Past Projects

Audio recording of 'The Ethics of Collaboration...' Panel Discussion, 11th March 2011

Click here to link to the recording:

http://soundcloud.com/fire-station-studios/the-ethics-of-collaboration/s-ZDmje

 

Panel Discussion:

Presented by Fire Station Artists’ Studios in association with the National College of  Art and Design (NCAD)

'The ethics of collaboration within socially engaged arts practice' with Dave Beech (UK writer/artist), Dr Aine O'Brien (Director of the Forum on Migration and Communications FOMACS) and Jesse Jones (artist). Chair: Liz Burns (Fire Station Artists' Studios).

Friday 11th March, 2-4pm @ New Lecture Theatre, Harry Clarke House, NCAD, 100 Thomas Street, Dublin 8

Background:

Following on from Artur Żmijewski’s recent exhibition in the RHA , Dublin ( Nov – Dec 2010) which featured the  video works Two Monuments (2009), and Democracies (2009), this discussion took Artur Żmijewski’s socially engaged arts practice as a starting point,  and considered the question of ethics when artists work collaboratively.

Renowned for his provocative ‘social documentary’ type films, Polish artist Artur Żmijewski’s practice seeks to connect to society, frequently exposing social conflict, human weakness and mechanisms of power and oppression.  In 2008-2009, Żmijewski was commissioned by Fire Station Artists’ Studios as part of its Studio Award, to develop a project examining the changing nature of Polish Irish relations. Over a series of visits to Fire Station in 2008-2009 Żmijewski invited Polish and Irish unemployed men and women to take part in a series of intense workshops where they were given the task of constructing their own workers monuments. The artist filmed and edited the results into Two Monuments (2009).

This discussion considered aspects of Żmijewski’s “social studio” type methodology, such as the use of labour, authorial control, negotiation with participants etc. It will also interrogated the idea of ‘ethical representation’ often expected of artists who choose to work collaboratively.

Dave Beech is a member of the art collective Freee, as well as being a writer and lecturer at Chelsea College of Art, London. He is a regular writer for Art Monthly and other magazines. He edited ‘Beauty’ (2009) as part of the Documents for Contemporary Art series, and he co- authored the book The Philistine Controversy, (2002) with John Roberts. Freee is also made up of artists Andy Hewitt and Mel Jordan, who work together on slogans, billboards and publications that challenge the commercial and bureaucratic colonisation of the public sphere of opinion formation.www.freee.org.uk

Jesse Jones is a Dublin based artist whose practice reflects and re-presents historical moments of collective resistance and dissent. She has collaborated with diverse groups from opera singers and marching bands to activists, in a practice which aims to excavate the hidden meaning within our popular collective consciousness. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including, Istanbul Biennial (2009), Nought to Sixty, ICA, (2008), and was selected for the Location One Fellowship in New York (2009).  She is currently working on a new commission for Collective Gallery, UK and a solo show for RedCat, CalArts, Los Angeles.

Dr Áine O’Brien is Director of the Forum on Migration and Communication  (FOMACS) and Co-director of the Centre for Transcultural Research and Media Practice, in DIT, Dublin. She has published widely on the politics of identity and representation and the role of participatory media in furthering civil society activism and social justice. She is co-director/ researcher with Alan Grossman, of the documentary Silent Song, (2000) on Kurdish lyrical protest in Europe and the feature length documentaries Hereto Stay (2006) and Promise and Unrest (2010) which deal with the subject of economic migration into Ireland. www.fomacs.org

Liz Burns curates Fire Station’s artistic programme which focuses on site and context specific projects of a socially engaged nature. Recent projects include ‘Two Monuments’ (2009) with Artur Żmijewski and she is currently working on a Think Tank programme for Irish artists/curators with Danish curator Tone Olaf Nielsen of ‘Kuratorisk Aktion’.  Recent independent curatorial projects include Liliquoi Blue: God made me a Boy, Qasim Riza Shaheen (2010) and Systems Failure, Anna Macleod (2010).

Artist’s biography:

Artur Żmijewski was born in 1966 in Warsaw, Poland, where he currently lives and works. His ‘social documentary’ type films, frequently examine mechanisms of power and oppression as well as exposing social conflicts, trauma and human weakness. He has had solo shows at MOMA, New York; Kunstalle Basel; BAK, Utrecht, Cornerhouse Manchester, and represented Poland at the 51^st Venice Biennale.  His work has been included in major international exhibitions such as the 11^th Istanbul Biennial, Documenta 12, Kassel; The 2002 Liverpool Biennial and Manifesta 4, Frankfurt-am.Main. He is member of the Polish political movement "Krytyka Polityczna" and the art director of the magazine of the same name. He is the co recipient of the 2010 Ordway Prize and was recently appointed curator of 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2012.

Publication:

The Applied Social Arts: Artur Żmijewski.  Includes essays by Dave Beech and Artur Żmijewski. Edited by Fire Station Artists' Studios. Available for purchase: http://www.firestation.ie/projects/publications/