Gaining Ground hits the airwaves in Clare

An artist-led online radio station and digital sound archive has been announced as the first of the commissions selected for Gaining Ground, a major new Public Art programme for County Clare.

Curated by Sally O’Leary of Asprey Arts, in collaboration with Clare County Council Arts Office, Gaining Ground has been developed using funds allocated from the pooled resources of the Per Cent For Art Scheme. The programme has been designed to take place over the next 2 years, and will culminate in an International Rural Arts Symposium in 2020. As part of the programme, projects will be selected to take place in North and West Clare and Shannon Town. There will also be a programme titled Reflections, which will be integral to the whole project and will involve research, evaluation and critical writing which will be reflected at the Symposium in 2020.

The first of the commissions to be announced is; ‘Folk Radio’, curated by Anne Mullee, with artist Tom Flanagan and curatorial advisor, Deirdre O’Mahony. Folk Radio is a concept for a new artists-led, online radio station and digital sound archive, based at X-PO in Kilnaboy.

Led by artist Tom Flanagan this community-based project will seek to engage the wider and existing communities active in and around X-PO, a former post office. Folk Radio will aim to make a series of radio programmes, exploring the meaning of ‘the rural’, in the context of a community that is made up of both local and newcomers to the area. Folk Radio relates to a long tradition of radio in empowering local communities with the tools to interrogate cultures and opinions of people and their traditions. It also relates to X-PO’s own history, as its late Postmaster, John Martin “Mattie” Rynne, was a keen shortwave and citizen broadcasting enthusiast.

Tom Flanagan commented, “Encompassing the objectives of ‘Gaining Ground’, the radio station will provide a platform for interested locals / artists and XPO volunteers to develop innovative radio broadcasts under the projects conceptual framework, with the potential to explore new forms of expression which challenge and explore our understanding and engagement with the medium.”

The programme will culminate in a live broadcast, inviting local artists, community groups, politicians and policy makers to a series of talks and a discussion forum on the potential of Radio and creative practices, and the challenges of rural life in North Clare.

Announcements for further projects selected for Gaining Ground will be made over the coming weeks.

ENDS

Anne Mullee / Biography

Anne Mullee is a curator, researcher and art writer based in Co. Clare. She holds an MA in Cultural Policy and Arts Management from UCD, a HND in Fashion Journalism from the University of the Arts (London), and a Certificate in Art & Design Certificate from DIT.

She is curator of The Courthouse Gallery & Studios, Ennistymon, Co. Clare, and maintains an independent practice as a curator and art writer. Current projects include All Bread is Made of Wood, a public art project commissioned by Fingal Arts Office Public Art Manager Caroline Cowley, with artists Fiona Hallinan and Sabina MacMahon, working in collaboration with Swords Castle and UCD Archaeology.  

Previous projects include the site-specific group exhibitions To Follow The Water (2016, 73M Barge, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin) with artists Olivia Hassett , David Fagan, Mary-Jo Gilligan and Ciara McKeon, and The Artists’ Armada (2015, Waterways Ireland Visitor’s Centre and Grand Canal Dock, Dublin), with Carl Giffney, Ann Maria Healy, Gareth Kennedy, Seoidín O’Sullivan, Andreas Kindler Von Knobloch, Andrew Kötting (UK), Barry Lynch, Kathryn Maguire, Rosie O’Reilly, Conor Stafford, Ian Sinclair (UK) and Emma Houlihan.

Mullee is the recipient of awards from the Arts Council, European Connections in Digital Arts (EUCIDA) and Dublin City Council, and has participated in residencies at The Good Hatchery (Co Offaly) and Kooshk Residency (Tehran, Iran).

Tom Flanagan / Biography

Tom Flanagan is and artist, filmmaker and educator based in Galway. His solo and collaborative work is an ongoing investigation of the language of cinema and its relationship to political power and collective memory. Flanagans' moving image and photographic works examine real and imagined politically complex sites and forgotten histories and attempts to intervene into collective understandings of the present, by exploring the space between images, memory, knowledge and power.
Recent solo and group exhibitions include; Athens Biennale 2017, AMNI Festival of Artists Moving Image 2017, “(Re)Public, Hyde Park Arts Centre Chicago (2016), ‘Destabilising Irish Histories’ Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, EVA International 2016, Still the Barbarians, AllagóiríChumhachta (Allegories of Power) broadcast commission by TG4 national broadcast in 2016as part of their commemoration programme. (2016) Station Independent Projects, New York (2014), Cirrus Gallery; Los Angeles (2013); Lucca Film Festival (2013); “Labour and Lockout”, Limerick City Gallery of Art (2013); “Momentous Times”, CCA Derry~Londonderry (2013); GuthGafa International Documentary Film Festival (2013); Mermaid Arts Centre (2013, solo); “RencontresInternationales”, Centre du Pompidou, Paris (November 2011) & Berlin (July 2012); “A Series of Navigations”, The Model, Sligo (2012); The Good Children Gallery, New Orleans, (2012, Solo); Alchemy Film Festival, Scotland (2012); Galway Arts Centre, June (2011, Solo). Public commissions include “Aughty” a feature length film commissioned by Aughty Public Art Projects and Galway County Council (2012).

Deirdre O’Mahony/Biography

Deirdre O’Mahony’s research and art practice is grounded in collaborative engagements with different rural publics and contexts. She developed her PhD research around “X-PO”, a defunct rural post-office re-imagined as a social and cultural public exchange space. More recently, SPUD focused on tacit, place-based knowledge and its relevance to food production today and concludes with The Persistent Return, a film installation exhibited at VISUAL Carlow (May 2018) and touring to the Natural History Museum Leeuwarden in October 2018.

2017 projects included Grasslands for Aarhus EU Capital of Culture, Speculative Optimism, a film made in response to the Museum of English Rural Life archives, and Perishable Picnic, a food-based project for Fingal Arts Office, county Dublin. She is currently working on a public art project commission for Teagasc, the national Irish Agricultural research centre as part of CERERE, an EU Horizon 2020 project.

O’Mahony has had national and international gallery and museum exhibitions, and been awarded Irish Arts Council project awards and bursaries, and international fellowships including a Pollock-Krasner award.

Page last reviewed: 18/07/18

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