Ground Up Artists' Collective
Following a call for new members, The Ground Up artists collective has expanded its membership to 25 artists. The list of members is as follows;
Monica de Bath
Marie Connole
Alan Counihan
Maria Finucane
Eileen Healy
Emma Houlihan
Patricia Hurl
Maria Kerin
John Langan
Clive Moloney
Fiona O' Dwyer
Aine Phillips
Jim Ricks
Therry Rudin
Sean Taylor
Fergus Tighe
Vincent Wall
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The Collective was recently awarded 2,000 euro by Clare County Council under the Arts Act Grants for Spoilt Broth, a collective project. Lead artist Vincent Wall created an installation in the kitchen of his former home featuring works by all of the artists. The resulting photograph will be printed on a limited edition tea-towel which will be on sale from September.
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Fiona Woods has been invited to speak at the launch in Belfast of URBAN/ACT, a handbook for creative urban actions.
The launch of a new handbook of contemporary urban practice from across europe (tactical, situational and active) -considered in relation to ongoing work on creative rural practices in Ireland takes place on June 2nd at 6pm @ PS²
Further information
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The Collective was awarded the Space Shuttle in an auction by PS2.
http://www.spaceshuttle.org.uk/
The Space Shuttle has featured in three Ground Up projects to date; Imagining Silvermines; a psychogeography (Fiona Woods); Finding Portlaoise (curated by Maria Kerin); Iniscealtra Arts Festival Artist in Residence Programme (Astrid Adler).
Space Shuttle in Silvermines, Co. Tipperary as part of Imagining Silvermines; a psychogeography a project by Fiona Woods
Interior views of the Space Shuttle, as above
The main considerations in our future programming have to do with bringing art processes to the heart of rural communities whilst minimising the carbon footprint of all our projects. We are also engaged in the development of an informal rural cultural forum; this will be a means of finding common ground with and engaging rural communities in discussions about the future of the rural context, both cultural and ecological.
One of the obstacles we encounter in our work is the lack of public space in the rural context. The Space Shuttle will function as a temporary public space, highlighting the decline of commonage or common space and also resonating as a powerful symbolic and actual platform for discussion about the rural context. This discussion is almost absent in contemporary cultural discourse; the rural is seen as irrelevant or naïve and culturally inadequate.
The Space Shuttle will allow us to carry out work in most locations extending our reach to a wider rural audience.
All of the activities that we programme for the Space Shuttle will be context specific and will include; discursive projects - meetings, seminars, presentations, conversations; exchange events - mini-markets, swap shops, local produce displays; exhibits - white cube gallery exhibits, temporary musuems, local arts/crafts group shows; workshops - for children, adults and youth groups; film shows; consultation events; works commissioned especially for the space; travelling exhibits; internet cafe's and many more.