Shifting Ground
New Perspectives on Art and Rural Culture
International conference and on-site symposium
Dates: October 19th, 20th, 21st
Venue: Glor, Ennis, Co. Clare, Ireland
Organisations: Clare County Arts Office and
Galway Mayo Institute of Technology
supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.
Contact: Siobhán Mulcahy or Fiona Woods
arts@clarelibrary.ie
www.shiftingground.net
Shifting Ground – New Perspectives on Art and Rural Culture is a conference and on-site symposium over two and a half days that seeks to address the need to develop new approaches to Public Art specifically for rural communities. The conference will cover aspects of vernacular rural culture, contemporary art practice and art theory. The second day of the conference takes the form of a tour to Rural Vernacular, a programme of specially commissioned, temporary, public artworks located in rural Clare, for an on-site symposium with the artists.
Issues and questions likely to be addressed by the conference include: How does the post-agricultural economy affect the cultural life of rural communities? How can contemporary artists engage with rural communities and vernacular rural culture? How can contemporary artists bring to light the fault-lines that exist in the rural context? Does the key to maintaining the fabric of rural communities lie in cultural activity? Do artists have anything to add to the approaches of agriculturalists, heritage conservationists, ecologists and economists? What implications does this have for artistic practice in rural contexts?
Keynote speakers Suzanne Lacy and Simon Sheikh will be joined by an impressive international line-up that includes Adam Sutherland, director of Grizedale Arts, a commissioning and residency agency based in Grizedale Forest in the Lake District of Great Britain; Fernando Garcia Dory, an artist and activist from Northern Spain whose work engages specifically with issues affecting rural communities; Kristina Leko a Croatian artist living in New York and Berlin and Translocal, a curatorial partnership based in the UK and Hungary, as well as other important contributors.
The art programme features works by Vladimir Arkhipov [RUS], Amanda Dunsmore [IRL], Patricia Hurl [IRL], Tamas Kaszas [HUN] and Therry Rudin [IRL/CH]. Translocal will host an event titled Sustainable Visions, a screening of artist films that deal with issues of sustainability followed by a discussion event.
A specially curated exhibition of works titled Local Local will also take place to coincide with the conference. It features work by a range of contemporary Irish artists, work that reveals an intimate local knowledge. This local frame of representation is informed by a vertical rather than a horizontal perspective; a knowledge that goes deeper than the surface of the landscape.
Full conference programme available at www.shiftingground.net/conference_programme.htm
