INTER-CHANGES: Craft & Context Symposium

Date: 9:00am – 5:00 pm  13-14 April 2010

Venue: National Collage of Art and Design, 100 Thomas Street, Dublin

Full program: http://craftandcontext.blogspot.com/2010/03/symposium-timetable.html or download full program  here: click on Inter-changes: Craft and Context program

Fee: €23/day and €12/day;  Lunch is included. Pre-registration is required as places are limited. Please register online by visiting: http://craftandcontext.blogspot.com/ or download registration form

NCAD Students and staff are invited to attend gratis, but are asked to Pre Register  by  March 31 in CGM office or by email:  Aideen at craftandcontext@gmail.com.

Inter-Changes: Craft and Context Symposium

The formation of a critical context for craft is the subject of a rich international debate within which, over the last ten years, many disciplines have found a voice. Irish makers, as they understand and articulate their practice through the new and evolving language of craft, have begun to take their place among this intellectual community.The programme of this symposium offers possibilities for contemporary makers, designers, sculptors and anyone interested in the crafts to build alliances to sustain creativity, create new avenues of interest and help ensure future development of this sector. The symposium is open to the public.

• Symposium Keynote presentations will be made by Glenn Adamson – Head of Graduate Studies in the Research Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and Arline Fisch, who has played a central role in the revitalization of jewellery as a contemporary art form and was Professor of Art (Emerita) – San Diego State University from 1961 – 2000.

• Contributing international professionals include: Robert Brady  (US), Frances Chapin (US), Vanessa Cutler (UK), Geoffrey Mann (UK), Lesley Millar (UK), Robert Milnes (US), Alex Robins (US), Sandy Simon (US), and Wayne Strattman (US).

• Contributing professionals from Ireland include: Stanislava Antonijevic-Elliott, Nicola Gordon Bowe, Marie Brett, Mary Cahill,  Róisín de Buitléar,  Mark Elliott, Sandy Fitzgerald, Michael Flannery, Eleanor Flegg, Olivier Gaillot, Lisa Godson, Ed Kuczaj, Anna Moran, Hilary O’Kelly, Cearbhall E. O’Meadhra, Gana Roberts, Georgie Thompson, and  Audrey Whitty.

Waterford glass blowers from Irish Handmade Glass will demonstrate blowing and glass cutting in the glass shop. On Wednesday there will be a porcelain throwing demonstration. Please see schedule and blog for more information. This programme of events is conceived and negotiated by Fulbright scholar Mary B. White, Caroline Madden, NCAD Glass lecturer and nineteen co-researchers who participated in the NCAD, Landscape of Aesthetics and Design, seminar series since October 2009: twelve contemporary Irish makers, Muriel Beckett, Peter Fulop, Geraldine Grubb, Breda Haugh, Eva Kelly, Aoife Ludlow, Liz Nilsson, Renata Pekowska, Deirdre Rogers, Clare Turley, Brigitta Varadi, and Suzannah Vaughan, alongside seven NCAD CGM MA students, Karina Abdulbaneeva, Julie Connellan, Lesley Kelly, Kirsty Mc Ghie, Richard Quin, Suzanne Rogers and Eleanor Swan. The programme is sponsored by the Crafts Council of Ireland, Fulbright Commission, Mason, Hayes & Curran and the National College of Art and Design and is co-directed by Louise Allen, Education & Awareness Manager, CCoI, Colleen Dube, Executive Director, Fulbright, Caroline Madden, Glass Lecturer, NCAD and Mary B. White, US Fulbright Scholar. For more information, please contact Aideen Mc Cole, events co-ordinator at:craftandcontext@gmail.com or visit http://craftandcontext.blogspot.com

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Suggested Speakers and Panel Sessions

• Panel Session - A Digital Craft Aesthetic? Proposed Speakers:  Geoffrey Mann & Tavs Jorgensen (or AN. Other- still trying to think of a suitable textile person), Aoife Ludlow

Geoffrey Mann – Product Artist – www.mrmann.co.uk

Studio*Mrmann was founded in 2005 by Geoffrey Mann, a Scottish product artist who transposes the ephemeral into the tangible through embracing the integration of digital media and the physical form. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2005, Mann’s critically acclaimed Long Exposure and Natural Occurrence series have been exhibited Nationally and Internationally featuring at Design and the Elastic Mind MoMA New York, International Bombay Sapphire Glass prize 2005/2008 and Digitalability DesignMai Berlin. Through synthesizing the temporal processes of movement, a recurrent theme throughout Mann’s portfolio, he reconstructs pure sensation in objective terms through the notion ‘motion engendering form’ creating tangible objects of mysterious beauty.

Tavs Jorgensen – www.oktavius.co.uk Tavs Jorgensen arrived in Britain in 1991 after completing a four-year pottery apprenticeship in native Denmark, later studied 3D ceramic design at Cardiff Institute of Higher Education.  He has been running his own design consultancy since 1995. Throughout this period Jorgensen has been closely associated with Dartington Pottery, operating as the pottery’s main shape designer.  He continues to work as an independent designer and researcher, frequently guest lecturing at international universities and colleges.  He has, throughout a twenty-year career, been involved with numerous projects in many diverse areas of ceramics and design, lately focusing on research into the use of information technology based creative tools. Winner of the ceramic and glass category of the 2000 Peugeot design award Winner of the Wedgwood tableware award 1996

Draft Abstract: This panel will discuss the idea of a ‘digital craft aesthetic’.  The last 15 years has seen the emergence of new practices and transdisciplinary work in the craft domain, frequently making use of digital and IT tools and increasingly referred to as ‘digital craft’.  What are the characteristics of ‘digital craft’?  Is there a digital aesthetic?  Is this really craft?  What is the impact of digital technologies and tools both on craftspeople and also on the wider public and what they perceive to be a “digital aesthetic”?

• Liz McMahon: Over the past twenty-five years Liz has worked with children in and out of school situations on visual art programmes in Dublin. She has been involved with IMMA and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown over this time both as an artist and as an advisor.You can check out some of her projects on www.creativityintheclassroom.ie. There is also an interesting interview with her on www.practice.ie;  suggested by Clare Turley

• Mark Elliott is a psychology lecturer in NUIG. He specialises in aesthetics so it might be an interesting angle to look at. I spoke to him about it a few months ago and he seems interested in taking part.

”Mark was awarded a first-class honours degree in psychology from the Open University (UK, 1988-1994), studied Cognitive Science between 1993 – 1994 at the University of Birmingham and graduated with a Masters and Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of London in 1998. After several years as a social worker, Mark returned to education and, following completion of his PhD at the University of London, took up a research fellow’s position at the Universität Leipzig. Immediately prior to his appointment as senior lecturer at NUI Galway Mark was employed as an assistant professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich. He was an Honorary Research Fellow of Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. Mark is a Chartered Scientist, was President of the International Society for Psychophysics and has been commissioned by the EC to advise universities in EU candidate states on curricula and research. ”

His contact details: Mark A. Elliott CSci BA, MSc PhD, Senior Lecturer, Room 201, Cois Abhann, School of Psychology, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland, Tel.: [Direct line] +353 (0)91 495345; [Internal ext.] 5345, email: mark.elliott@nuigalway.ie http://www.nuigalway.ie/psy/m_elliott_page.htm suggested by Suzannah Vaughan

• Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche is Chairman of Rokpa Trust Abbot, Retreat Master of Kagyu Samye Ling and Executive Director of The Holy Isle Project. Born in 1943 in Kham, East Tibet, Lama Yeshe spent his formative years in education at Dolma Lhakang Monastery. After a harrowing six month journey escaping from Tibet as a teenager in 1959, Lama Yeshe arrived in India. On leaving the Tibetan Refugee Camp he attended the Young Lamas Home School in Dalhousie and left in 1967 to serve as Private Secretary to His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim. In 1969 Lama Yeshe joined Akong Tulku Rinpoche and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in Scotland where they had founded Kagyu Samye Ling, the first Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Europe, Five years later, having tasted and become disillusioned with modern Western culture, from the trappings of materialism to the false highs of sixties hippydom, he was reunited with H.H. Karmapa and accompanied him on a tour of the United States. At His Holiness’s request Lama Yeshe and his friend Lama Tenzin Chonyi established and managed the Karma Triyana Dharmacakra Centre in Woodstock New York which is now H.H. Karmapa’s main seat in the U.S. In 1985, returned to Scotland to continue his retreat at Samye Ling Purelands Retreat Centre and in 1989 became Retreat Master with responsibility for the western practitioners in the cloistered four year retreat. Despite his heartfelt wish to remain in retreat for twenty years, Lama Yeshe was obliged to return to the world in 1991 to take responsibility for the running of Samye Ling and also to oversee the newly acquired The Holy Island Project.After a vigorous fundraising effort the small but imposing island off Scotland’s West Coast was acquired in 1992The beautiful island was home to rare breeds of Eriskay ponies, Soay sheep and Sanaan goats and has since become a haven, not only for wildlife but also for the many visitors who come on pilgrimage to its sacred sites, or to enjoy a wide range of retreats and courses. Under Lama Yeshe’s guidance, and with the help from supporters around the globe, Holy Island has become a model of environmentally-friendly living where humans and animals live in peace and harmony. http://www.samyeling.org/index/abbot

• Dorothy Feibleman is one of most experimental porcelain arist in the world. She started working with colored laminated clay (Nerikomi or Neriage in Japanese words) in 1969. In her work, different colored porcelains and clay bodies are laminated together in such a way that every change in color, texture and translucency is structural. These forms are also dependent on the movement ofthe above elements in the construction, drying and firing. Since 1995 the artist has been working almost exclusively with white clays with varied translucency and color. Recently, in a special project at Jikken kobo, Inax, Tokoname, Japan, Feibleman developed new translucent porcelain and zogan processes for industry. As a result of the research, she made the largest, thinnest translucent nerikomi zogan studio pieces to date. http://www.dorothyfeibleman.com/ or http://dorothyfeibleman.blogspot.com/  suggested by Peter Fulop

• Kiki Smith is an American artist who was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1954. Smith was raised in New Jersey and attended Hartford Art School, Connecticut (1974-76). Smith grew up helping her father, American Minimalist sculptor Tony Smith, produce cardboard models for his geometric sculptures, an experience which helped cultivate Smith’s awareness of process and formalism. The human form, especially the female body, became central to Smith’s work in the 1980s. Smith began to focus on themes of loss and death through her depiction of the body’s internal components, especially organs, cellular structures and the nervous system. The evacuation of these physiological components from the body presented anxieties surrounding the maternal body and the notion of the body as a receptacle for incorporeal components such as knowledge, belief and storytelling. By exposing its internal structures Smith portrays the dichotomy between the psychological and physiological power of the body. In recent years, Smith’s work has evolved to incorporate animals, domestic objects and narrative tropes from classical mythology and folk tales. Smith’s work is in numerous prominent museum collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.Kiki Smith lives and works in New York City.                                                  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiki_Smith suggested by Brigitta Varadi