TULCA Festival of Visual Arts and Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture in association with The Dock present:
THREADS | Austin Ivers
Curated by Sarah Searson
The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon
14 November 2020 - 6 March 2021
To mark its 18th year, TULCA has invited three alumni curators: Sarah Searson (The Dock, Leitrim), Gregory McCartney (Abridged, Derry) and Helen Carey (Fire Station Artists’ Studios) to curate a series of exhibitions as part of the festivals UnSelfing Programme for Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture.
THREADS curated by Sarah Searson presents a new body of work by Galway-based artist Austin Ivers. The exhibition launches on Saturday 14th November with a filmed, virtual tour, including contributions from curator Sarah Searson and artist Austin Ivers. The exhibition consists of a new multi screen video work titled The World at War, photography and installed objects, along with a programme of screenings, readings and a publication to document these events. In the event of restrictions being lifted, the exhibition will open to the public.
Ivers works in a variety of media, including, video, photography and installation. He has exhibited extensively including several solo shows in Ireland and group exhibitions in 126 Artist-Run Gallery Galway, RHA Dublin, Catalyst Arts Belfast, as well as Graz, Kiev, Philadelphia and Friedrichshafen. Ivers teaches at Galway Mayo Institute of Technology and was a founder member of 126 Artist-Run Gallery in Galway.
Referencing the 1983 documentary-style drama, Austin Ivers considers some technological developments of the post-war period and their subsequent application in state command and control systems during the Cold War. Utilising video, sculpture and photography, this is a consideration of the relationship between the aesthetic of power and life as experienced under the perpetual threat of nuclear annihilation.
Speaking about this new body of work, Ivers said, “As an adolescent, the world appeared to be perpetually teetering on collapse. Nihilistic popular culture, aided by actual events, promised the end of everything, all the time. Obviously, this was facilitated to no small degree by the emergence of domestic VHS technology. Much like contemporary parents are scared stupid by the internet and the access (and understanding) their children have to it, my generation had video, “under the counter” tapes, video nasties and the world of cheap-to-licence B-movies (as well as art classics) at our disposal. We were obviously in a demented frenzy as we had equal access to The Hills Have Eyes, THX 1138, Eraserhead, The Omega Man, Soylent Green, Zardoz, A Boy and His Dog, Logans Run, Damnation Alley, Dawn of the Dead, Alien, Blade Runner, Terminator, Brazil, etc... and we were still asked to program the video recorder, which was like magic to our parents.
The above are reference points. My sense of these times is that objects will not survive the common cultural memory but instead images will: children won’t remember their phones, as they’re almost disposable now but they will remember their apps, their skins. Things, actual things are now disposable and the value that might once have been in a cassette or a book or a garment is now located in a string of curated experiences. But much of me and my sense of being in the world (and interpreting the world) is located in objects. Not for (or from) memory but in an ongoing now.”
Speaking about this exhibition the TULCA Board of Directors said, “Focussing on identity as brokered through objects; the really real, presents a refreshing tonic to our own increasingly unreal and hyperreal contemporary moment. Having created a space that shelters emerging art practices in Galway, we are excited that our UnSelfing programme can be shared with national and international audiences in this exhibition by Austin Ivers, carefully curated by Sarah Searson.”
Head of Programme for Galway 2020, Marilyn Gaughan-Reddan said, “Galway 2020 are delighted to partner with TULCA Festival of Visual Arts UnSelfing, an inspiring programme of exhibitions, performances and encounters with visual art taking place in Galway and across Ireland throughout 2020 and into 2021. As part of the UnSelfing programme, Austin Ivers will be presenting THREADS, an insightful body of work and one which we are delighted to share with our audiences.”
THREADS opens this Saturday 14 November and runs until 6 March 2021 in The Dock Arts Centre, Carrick-on-Shannon. In the event of restrictions being lifted, the exhibition will open to the public.
Exhibition Associated Events: New Writing Commissions
Ian Maleney | Patterns in The Sand
24/11/2020
Ian Maleney is a writer based in Dublin. Born and raised in Co. Offaly. His first book, a collection of essays entitled Minor Monuments, was published in 2019 by Tramp Press and shortlisted for the Michel Deon Prize and Butler Literary Award. He received the Arts Council Next Generation Bursary for Literature in 2019. He is the online editor of the Stinging Fly. His work has been published in The Guardian, Esquire, and the New Statesman Winter Papers, gorse, and the Dublin Review. He is the founder of Fallow Media, an interdisciplinary publication for music, photography, and long-form writing.
Joanne Laws | The Passing of a Shadow
01/12/2020
Joanne Laws is an arts writer, editor and researcher based in County Roscommon. She is Features Editor of The Visual Artists’ News Sheet, where she commissions new writing for an Irish arts readership. Joanne is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) and a regular contributor to international art publications, including Art Monthly and Frieze. She is Assistant Editor of Protest! - the monograph of Derek Jarman - published in April 2020 by the Irish Museum of Modern Art in partnership with Manchester Art Gallery and Thames & Hudson. She was Arts Writer in Residence at The Dock from 2017 to 2020.
Cathy Sweeney | Looping in Time
08/12/2020
Cathy Sweeney is a writer living in Dublin. Her short fiction has been published in The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review, Egress, Winter Papers, Banshee, The Tangerine and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her debut short story collection Modern Times will be published by The Stinging Fly and Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2020. She is at work on a novel.
Patrick McCabe | Off The Shoulder of Skibbereen
15/12/2020
Patrick McCabe was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland, in 1955. Shortlisted twice for the Man Booker Prize and winner of the Irish Times Fiction Award for The Butcher Boy, his other novels include The Dead School, Breakfast on Pluto, Winterwood and Heartland. He has also written for radio, stage and screen and is a member of Aosdána.
Image: Austin Ivers, HP85a, dye sublimation print on aluminium (2020), courtesy of artist