Text/Textile is a one-day symposium taking place at the National College of Art and Design on October 25th 2024. We invite you to join us in thinking and making in response to the question “what happens when text production meets textile(s) production, and the etymology has to confront itself?” (Both ‘text’ and ‘textile’ come from the verb ‘to weave’ in Latin.) We take this common word-origin as a point of departure to explore themes of time, dailiness and in/visible labour alongside the role and place of literary and artistic process amidst situations of societal and environmental crisis.
Text/Textile will include talks from visual artists and writers whose practices incorporate both text and textiles; material workshops led by contemporary practitioners; a walking tour exploring the material heritage of Dublin’s Liberties via place names and local lore; and an exhibition of textile and text-based work at The Micro Gallery at the NCAD Library.
Contributors include: Sara Baume, Anne Boyer, Chloe Brenan, Áine Byrne, Tuqa Al Sarraj, Rachel Fallon, Anthony Freeman O’Brien, Cliona Harmey, Éireann Lorsung and The Liberties Weavers.
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TEXT/TEXTILE /////////////////
October 25, 2024 ////////////////
Harry Clarke Lecture Theatre ////////////////////////
National College of Art & Design, Dublin ///////////
100 Thomas Street, Dublin 8 ////////////
The Micro Gallery at The Edward Murphy Library is hosting an exhibition of works in association with Text / Textile.
Exhibition runs from 22.10.24 – 01.11.24 ////////////
Schedule:
9:30 Welcome, Harry Clarke Lecture Theatre (HCLT)
9:40 Helen McAllister, opening talk, HCLT
10:00 Guided/Self-guided tours, meet in NCAD Courtyard
Tours:
In Our Shoes walking tour of The Liberties with Anthony Freeman O'Brien (Robert Emmet CDP); Distillers Press with Jamie Murphy; NIVAL with Ruth Hallinan; The Micro Gallery at The Edward Murphy Library, NCAD with Leah Hilliard and Lena Willryd.
11:15 Refreshments, Foyer of Harry Clarke Hall
11:30 Keynote: Sara Baume talk, HCLT
Flags, sails, handkerchiefs and the blank page: An illustrated talk charting two decades of textile work, from the kinetic sculptures the artist made out of her old clothes in art school to the smaller, devotional pieces and gifts she has made on her sofa in recent years, as well as the cultural artefacts, domestic objects and personal events that have influenced them and the way in which they have variously informed – and been informed by – her writing practice.
12:30 Lunch break
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14:00 Workshops (locations vary; see program)
Workshop Artists: Rachel Fallon, Tuqa Al Sarraj, Sarah Moss, Áine Byrne, The Liberties Weavers, Chloe Brenan, Éireann Lorsung
15:30 Refreshments, Foyer of Harry Clarke Hall
17:30 Dinner break
19:30 Anne Boyer talk, HCLT
Thread and Calamity: This will be a talk about everyday art in the face of everyday calamity. How does resistance find its forms, and how can these forms create collective life? We will think about two quiet arts – poetry and needlecraft – in the context of industrial capitalist modernity, and look toward the intimate histories of handwork against the landscape of machines.
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Speaker Bios:
Anne Boyer is a poet, artist, and essayist. Her books include Garments Against Women and The Undying, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Originally from central Kansas, she now lives in Edinburgh and teaches writing at St. Andrews.
Sara Baume is the author of four books, the most recent of which is Seven Steeples. In 2023 she was named one of Granta magazines' ‘Best Young British Novelists.’ She lives in West Cork and works also as a visual artist.
Dr Helen McAllister is the Head of Applied Materials at NCAD. Her practice is rooted in Embroidery, that now positions the materiality and process in the Applied Arts. The practice has been a constant dialogue between the shoe–derived form, historical Venice, and the crafted artifact outcome. The work investigates notions of the narrative, symbolism and metaphor that are interdisciplinary within the maker discipline, through Design processes and thinking with that of Material Culture.
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Tour Guide Bios:
Anthony Freeman O Brien
Anthony Freeman O’Brien is a mixed-media artist and graduated from the Department of Sculpture and Expanded Practice. He runs 'In Our Shoes Walking Tours': a social enterprise initiative of Robert Emmet Community Development Project. He is also a beekeeper and regularly shares his knowledge with the local community.
Jamie Murphy
Jamie's research interests lie in the book arts, hand-composed typography and letterpress printed design. He actively searches out and documents practitioners in Ireland, UK and USA. His other interests lie in fine press publishing, typo/graphic design history and education, antiquarian and private press books, papermaking and fine binding. He is founder of The Salvage Press (thesalvagepress.com, est. 2012) a small imprint under which he collaborates with artists from diverse disciplines producing book projects which give particular attention to concept, materials and fine printing. He has been invited to exhibit, lecture, and discuss his work broadly. These award winning books reside in private, public and institutional collections across the globe.
Ruth Hallinan
Ruth Hallinan is the Assistant Manager of The National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL), a public research resource dedicated to the documentation of 20th and 21st century Irish visual art and design. NIVAL collects, stores, and makes accessible for research an unparalleled collection of documentation about Irish art in all media.
Lena Willryd
Lena Willryd is an artist and information worker at The Edward Murphy Library at NCAD. She holds a BFA and MFA in Fine Art (NCAD) and is the founder of The Micro Gallery.
Leah Hilliard
Leah is an artist, educator,researcher and cultural programmer. Her art practice is based in joyful performance and the power of conversation. She regularly exhibits and participates in research projects in Ireland and internationally. I am a lecturer in the Media Department in the School of Fine Art, NCAD, Dublin. She holds a BA from NCAD, and MSc in Multimedia Systems from TCD.
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Workshop Artist Bios:
Áine Byrne is interested in the mutability and memory of materials; their function, texture, colour and potential to be remade. Áine’s training as a weaver has given her a heightened appreciation of the process of making and the ritualistic nature of constructing a fabric. Rhythm, pattern and colour are recurring elements in her work. It investigates the reappropriation and reforming of materials, using the contrast between soft and hard, industrial and domestic, body and building. Her artworks like body architecture are often made to be animated by performance, dance and film; other objects have a life of their own, poised like creatures as if about to move of their own accord.
Tuqa Al Sarraj is a contemporary visual artist and filmmaker based at Flux Studios in Dublin. She studied Fine Art media at the National College of Art and Design (2021). Al Sarraj has also previously studied contemporary art at the International Academy of Art Palestine (IAAP), Ramallah (2017). Tuqa has exhibited as part of group exhibitions in various international cities, including Oslo, London, Ramallah, Creil, Dublin, Limerick, and Sligo. Her practice includes mixed-media, found objects, collage, photography, video, performance and installation. Al Sarraj navigates themes of memory, loss, and exile through social dialogues and personal conversations. She is a member of PalArt collective in London, and Angelica Network in Ireland.
Chloe Brenan (see bio below)
Sarah Moss writes fiction, memoir, essays and reviews. She has also been knitting, sewing and crocheting all her life, taught by her mother and grandmother who both also combined textual and textile interests, and she is increasingly fascinated by the relationships between art, craft, care and domestic work. She teaches in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin.
Rachel Fallon uses sculpture, drawing, photography and performance techniques to deal with themes of protection and defence in domestic realms, and address women’s relationships to society. Her most recent work, Jelen Vangyk / I Am Present, is a collaborative performance-based piece relating to queer and female representation in public spaces
Éireann Lorsung (see bio below)
The Liberties Weavers is a project honouring the textile heritage of The Liberties. They aim to breathe new life into the 1000 years of history, weaving and textile production in the Liberties, Dublin. They aim to do this by organising weaving classes, community based workshops (online and face-to-face), exhibitions and historical lectures for local residents and visitors to Dublin 8.
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Text / Textile Exhibition at The Micro Gallery - Artists:
Sara Baume
Chloe Brenan
Karen Browett
Áine Byrne
Simon Cutts
Ian Davidson
Sarah Edmondson
Hazel Egan
Cliona Harmey
Leah Hilliard
India Johnson
Éireann Lorsung
Helen MacAllister
Claire McCluskey
Olivia Normile
Lena Willryd
The Liberties Weavers
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Text/Textile Team:
Ilaria Botros, Hazel Egan, Siofra Egan, Nicole Holbrook, Olivia Normile, Jennifer O’Brien
Text/Textile is co-convened by artist-educators Chloe Brenan, Cliona Harmey and Éireann Lorsung.
Chloe Brenan is a visual artist working across the languages of motion film, photography and printed matter and ephemera. Her work is attentive to the poetic haptics of daily life and involves close attention to subjects and processes on the edge of perception that call into question boundaries between bodies, environments and wider structures of power. She teaches in the Department of Sculpture and Expanded Practice at NCAD and regularly contributes to the NCAD Access Programme.
Cliona Harmey teaches in the NCAD Media Dept and works primarily with technology, subtly exploring the politics inherent in both contemporary and historical socio-technical systems. She uses material exploration and hands-on artistic practice to explore their materiality and logics. She has worked with text at a variety of scales from large scale public art works (Dublin Ships) to automated and ephemeral system based works/publications for gallery and other contexts.
Éireann Lorsung is the author of The Century, winner of the 2021 Maine Literary Award, as well as two previous collections of poems: Her book and Music for Landing Planes By, which was named a New and Noteworthy collection by Poets & Writers. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing with a minor in Studio Art from the University of Minnesota, a PhD in Critical Theory from the University of Nottingham, and a Certificate in Art & Ecology from NCAD. She teaches in the Mary Lavin Centre for Creative Writing in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin.
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Text/Textile is fiunded by NCAD SATLE (Strategic Alignment of Teaching & Learning Enhancement), and co-funded by the NCAD Research Office.
Flyer image credit: India Johnson, self-describing texts, Approx. 12″ squaretypewriter on cotton muslin 2023
