Gradcam
In association with Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, WCAC presents is a group exhibition of artists engaged in issues of climate change: Emily Robyn Archer, George Bolster, Mark Clare, Alice Clark, Blaise Drummond, Seamus Dunbar, John Gerrard, Andrew Kearney, Susan Leen, Ruth Le Gear, Selma Makela, Anna Macleod, Christine Mackey, Seamus Nolan, Softday (Seán Taylor and Mikael Fernstrom) and Brigitta Varadi.
‘Let me get it right. What if we got it wrong?
What if we weakened ourselves getting strong?
What if our wanting more was making less?
And what if all of this wasn’t progress?’
Lemn Sissay, extract from What If
The impacts on the environment of today’s society and globalised economy are explored by all seventeen artists whose work is exhibited in Et si on s’était trompé ? What if we got it wrong ?, as the performance-poet Lemn Sissay asks us in measuring progress by levels of industrialisation, expansion and accumulation. The ice and water of the Arctic, veritable barometers of the catastrophic effects of this “progress”, form one of the key elements of this exhibition. A further important strand is geopolitics and its direct links to questions of energy and biodiversity. Video and multi-media installations, photography, works on paper and canvases bring the complexities and implications of climate change to the fore.
The exhibition will be opened by writer and film-maker, Katherine Waugh on Friday 28 October at 7.00pm and will be followed by a gallery performance at 8.00pm by Softday ((Seán Taylor and Mikael Fernstrom)
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication, produced by Centre Culturel Irlandais, with essays by Frank McDonald, Darragh McKeon and Katherine Waugh.
In association with National Digital Week (10 to 12 November 2016) and the Ludgate Hub, Skibbereen, West Cork Arts Centre presents, on Saturday 12 November at 12 noon, a discussion platform Digital Art and Education in the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene defines Earth’s most recent geologic time period as being human-influenced. The word combines the root “anthropo”, meaning “human” with the root “-cene”, the standard suffix for “epoch” in geologic time. The Anthropocene is distinguished as a new period either after or within the Holocene, the current epoch, which began approximately 10,000 years ago (about 8000 BC) with the end of the last glacial period. The ‘Anthropocene’ encompasses questions about the relationship between ecology, technology and sustainable human futures.
Four speakers, looking at three themes, Data Driven Art (digital artist, researcher and lecturer Dr. Conor McGarrigle); Contributive Economies and the Digital (Dr. Noel Fitzpatrick, Dean of Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media), and Education, Access and Second Life (Dr. Glenn Loughran, Programme Chair of the BA Visual Art Degree Programme, Sherkin Island and John O’Connor, Dean of the College of Arts and Tourism, DIT).
For more information 028 22090 and www.westcorkartscentre.com
Image Captions as follows:
Anna Macleod, Water Conversations-Alberta 2015, 2015 Documentation of performative walk in Alberta, 2015, Digitalized black and white medium format photograph by Alex Bishop Thorpe, 1.6×1.6m
Andrew Kearney, Moment to Moment, 2015, inflated illuminated quilt, 320x240x50cms, a CCI commission
George Bolster, Stills from Unnatural History Drowning Captiva, 2014, HdV, 37 mins
Brigitta Varadi, In Conversation, 2014, Ox Mountain Sheep wool from sheep farmer, Co. Sligo, bark, marino wool, plywood
