An upcoming seminar at Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) on 12 April 2-5 pm will focus on creative practices at sensitive sites, that is places and buildings associated with conflict, oppression, confinement and other harms.
Convened and moderated by Dr Lisa Godson, this seminar brings together researchers and practitioners working across a range of art forms including sculpture, architecture, theatre making and visual art to present and discuss work created at sensitive sites.
The seminar has emanated from research funded by Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland in the form of a New Foundations grant focussed on the siting of IMMA at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
A strong focus of the seminar will be strategies for the research, realisation and production of artistic projects as well as ethical considerations when planning and creating work that addresses ‘difficult’ histories and are embedded at both officially designated sites of conscience and places where sensitive histories may have been physically erased but still have material force. It will explore methods, ethics and reception of work made at and in relation to sites related to sensitive histories.
For more information and booking details, click here: https://imma.ie/whats-on/seminar-exploring-creative-practice-at-sensitive-sites/
The seminar is being held in relation to IMMA’s commitment to the exploration of the sensitive material history of its own site including mass burial, militarism and colonialism. It is one outcome of the New Foundations project led by Dr Lisa Godson ‘An oral history of the Irish Museum of Modern Art at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin’ as part of her broader publication project focussed on a critical material history of the site of IMMA. This project, which is in partnership with the IMMA, seeks to create, collect, interpret, disseminate and archive audio material related to the origins and working life of the IMMA at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham from c.1984 to the present day. The key objective is to create research material and an accessible record of the way this important national cultural institution and internationally significant heritage site have developed together over the past three decades.
Dr Lisa Godson is a cultural historian whose work focusses on material culture, architecture, and artists’ use of the past (Programme leader, MA Design History and Material Culture at NCAD). Contributors include ANU Productions (Louise Lowe and Owen Boss); artist Brian Hand (Senior Lecturer, Sculpture and Expanded Practice at NCAD); plattenbaustudio (Irish architects Jonathan Janssens and Jennifer O’Donnell); and Culturstruction (Jo Anne Butler and Tara Kennedy).
The seminar is facilitated by IMMA’s department of Research and Learning, and administered by Sophie Byrne, IMMA’s head of talks and public programmes.
Photo caption: An image of bully’s acre burial site in the grounds of IMMA.