Teaching

My experience of higher level education began as an undergraduate student at a small art college and later on as a postgraduate student at a big university. I first started teaching at third level in cultural and film studies and history of art, then specifically, visual studies, curatorial and photographic practices, across art colleges and institutes of technology.

In 2018, I will complete an MSc in Applied eLearning at the Learning, Teaching and Technology Centre at the Dublin Institute of Technology. Using a blended approach that includes collaboration and training through Virtual Learning Environments, modules in learning theories, virtual communities, project and change management, educational research and instructional design. A publicly accessible e-Portfolio is produced to accompany the research process and present final learning outcomes. LTTC, DIT

I've been part of the photography team delivering the BA in Photography in the School of Media at Dublin Institute of Technology for the past 15 years. We recently re-located the programme to the new DIT Campus at Grangegorman. In the coming years, DIT will leave all its current city centre buildings and establish a campus of over 20,000 staff and students in new buildings in the Grangegorman and Broadstone area. Our students in their first year undertake research in visual methodologies for their core visual studies modules, which I team teach with a collague. In the third year, I lead an option module focusses on practical curating and the 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 based at the LAB in 2005. Then between 2006 and 2009 students found and secured their own exhibition venues, placing their projects in a range of local contexts. Projects were then presented at DIT Broadcast Galley, Copper House Gallery and most recently The Darkroom and Brunswick Collective. From 2010 to 2013, the module group also included students from the Dublin School of Creative Arts. BA in Photography, DIT

I am the external examiner for the BA in Photography and Lens Based Media at the Limerick School of Art and Design, Limerick Institute of Technology. LSAD, LIT

Selected Curatorial Projects /
​BA Photography.

DIT (2016) AUNT SALLY'S TEA DANCE

DIT (2012) IN CONVERSATION WITH CONVERSATIONS ​

Project website design by Neil Dorgan, Installation photographs by Barry Keogh 2012.

Public event with collaborating students and colleague Anthony Haughey, supported by IMMA. Photos by Ieva Baltaduonyte 2012.

DIT (2012) GRADUATE EXHIBITION

National Photographic Archive of Ireland & Gallery of Photography, Dublin.  Video documentation by Lauren Pritchard, 2012

Selected Curatorial Projects /
MA Visual

IADT (2010) CURATORIAL PROJECT

MA Visual Arts Practices (Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology), was housed at the LAB, the location of Dublin City Council's Arts Office and arts spaces (2010 - 2011). The course has subsequently been superseded by the MA in Art and Research Collaboration (ARC). As part of The Curatorial Project with MAVis 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. ​

Panels in the care of students and removed to the LAB, Dublin City Council, and added to Dublin City Council Collection. Photos Valerie Connor.