Emma Hurson, For Oh For: An Archive. Research presentation at IMMA Studios, April 2024.

Ten current ARC researchers presented their ongoing research at IMMA Studios on 25 April 2024, including presentations, displays of work in progress and participatory performances. Displays included an update on the repurposing of a nineteenth century railway cottage as a space for art and music; fragments of an immersive fantasy world to be created through large-scale painting; triangulations of heritage, citizenship and intercultural experience; visualisations of vulnerability; an investigation into oyster shells and post-colonial histories; a study of traditional lacquer art in Vietnam; a sculptural exploration of organic materials and memory narratives; and a curatorial research project focusing on vacancy in Dublin city. Performances explored potential connections between experimental cinema and circus, and the construction of a physical archive of queerness in contemporary Ireland.

Emma Hurson is a practitioner from Monaghan, currently based in Dublin.
For Oh For:  An Archive.
Their work is a curated archive titled ‘For Oh For’*. It is an intimate exploration and an active effort to document their social life and community in the digital age, characterised by the ephemerality of both. They then project these connections back onto the physical locations of Monaghan, Dublin, and London.
It’s a time capsule. Something to make to remember.
It’s a failsafe. Something to remember to make.

* A 404 error occurs when the URL requested by a user cannot be located on the server’s filesystem or was deleted from it without any redirects created for it.

Ariadna Quintanar wants to research how to visually portray vulnerability. She is creating different artworks that reflect her journey as a vulnerable being, she is especially interested in the tolls that SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) have on the body and how they change the sensations medicated people have.

Clara Mcsweeney is a curator and artist from Co Cork now based in Dublin. She is the 2023/2024 ARC-LAB Curatorial Scholar. Alongside completing this Masters, she also works part-time under Julia Moustacchi and Liz Coman in the LAB Gallery and Dublin City Arts Office.  She is investigating various forms of vacancy in Dublin City seeking to understand the underlying causes. Curatorially she wishes to facilitate artist interventions in these spaces outside a conventional gallery setting. Clara wishes to make her curatorial process and research visible through audio-visual mapping techniques. She is working towards curating a group exhibition in the LAB Gallery in March 2025.

Eileen Coll’s work is about memory and materials and their representation. She is based in Gorey Co Wexford and is a contemporary sculptor who primarily utilises found materials in her work.  Through her sculpture, Coll seeks to explore and respond to the often awkward and difficult topics of grief, and human vulnerability. By repurposing materials, she creates poignant and thought-provoking pieces that challenge viewers to confront these universal experiences.  Her work serves as a reminder through the unique blend of craftsmanship and emotive storytelling and invites viewers to engage in a contemplative dialogue about navigating the fragility of our existence.

Luke Brabazon is workshopping the development of his cottage into a venue for arts events bringing communities together. Growing Space is a rural embedded arts participation project at a Railway Cottage near Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, in early development. Hosting monthly Sunday afternoon music and arts events as well as functioning as the home of curator Luke Brabazon, it will be a gathering place for communities of interest and place, facilitating creative expressions. Growing Space is an experiment in designing spaces collaboratively, following the tradition of Meitheal, with workshops in sustainable crafts, and activities that bring the community together around the fire.

Katie O’Hara fully embraces the art of fantasy world building as a major component of her work, creating unique creatures and environments. She uses gouache and watercolor to paint vibrant snapshots of these imaginative entities and combines the visuals with text that provide context and further the narratives. In addition, she is making steps towards developing ways in which she can bridge the gap between fantasy and reality by incorporating a minor element of stage set design in the form of props that pull the painting off the page.

Myfanwy Frost-Jones‘ work focuses on histories, mythologies and invasive species in the Irish landscape. Building upon previous work, and drawing on personal experiences of oyster farming, this work looks at the histories of famine, farming and land ownership around her home in the west of Ireland. Átha is a video piece looking at the landscape of the Beara Peninsula through the lens of the pre-Christian divine figure of the Cailleach Beara and industrialist Cromwellian economist and colonizer, William Petty. Expanding on perceptions of time and the histories of place, this work continues to recontextualize the current invasion of feral Pacific oysters.

Thaís Muniz is a visual artist interested in exploring the connections between inherited and acquired identities, memory, and inward love. Since 2022, she has been investigating mental health, displacement, and nature through her research project called New Atlantic Triangulations. Muniz, a Brazilian woman of Central & West African heritage who acquired Irish citizenship, examines the many layers of power and trauma that link the cosmologies of Brazil, West & Central Africa, and Ireland, using them as tools for personal and collective healing. She is developing a body of work for a solo exhibition using textiles, group workshops, and metal to create objects, sculptures, installations, performances, photographs, and a film. Through this work, Muniz proposes to reimagine realities through refusal, dreaming, and personal magic.

Thomas Marciano is a film director based in Italy and Erasmus Student for the second Term of the ARC-Programme. For this Research Event he displaces cinema into a circus tent, questioning the origins of the medium and re-imagining potential future directions. The protagonists of his upcoming short film translate their emotions directly into sound and movement. In the same way this research builds an intuitive bridge between the very source of film characters and the final screening. An attempt to soften the barrier between the projection and its audience, using the volatility of the current moment.

Van Tran, who has experience in Vietnamese traditional lacquer, is interested in reflecting on the medium from an outsider’s perspective—refiguring his enthusiasm for this distinct practice in a contemporary context, where he dissects its content into more transparent and potent storytelling.