I deliver modules in visual studies, curating photography, contemporary photographic practices and supervise dissertations as part of the BA photography programme team within the School of Media at Technological University Dublin's City Campus. My own undergraduate study was in Fine Art at the National College of Art & Design, followed by a period of collaboration on projects and exhibitions with a small group of other artists. My first postgraduate research was done through the Centre for Women's Studies at Trinity College, Dublin. This coincided with my move into directing visual arts programmes, curating projects, and teaching in third level arts and media education.
Photography
Technological University Dublin
I've been part of the photography team delivering the BA in Photography in the School of Media at TUDublin since 2001. Before 2019, TUDublin operated as the Dublin Institute of Technology. I have been the external examiner for the first three years of the BA Photography and Lens Based Media (now Photography, Film and Video) at the Limerick School of Art and Design, Limerick Institute of Technology. The BA Photography programme at TUDublin recently re-located the programme to a new campus at Grangegorman on the north side of the city and in the coming years TUDublin's city campus will leave most of its city centre buildings to consolidate the new campus. Over 20,000 staff and students will occupy the new campus buildings.
Our students in their first year of BA Photography undertake research in visual methodologies for their core visual studies modules. Myself and a colleague teach this core module using project based learning and other approaches to encourage social learning and and good research practices. In the third year, I lead a module on practical curating, where projects are realised from concept to production in 10-12 weeks, working in groups of approximately 10-12 students. The module was begun in association with Dublin City Council and was first based at the LAB in 2005. Later, between 2006 and 2009, students found and secured their own exhibition venues, placing their projects in a range of local contexts. In subsequent years, projects were presented at DIT Broadcast Galley, Copper House Gallery and later The Darkroom and Brunswick Collective. From 2010 to 2013, the module group included students from the Dublin School of Creative Arts at TUDublin. Now, the module is mandatory for all photography students in their penultimate year.
Here is a selection of past collaborative curatorial student projects completed in year three plus documentation from the Gallery of Photography and National Library of Ireland's National Photographic Archive showing final degree projects.
Our students in their first year of BA Photography undertake research in visual methodologies for their core visual studies modules. Myself and a colleague teach this core module using project based learning and other approaches to encourage social learning and and good research practices. In the third year, I lead a module on practical curating, where projects are realised from concept to production in 10-12 weeks, working in groups of approximately 10-12 students. The module was begun in association with Dublin City Council and was first based at the LAB in 2005. Later, between 2006 and 2009, students found and secured their own exhibition venues, placing their projects in a range of local contexts. In subsequent years, projects were presented at DIT Broadcast Galley, Copper House Gallery and later The Darkroom and Brunswick Collective. From 2010 to 2013, the module group included students from the Dublin School of Creative Arts at TUDublin. Now, the module is mandatory for all photography students in their penultimate year.
Here is a selection of past collaborative curatorial student projects completed in year three plus documentation from the Gallery of Photography and National Library of Ireland's National Photographic Archive showing final degree projects.
Unity, 2017
Project description: Unity is a collection of critical reflections about a period of research undertaken in the last months of the centenary year of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Having begun as an engagement with the work of The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, we returned to our research to think now about how the relationships formed at that time have affected our learning about rights and equality issues, and the position of the photographer as researcher. By reviewing our digital contact sheets and the journal notes we kept at the time, our stories consider the challenges, surprises and rewards of participating in creative collaborations. We value accessibility and openness, and these values have informed our curatorial approach to developing this project online. We align ourselves with those who work tirelessly to contribute to a culture of respect for human rights, equality and intercultural understanding across Ireland, whether equal rights for women and men to the basic human rights of people in Direct Provision.
Aunt Sally's Tea Dance, 2016
Project description: Aunt Sally’s Tea Dance deals with the politics of the archive and the subsequent visibility or invisibility of LGBT identity and queer Ireland by looking at the collected material in three archives, well established and in development. The Irish Queer Archive is housed at the National Photographic Archive, Dublin, Cork LGBT Archive is being developed by researcher Orla Egan and includes the Arthur Leahy Collection, while the Belfast Exposed Archive, is the founding collection of the Belfast Exposed Gallery. This website developed to present the findings from our engagement with the archives, archivists, researchers and curators. We focused on ephemera and photographs relating to 'parade' and 'community' to inquire how photography has been used to activate public attention, change public opinion and re-present LGBT movements and much of this material has not been exhibited in the public domain before. Image on the right courtesy of the Cork LGBT Archive.
Project website design by Josef Kovacs & Alisha Doody, 2012.
In Conversation with Conversations, 2012
Project description: In Conversation with 'Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection' is an exhibition about an exhibition, namely the Irish Museum of Modern Art's presentation of a touring show of photography selected from the bank's collection. Entering into a dialogue with the larger exhibition, we have curated In Conversation with 'Conversations...' to incorporate photographs made available through the Flickr website under Creative Commons licenses. Each image in the exhibition at Broadcast Gallery is free for use provided it is for non-commercial purposes. Our response asks questions about the exhibition of photography and the curatorial process itself. Additionally, this is an exploration and response to current political, artistic and social codes of practice that are prominent in photography as a medium. The show engages discursively with these topics and widens the scope of inquiry that the original exhibition alludes to and the use of the formal relationships drawn between the images selected.
Public event with collaborating students and participation of colleague Anthony Haughey, supported by IMMA. Photos by Ieva Baltaduonyte 2012.
Project website design by Neil Dorgan. Website video & sound devised by Patricia Klich. Installation photographs by Barry Keogh 2012.
Graduate Exhibition, 2012
The BA Photography graduate exhibition takes place at the Gallery of Photography in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2. Until 2016, the exhibition was also presented at the National Photographic Archive opposite the Gallery of Photography.
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National Photographic Archive of Ireland & Gallery of Photography, Dublin. Video documentation by Lauren Pritchard, 2012
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The postgraduate programme MA Visual Arts Practices at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology Dun Laoghaire (IADT) is housed at the LAB, the location of Dublin City Council's Arts Office. I led modules over a number of years prior to it subsequently been superseded by the MA in Art and Research Collaboration (ARC). As part of The Curatorial Project with MAVis post-graduate students in 2010, the full time students worked on three scenarios beginning with research into works by Janet Mullarney, desperate optimists, and Henry Moore. Students worked individually, in pairs, as collaborators, and collectively to make temporary exhibitions at DCC's cube space at the LAB.
These photographs were taken during a MAVis project completed for the Curatorial Seminar in 2010. A Dublin City Council Commission completed by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (desperate optimists) in 2001 was re-presented at the LAB Gallery, Dublin City Council, having been in storage for almost a decade. The artists made six posters suggesting extraordinary uses for a controversial site in Dublin city centre based on issues in the news at the time. As a contemporary purchase order on the site created a rift with the property owner, the installation of the posters was blocked on the evening they were due to be installed.
In February 2010, with the assistance of the Dublin City Council Public Art Manager, Ruairí Ó Cuív, the full cohort of MAVis students retrieved the posters from the National Ballroom, Parnell Square (out of use) and carried them to the LAB, Foley Street, as part of their module research. The group stopped at the original site on O'Connell Street, adjacent to Dr Quirkey's Good Time Emporium, for photographs and conversation about the latest development plans affecting the re-design and use of the street. The panels were temporarily exhibited at the LAB gallery as part of the Curatorial Module. The panels were finally moved from the LAB and formally added to Dublin City Council Collection.
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Photographs: Valerie Connor.
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