people at the graduate school of creative arts and media

 

siun hanrahan: ncad, associate fellow

 

 

 

biographical details

Siún Hanrahan is a writer and artist, and Head of Research and Postgraduate Development at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.

One of the first people to complete a practice-based doctorate in the UK, Hanrahan's practice as a researcher and writer has ranged across a number of fields. In her role as Post-doctoral Fellow and, subsequently, Research Coordinator at the School of Art, Design & Printing at Dublin Institute of Technology she has published papers, and organised international projects, conferences, symposia and public lectures in relation to topics such as: practice-based research in art and design, pedagogy in art and design (including collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to education as well as the potential of e-learning in a practice-based context), and drawing research.

As an artist and writer, Hanrahan's interest centres on: the nature of meaning; or the nature of our relationship to the meanings we make. Her starting point is that we are responsible for the meanings we make; a perspective informed by both existentialism and relativist positions within analytic philosophy. And yet this misses something. Meaning is not a private affair. It emerges and is contested in the space between: between people, between viewer(s) and artwork, between reader(s) and text; a perspective informed by hermeneutics, phenomenology, critical theory, ethics, and complexity theory. This interest is reflected across the range of Hanrahan's publications and exhibitions; in particular in her contributions to edited anthologies such as Thinking Through Art, journals such as Leonardo (published by MIT Press), and presentations at conferences such as The World Congress of Philosophy, the Congress of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, and the AICA Conference at Tate Modern.

This interest in meaning and the contest of meaning is also reflected in recent and current curatorial projects such as: 2MOVE: Ireland, 2008 (a collaboration with Niamh Ann Kelly, supported by the Irish Arts Council, that brought a major exhibition of video art curated by Mieke Bal and Miguel Hérnandez-Navarro focused upon migratory aesthetics to Ireland and extended it to include Irish artists); The Pressure of a Sign: Visible Invisible, 2009-2010 (focused upon concepts such as inter-relatedness, a questioning of our perceptions and positions in the world, and momentary truths, that explores the possibilities of dialogue between artists of different generations and countries, and their diverse aesthetic positions).

Hanrahan's interest in and engagement with the public role and presence of contemporary art practice is evident across a range of engagements such as: curator in ARC (a per cent for art scheme sponsored by Dublin Corporation and Fingal County Council); a member of the editorial panel of Printed Project (a Visual Artists Ireland publication) and Tracey (an on-line peer reviewed drawing journal); a director of Photoworks North Ltd.; a member of the Old Museum Art Centre's visual arts advisory panel (Belfast); Chair at Museum 21 an international symposium organised by the Irish Museum of Modern Art investigating new perspectives on the role and function of public galleries and museums in the 21st Century by exploring their key challenges, frictions and possibilities, with speakers Okwui Enwezor, Bart De Baere, Andrea Fraser, Enrique Juncosa, Susan Pearce, and Carey Young.

 

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For additional information on the collaborating institutions consult www.dit.ie, www.ncad.ie, www.iadt.ie and www.ulster.ac.uk.