The new Digital Artist Residency Exchange, supported by the University of Galway, Virginia Tech, Solus Nua, and TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, is a new initiative in its pilot year. This programme aims to foster collaboration among artists, promote digital art practices, and encourage cross-cultural exchanges.
TULCA have selected artists Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty for the first iteration of the residency exchange in the USA. Chelsea Thompto will be travelling to Ireland this November and developing work with the Centre for Creative Technologies in the University of Galway.
Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty are dynamic collaborative artists whose practice navigates the rich landscapes of performance, video, sound installation, and storytelling. Operating between Sligo and Leitrim in Ireland, their work focuses on themes of transience and resistance, aiming to forge a new narrative identity for Ireland. By confronting historical struggles and acknowledging complicities, they promote a vision of solidarity.
Their latest project, A Collection of Disarticulated Bones, is an ambitious long-term research endeavour that explores foundational myths of the Global North across various contexts—institutional, pop cultural, and embodied. This project critically examines how the choices surrounding preservation and presentation influence both national and personal identities, particularly against the backdrop of imperialism, late capitalism, and rising ethno-nationalism.
Supported by Askeaton Contemporary Arts, Project Arts Centre, and the Arts Council of Ireland, A Collection of Disarticulated Bones will take the form of an audiovisual performance as it tours to the Virginia Tech New Music + Technology Festival and the Solas Nua organisation in Washington D.C. in Fall 2024. Additionally, it will feature as an off-site exhibition at the Galway City Museum during TULCA Festival of Visual Arts in November 2024, curated by Michele Horrigan. This project not only engages with the complexities of identity but also invites audiences to reflect on the narratives that shape our understanding of history and community.
Photo: Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty, courtesy the artists