Urban Explorer Skibbereen 2015

All my work is now hosted on my website www.sheelaghbroderick.com Please click on the link to find out more about this new arts project

Sherkin Island Community Arts Project

This blog will be a little quite over the next few months, as I have created a new blog for the Sherkin Island Community Arts Project -
A Cosmopolitan Cosmology, which can be found here

Cape Clear Pinhole Project at West Cork Arts Centre

The pinhole images made at the workshop on 3rd & 4th May are on display now at the West Cork Arts Centre. The pinhole images were printed on acetate and displayed in a light box as part of the Ealaion na Gaeltachta project 'Cape and I'.

May 2009 Cape Clear Island Slow Photo Workshop

These are some of the images captured at the workshop last weekend. Each participant made their own coffee can camera and then subsequently experimented with it to see what would happen - Something definitely happens with these images that is quite compelling. I think I am missing a few images that are still on Cape, if I get them I will load them on also.

May 2009 Cape Clear Island

The May Bank holiday weekend passed in a frenzy of activity, making cameras and photographs. Thanks to Catherine Ryan who co facilitated. I hope the pictures below are a reminder of the fun we all had.

Pinhole on Cape Clear Island

I am really looking foward to next week. I have been invited to Cape Clear Island to do a pinhole camera workshop over the May Bank Holiday weekend.

I am busy assembling materials wondering what it is that I will inevitably forget to bring with me and whether I will be able to source its alternate on the island. Cape Clear is about 40 mins by ferry and 15 minutes by car from the nearest hardware shop so you can see why I am a bit concerned.

The workshop will be contribute to a larger project being run on the Island by Bernadette Cotter. My part is to facilitate those with an interest in alternative photography to create pinhole images that will be shown alongside other work.

I have been scavenging materials from many sources. I have the basic Lidl coffee can, but also some cans appropriated from the civic amenity site in Macroom.

I think that this may be one of the last pinhole workshops that I do as disposal of the toxic corrosive chemicals used in developing photographs is such a problem...unless I can find a better way to develop images, I intend to concentrate on solargraphy.

Artist in the Community 2009

A Cosmopolitan Cosmology is the name I gave to the next phase of the solargraphy project initiated on Sherkin last year. The project revolves around the idea that it is relevant to all people at all times in all places, but most especially those who have a link to Sherkin Island.

It will explore space and time through the process of solargraphy and strengthen relationships between those who live on the Island and those in whom the Island lives (although they may live many miles apart).

The project application was made in association with Sherkin Island Development Society and was awarded a second round of funding by the Arts Council through the Artist in the Community Scheme managed by Create.

I have setup an initial blog for this http://sherkinisland.blogspot.com

Epiphany of the Mulroy Bay II

These are movie stills taken by photographer Marc Holden of the installation on Sherkin Island, Jan 23 - 26 2009

Epiphany of the Mulroy Bay II

This is a phone video of the installation
at West Cork Arts Centre 01/03/2009 - 21/03/2009

Photos from Degree Show & Graduation

A big gaping hole

After the exhibition opening at the West Cork Arts Centre, we were invited back to to Sherkin for a get together. I took the opportunity to go to the community hall to spend some quiet time there on my own. The hall has doubled as lecture theatre, library, workroom and gallery. It has been the scene of intense debate and activity, tears and laughter. Now that time has ended. I will miss it.

BA Visual Art Degree Show at West Cork Arts Centre

Clockwise from top left Jill Hegarty, Ciarnad Ryan, Tess Leak, Sheelagh Broderick, Geoff Stephens, John Desmond and Gill Good
at West Cork Arts Centre.
Opening Sunday 1 March 2009 at 3.30pm.
Exhibition continues until 21 March 2009

Below is the publicity material from WCAC website

An exhibition of work by final year degree students from the BA in Visual Art, Sherkin Island – a joint initiative between the School of Art, Design and Printing at Dublin Institute of Technology, Sherkin Island Development Society Ltd. and West Cork Art Centre. The programme is supported by the Department of Rural, Gaeltacht and Community Affairs. This exhibition will feature work by the seven degree students who will be the first cohort to graduate from this exciting and innovative programme.

The four-year modular honours degree programme offers a dynamic and creative education in the visual arts and combines delivery through live and electronic media. The methodology employed presents a viable model for linking third level institutions with isolated communities and presents the opportunity for future collaborations.

By developing a mechanism for linking isolated communities with third level institutions a true sharing of knowledge can arise. In this way, educational programmes addressing the needs of specific communities may be devised and validated. The process enables isolated communities to retain their structural integrity while gaining in confidence and the resulting sustainable development broadens the economic base of the community.

Along with the other partners, West Cork Arts Centre is committed to the development of transformative educational provision at the higher levels of educational achievement which this programme provides. It also provides opportunities to build capacity in the arts so that artists can live, work and study on the islands - underpinning the capacity for living in remote and rural island and coastal environments.

The BA in Visual Art Programme brings professional artists to the area and creates opportunities for students, other artists, communities and arts organisations alike. It invigorates the process of engagement with the arts, it supports the establishment of learning communities and it leads to the development of networks, to promote exchange between communities of interest and the interrogation of contemporary arts practice.

I am a positively revolting hag

It is well over a decade since my first encounter with the ideas of radical feminist philosopher Mary Daly. She has a unique worldview that defiantly addresses the hubris of patriarchy. She is playful at times in addresssing what can be a very tedious academic topic of language as power.

The WEBSTERS' FIRST NEW INTERGALACTIC WICKEDARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, with images dawn by Jane Caputi is a 'brilliant, wild, and humor-filled Web-Work of words that frees the English language from its patriarchal and confining patterns by Weaving a fascinating, feminist, linguistic revolution'.

In the book she provides new phrases and interpretations of phrases which reveal hidden structures of power through language. Here are just a few that make me howl with laughter;

ACADEMENTIA n normal state of persons in academia, marked by varying and progressive degrees; irreversible deterioration of faculties of intellectuals

BORED, CHAIRMAN OF THE n any bore-ocratically appointed bore who occupies a chair - a position which enables hime to bore others all the more

COCKALORUM n a self-important little cock.

COCK-AND-BULL STORY n patriarchal history

And finally

POSITIVELY REVOLTING HAG : a stunning beauteous Crone, one who inspires positive revulsion from phallic institutions and morality, inciting Others to Acts of Pure Lust

Yesterday was a great day for me. In lots of different ways. But in relation to this post, I had a moment of self-realisation of myself as a positively revolting hag.

I had a difficult meeting at which I had to express the truth of my reality as I saw it, and in the process, jeopardise something I had been seeking for a long time.

Afterwards I just felt relieved that I was able to speak my truth and felt that that what I had said was received in good faith.

Being able to speak without fear or anger made the exchange a lot easier for everyone and made me realise what a long way I had come from the feelings of rancour experienced a decade ago.

Guerrilla Lighting

Glad to hear that 2009 has been 'brilliant' for Guerrilla Lighting. They featured in Lightwave 2009 curated by the Museum of Science at Trinity College and in a collaborative Flash Lighting event in January and on Eco Eye Feb 3rd last - if you click on the eco eye link it starts at 22:40 (I say this to save you from having to listen to Duncan Stewart for 22 minutes and 40 seconds). I am looking forward to the next Guerrilla Lighting event and hope that I can participate myself.

Chaka Khan at Paradiso

The best venue in Amsterdam

Good times and not so good times

I got the results of my final exam today and am very happy. I put a big effort in over the last 12 months and feel fortunate that it has been recognised. In general it seems that everyone did well and that the examiner's were happy with the overall standard.

Of course this has been a long time coming. We first registered on a pilot arts and culture course in 2000. I remember going over to Sherkin for the preliminary interview and feeling quite intimidated. I know Ber was there and I think John O'Connor too and maybe Maj. The past plays curious tricks on my mind

The following three years were a rollercoaster for me. Learning how to sit through a crit was agonising. I couldn't bear to be seated for such long periods and became restless easily. Of course, the class was bigger then. We had 14 students including ; Tess, John, Gill, Geoff, Catherine, Adele, Fiona, Jenny, Sarah, Naoise, Clare and Rosemary - I know there were others too, but again my mind is curiously vacant in this regard.

The modular approach gave us unlimited access to lecturers in specialist areas that could not be replicated on a city campus. We were worked hard and had fun sometimes too.

DIT staff disrupted there families to come to Sherkin for a period of days to teach and evaluate. It was exciting as the pedagogy was being evaluated simultaneously to our own arts practice. Sometimes it seemed like being in a doubleskinned fishbowl and you know how that can distort your perception.

Amazing energy was found in SIDS. Josephine, Liam and Breda were a crack team. They traveled all over the country to meetings with Ministers and bureaucrats to secure support for the project. Although they were tireless in their commitment, not everyone was as enthusiastic leading to a four year interregnum between the end of the pilot phase and the commencement of the mainstream model.

I realise that there is a price for everything and today I don't want to forget the price that was paid for our success.

Today I am saying thank you to all those involved past and present.

Solargraph from Kerry

Margaret Fitzgerald

There are still a few more solargraphs to collect. The one above came from Keel in Co. Kerry - thanks to the collaborators there. It is a really interesting image to look at, as the horizon is repeated twice. This probably happened because the camera was moved during the period of exposure - another happy accident. I haven't got the exact details of the period of exposure and must chase this up.

More Thanks You s

I got a lot of support this year so I want to say thank you to DIT Staff, Ber Burns, Majella O'Neill Collins, Marc Holden, Brian Fay, John Mayock, Patricia Hurl and Tim Stott.

All at Sherkin Island Development Society, especially, Dan Reilly, Maggie Reilly and Matthew Stephens.

Gillian Treacy of St Johns Central College, Cork.

Resource agencies were also very helpful in particular Katherine Atkinson, CREATE and Ann O'Connor Arts Council of Ireland.

Thank you all.

Commercial Sponsors

Now that the assessments are over I can begin to start thanking all the people who supported me in my work during the year. Today I am thanking my commercial sponsors who helped me with in kind support.

Nick Walsh of Acme Blinds donated a roll of white blackout blind fabric, which was used in the Pinhole Car Camera Project and also for the graduate assessment installation.

Dave Madden of Maddens TV lent me audiovisual equipment for the the graduate assessment installation - I didn't get to use it this time because the weather was so bad and I didn't want to risk the equipment getting damaged as the journey involved car- ferry - taxi and then the same in reverse - but maybe next time?

Thank you both.

BA Visual Art Graduate Assessments

Phew I am glad thats over! Final assessments were held last week for the seven fourth year students. Our work was on display for assessment in the Sherkin Community Hall, and in two private studios on the Island.

The period leading up to our assessments was intense. The drama was exacerbated by storm force winds that resulted in cancelled ferries and falling electricity lines.

Our work was assessed on Friday 23rd February by a team of Lecturers from DIT. This was followed by individual interview with our extern examiner Helen O'Donoghue, Head of Education & Community Programmes, at IMMA.

On Sunday 24th February there was an open house invite to all Islanders to come and see the work, which proved to be a very relaxed and sociable event.

Now we look forward to receiving our individual grades, a very special graduation day, a group exhibition at the West Cork Arts Centre and exhibiting with the 2009 DIT graduates based in Mountjoy Square, Dublin.