘The Jennings Dog’ - a Greek bronze from the 2nd century CE - which will be covered in hand embroidered flames emblematic of all the houses and commercial premises that were burnt out by the Black and Tans.
Ursula Burke Work in Progress (2023) © the artist
In Conversation: Ursula Burke and Edwin Coomasaru
Details to follow...