About

The Learning Development Programme 2010 provides the opportunity for third year students from the Fine Art Department of the National College of Art & Design (NCAD), Institute of Art, Design & Technology – Dun Laoghaire and New York University Tisch School of the Arts to engage in a supported experience of collaborative arts practice.

Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts, manages the Learning Development Programme.  Create’s services are designed to provide advice and support to artist and arts organisations working collaboratively with communities of place and/or interest.

The students will be from a broad range of arts based disciplines and will engage with a community group using their creative tools and will apply their contemporary arts practice in-order to collaborate with the group.  The students will lead and encourage participation towards a creative outcome, product or action.  This process and end-product will be decided upon by the students in collaboration with the group.

From Context to Exhibition

Commerical

Watch the commercial the Go Fish Collective made to promote their exhibition opening on May 19th!

Screening of “Every Site and Every Sound”

This is the screening of the video piece Every Site and Every Sound at NCAD.

Dinner Party

The hard of hearing collective group expressed many concerns they’ve had about being in certain social circumstances. Problems they encountered were talking on the telephone, lack of loop systems, lack of training in organizations involving hearing impairments. hearing tests through glass, super markets, restaurants, and parties. We wanted to combine the societal issues they face with wider social issues. `the common theme was communicating in large social settings, this led to the idea of having a dinner party.

We spent 2 group meetings developing this idea. What emerged was “Defragmentieriung”. This is german for defragmentation. As a group we decided on codes of practice to be observed at this dinner party. All those participating in the live performance could only communicate through a chat room, while at a dinner party. Throughout the piece certain aspects of the piece were interrupted by outside elements causing the piece to go even further. This live installation was performed on Tuesday, April 27th at the 474 m2 exhibition space.

Three courses occurred, as 8 people were ushered to the table to partake in the piece. During their interactions at the table, the remaining audience observed the dialogue by watching the Skype conversation that was projected onto a wall. Disjointed conversations about communication were integrated into the dialogue by people from the hard of hearing group who were placed at the table.

In our piece two ideas are at the forefront. The issues of the hard of hearing are tied with the issues of our  voluntarily impotent society.

Dancing with the Elderly

While working with our group the initial idea was to focus on the idea of routine, as many of the members would have experienced quite a few different ones throughout their life. This led to the topic of dancing, how many forms of dance, such as ballroom and line, are no longer common among our generation but were a part of everyday life for the group members. Death and humour also seemed to be a regular topic among the group. Hearing their funny anecdotes and jokes around death was surprising to us, because it showed how comfortable they were with the topic, while to us it was slightly taboo. With this type of dancing undergoing a social death of its own we decided to tie both audio of death stories and video piece of dances together.

National Rehabilitation Hospital Exhibition

Through Rain and Anna’s six week collaboration with the patients in the National Rehabilitation Hospital there has been a large amount of artwork created by members of the group. This work included photography, prints, paintings, film, a sound installation, and a printed perspex installation, and was shown at an exhibition on Tuesday April 21st in the hospital. The exhibition was opened by the minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, Mary Hanafin and was a great success for all of the participants involved. A large printed perspex group piece was donated by the patients to the NRH.

Language and Perception

Kerry and Sandra are working in collaboration with eachother and a group of blind andvisually impaired people who attend The Iona Centre, a day activity center run by NCBI.We are exploring the links and fissures between sight, perception, language and sound. By engaging with the group in activities that are based on a sound or description of a visual we hope to understand better the visual world and the language we use to describe it. From the onset the group had a keen interest in film and cinema so we decided to compile a visual bank of images and sounds and later edit it together into a short video piece. Our aim was to gain each individuals perspective on their surroundings and their own experiences of their worlds and the technologies in place that
aim to aid their perception of a visual form.

Our final product, the visuals being photographs taken by the group and the sound a mixture of actual sounds overlaid with words used to describe the sound, is an experimental piece highlighting language and its attempt to evoke a true experience of reality.

Daily Routine Photography

Members of the group of older people working with Hazel and Colette took photographs documenting their daily routines on disposable cameras. This was intended to help form a picture of the way one’s routine changes throughout a lifetime, and how an identity such as a trade or family position can define a person’s routine and identity for many years.

Drag Transformation- Ciaran to Blathnaid Mcgee

On april 20^th we got to watch our generous member of the drag community Ciaran transform into his drag persona Blathnaid Mcgee as he got ready for his performance that night at Pantibar.

Foundation and eyebrow wax

Full coverage foundation is key

The eyebrows re-appear

Eye shadow detailing and mascara

Blush, contouring, and lip liner (always put on before lipstick to keep lip colour on for the full night)

Ready for the performance

Audio Description

This is the route we chose for our tour of the National Gallery with our group from the Iona Center. The aim was to navigate the paintings using the audio description devices offered by the gallery and to gain an individual perspective on this service. We listened to the descriptions of certain paintings, and also gave our own descriptions for each. It was an interesting exercise in personal and impersonal description and the language used to describe the visual imagery.

Painting to Sound, Describing a Visual

We played sounds pre-recorded from certain locations, such as a bus stop or a park, to the group at the Iona Center. The group painted what they imagined the space around the sounds to look like. This allowed the sounds to shape the visual, creating a personal interpretation of each place. Afterwards we all described our paintings in as much detail as possible.

“There is a forest and it is at night time, it is dark but there is moonlight shining on leaves and branches of the trees”- Lutello (a group member)

Drag transformation-Patrick

On our April 13^th meeting with our drag friend Kiaron (drag name Blathnaid Mcgee) we  explored a drag transformation on Patrick. Kiaron helped with the makeup (eyebrows are very tricky.) And here’s what happened…

My eyebrows are stuck down with eyebrow wax. After they dried foundation was applied to the face and eyebrows.

we had to go outside as there is much powder needed to set the foundation, hence me looking absolutely insane

The higher and mightier tranny eyebrows are added on

Eyes, blush, and contouring.

The trannysformation is complete!

The full look

The funs over time to peel off the eyebrows

and it all comes off

The thing I found out about Reality and Fiction

A preview of stills…

Seeing Beyond Sight

Kerry and Sandra are working with a group at the Iona Center, a day activity center run by NCBI for the  blind and visually impaired. They are using mediums such as photography, painting and sound with the group to explore links between sight, perception, description and translation. They meet regularly and are working collaboratively towards the exhibition in May. This is a photo taken by a visually impaired teenager in a photography project for Seeing Beyond Sight – undertaken by Tony Deifell. Please click the photo below to visit their site.

The Entry

I think I might have a chance finding out the truth about the realness in gangster movies. I had a possibility to send in scenes from movies into prison and to ask their opinion.

Don’t have an answer yet. Jeo.

New Perspective

The Botanical Gardens by Martin, a member of the group working with Kerry and Sandra from the Iona Center.

Each member of the group took a series of photographs of places that are important to them. Martin’s vision for this project was to capture the shape and essence of the many different kinds of trees in the Botanical Gardens.

Traditional Mediums

Raine and Anna are continuing their work with a group at the National Rehabilitation Hospital. Together they have been exploring traditional visual art mediums such as printmaking, drawing and painting. The participants change from week to week but the work from previous participants is incorporated into work by new members in order to keep up a collaborative dialogue between every group. This week the photography from week one was used in drawings, mono-prints and watercolour paintings by the participants. The mono printing will continue in further weeks on perspex panels to create one large group work.

Raine and Anna are continuing their work with a group at the National
Rehabilitation Hospital. Together they have been exploring traditional
visual art mediums such as printmaking, drawing and painting. The
participants change from week to week but the work from previous
participants is incorporated into work by new members in order to keep
up a collaborative dialogue between every group. This week the
photography from week one was used in drawings, mono-prints and
watercolour paintings by the participants. The mono printing will
continue in further weeks on perspex panels to create one large group
work.

Alternative Miss Ireland

As part of the research on their chosen community of Drag Queens Paul and Patrick went to see the much-anticipated Alternative Miss Ireland competition. Our community helper Blathnaid Mcgee appeared as a contestant and we got to see some amazing performances. Jesus on a crucifix wearing a leather jockstrap, priests with leashes and much much more.

Contenstant (and second runner-up) Opus Gei performing "Like a Prayer"

Alternative Miss Ireland judge Le Gateau Chocolat performs Nothing Compares 2 U

The opening tableau for the gay jesus performance

The crucifiction of gay jesus while the chorus sung "Crucify" by Tori Amos adding a mash-up with "Let the Sunshine In"

Our helper Blathnaid Mcgee performing in the competition

Socialising of Rules

Below is a photo of our group dialogue regarding our causes and ways these could be engaged with. On the board, proposals such as subverting a radio station talk programme, by phoning in and having numerous people talking at the same time. Or in alternatively creating a totally irrelevant side of the conversation from the talk show host. Idea 4 on the whiteboard was to subvert the healthcare waiting room at ENT in the hospital. Perhaps by use of video or sound. Disrupting and highlighting the usually difficult environment for hard of hearing people. Below is our conclusion, which will developed over the next three weeks and concluded at the end of this time.

We the Hard of Hearing Creative Activist group (HHCAG), are designing and conducting a social interaction. This, at this stage of development, will take the form of a dinner party – a dinner party though, with control mechanisms and rules. The form of these rules will be dictated and constructed, based on the assertion by the HHCAG that “I need to see your face”. So perhaps in this dinner party, everyone has their back to one another. Or can only communicate through pyrex glass. Or via Facebook, text, fax, Chat room. These formations are yet to be formalised. This social piece relates to the aim that Colleen and Iain set, which was to explore different forms communication.

Speech and Visuals

See some of Iain’s research regarding the relationship between speech and visuals.  Iain may as an exercise, used the following snippets from DVDs with the sound turned off and asked people from the group to improvise on the spot to create an alternative story line.  Creating different vocals and a new narrative.

Der Lauf der Dinge

Raine and Anna displayed the photography taken by the group in week one and opened up a discussion about the work.They all then watched Der Lauf der Dinge, a 1987 art film by the Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss before making a video of their own in the same style. The members of the group created their own causal chains of everyday objects from around the Occupational Therapy room and filmed them in action. The individual pieces were then edited together to form a collaborative film.

Me Trying to Act Tough

The beginning of my research in Gangster movies

On one of the first days in Dublin. I saw the new Guy Richie movie; ‘Sherlock Holmes’ as I expected it was full of slick moves and nice qoutes.

Thing is I am really sensitive for movie moods. The streets in Dublin were even more tempting for this tough feeling. The roughness of Dublin gave me the feeling being part of an unending gangsterscene.

3 stills of me acting tough that raise the question why I look more like Madonna then the though personality I imagine I was while recording myself..

Second Creative Group meeting

Below are photos of our group making film dubbing pieces. Together we are exploring the theme of communication. Our group, being a group of Hard of hearing people, have a particular take on communication. The idea of visuals and audio are disjointed. By taking two films, and creating an alternative storyline we negotiated these issues. This core intrest in communication will be explored further in the following meetings