North-55
presents
CONNECT SEMINAR:
Socially engaged art, community and the meaning of place
Friday 2nd September 2011
Venues – McGrorys Hotel, Culdaff & Malin Head Community Centre,
Inishowen, Co. Donegal.
The event is free however booking is essential
To register for the seminar please email north55@eircom.net
North-55,
51. Upper Main Street,
Buncrana,
Co. Donegal.
T +353 (0)74 932 2870
+353 86 6094275
E north55@eircom.net
W http://north-55.com
North-55
CONNECT SEMINAR: Socially engaged art, community and the meaning of place.
Friday 2nd September 2011
Venues – McGrorys Hotel (Culdaff) & Malin Head Community Centre, Inishowen, Co. Donegal.
Presented by North-55 in association with the Inishowen Development Partnership, the CONNECT seminar sets out
to examine the potential of cross-sectoral collaboration to creatively engage with questions of community, place and
contested histories.
The CONNECT seminar aims to stimulate debate around the following central questions:

How can socially engaged arts practice create points of dialogue within and between communities and those
that seek to work with them?

What is the potential of bringing international models of practice to bear on local and cross border contexts?

How can we measure the impact of engaged contemporary cultural practices in the public realm?

How can arts and cultural practice articulate and explore some of the key issues for communities in the
wider context of current socio-political and cultural debate within a cross-border context?
Key Note Address by artist Rick Lowe from Project Row Houses, Houston, Texas (international artist in residence
ILLUMINATE project) Other speakers include US based Curator Mary Jane Jacob, Sara Black, (Director,
ProjectBase, Cornwall), and Annette Patton, (Donegal Community Workers Co-Operative). The event will be
chaired by Professor Declan McGonagle, Director, National College of Art and Design Dublin.
The seminar will be followed by the official opening at 7.00pm of North-55’s ILLUMINATE public art project, which
has focused on Inistrahull Island including the world premiere of ISLAND LAMENT, a specially commissioned
site-specific soundwork performed by project participants.
To register for the seminar please email north55@eircom.net
North-55,
51. Upper Main Street,
Buncrana,
Co. Donegal.
T +353 (0)74 932 2870
+353 86 6094275
E north55@eircom.net
W http://north-55.com
CONNECT SEMINAR: Socially engaged art, community and the meaning of place.
Friday 2nd September 2011
9.50
REGISTRATION AND COFFEE
10.00 – 10.15
Welcome - Shauna McClenaghan (Inishowen Development Partnership)
Introduction & Chair: Declan McGonagle
10.15 – 11.15
How can socially engaged arts practice become a point of dialogue within and
between communities and those that seek to work with them?
KEYNOTE SPEAKER – Rick Lowe, Project Row Houses.
Q&A
11.15
COFFEE BREAK
11.30 - 1.00
What is the potential of bringing international models of practice to bear on local
and cross border contexts?
Mary Jane Jacob, Curator
John Meehan, Chief Executive Derry City Council
Philip Delamer, Arts Officer, Co. Leitrim
Q&A
1.00 – 2.00
LUNCH
2.00 – 3.00
How can we measure the impact of engaged contemporary arts practices in the
public realm?
Sara Black, ProjectBase
Russell Lewis, Street Level Youth Media
Ailbhe Murphy, Vagabond Reviews
Q&A
3.00 - 3.15
COFFEE BREAK
3.15 – 4.15
How can art and culture practice articulate and explore some of the key issues for
communities in the wider context of current social, political and cultural debate
within a cross-border context?
Annette Patton, Donegal Community Workers Co-operative
John Peto, The Nerve Centre
Declan McGonagle, City Of Culture.
Q&A
4.15 – 4.30
Conference Close - Declan McGonagle
CONNECT SEMINAR: Socially engaged art, community and the meaning of place.
EVENING EVENTS
ILLUMINATE OPENING
7pm – 8pm
*(Buses will be provided from entrance to McGrorys to Malin Head Community
Centre at 6.45pm.)
Official Launch of ILLUMINATE public art event by Mary Jane Jacob (Curator) and
Robert Farren (Malin Head Community Association) at Malin Head Community
Centre.
8pm - 8.45pm
Live performance of ISLAND LAMENT at Malin Head Community Centre.
Anthony Doogan – IDP Chair – Opening Remarks
Introduction by Sarah Murphy – Music55-7
9.00pm
*(Buses will be provided from entrance to Malin Head Community Centre at
8.45pm.)
ILLUMINATE event at Ballygorman, Malin Head. (Weather Permitting)
Lighting Director James Wood – Orion Production Services
9.45pm
(Buses return to Culdaff Village)
To register for the seminar please email north55@eircom.net
North-55,
51. Upper Main Street,
Buncrana,
Co. Donegal.
T +353 (0)74 932 2870
+353 86 6094275
E north55@eircom.net
W http://north-55.com
North-55
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Shauna McClenaghan, (Inishowen Development Partnership/North-55)
Shauna McClenaghan is a co-founder of North-55 and currently Joint Programme Manager of the Inishowen Development
Partnership. (IDP) is a local development organisation that works to achieve positive change in the lives of people and
groups in Inishowen. The efforts of Inishowen Development Partnership are directed at building a stronger community
through the enhancement of personal and community identity, values, places, structure and services. Since its inception
North-55 has collaborated with the (IDP) in the development and delivery of its programmes. The critical exploration and
combining of both artistic and community development practice is at the centre of North-55’s socially engaged practice.
Declan McGonagle, (Director, National College of Art and Design)
One of the most influential figures to emerge from the Derry arts scene, Declan McGonagle was behind the extraordinary
international success of the city’s first professionally run art gallery, the Orchard. The template for the city’s diverse,
groundbreaking arts centres of today, the Orchard was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1987, with Declan himself
becoming one of only two curators to be shortlisted for the award. After leaving the Orchard he became the first director of
the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin when it opened in 1991. He is currently Director of the National College of Art and
Design in Dublin. He continues to curate exhibitions, writes and speaks regularly on issues of art and context and serves on
a number of Boards of arts organisations in Ireland, the UK and the U.S.
Rick Lowe, (Project Row Houses)
Rick Lowe is an artist, whose work in urbanism and public projects has been shown around the world, including the
“Uncommon Sense” exhibition of socially based performance and installation practice at the Museum of Contemporary Art
in Los Angeles. He is the founder of Project Row Houses, an arts organization that developed a row of 22 abandoned
houses in a historic section of Houston for cultural installations and residences for young mothers. He was a Loeb Fellow at
the Harvard School of Design and won the 2002 Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities. In 2010 Rick was the second
recipient of The Leonora Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change in recognition of his groundbreaking work in Project
Row Houses —which has become a model for the integration of the arts into a neighbourhood infrastructure.
Mary Jane Jacob, (Curator)
Mary Jane Jacob is a curator who holds the position of Professor in the Department of Sculpture and Executive Director of
Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As chief curator of the Museums of
Contemporary Art in Chicago and Los Angeles, she staged some of the first U.S. shows of American and European artists.
Then shifting her workplace from the museum to the street, she critically engaged the discourse around public space,
commissioning many permanent and temporary works, and organizing such landmark site-specific and community-based
programs as Culture in Action in Chicago, Conversations at The Castle in Atlanta, and Places with a Past.
John Meehan, (Chief Executive, Derry City Council)
John is currently Acting Town Clerk and Chief Executive of Derry City Council. He graduated in Public Health in 1973 from
Jordanstown Polytechnic. Following an initial period specialising in Housing he was appointed as Chief Environmental Health
Officer for Strabane District Council in 1980. Subsequently he took up a similar position with Derry City Council in 1989. In
2004 he was appointed Deputy Town Clerk of Derry City Council and from 2005-2008 he worked as Director of
Development for Derry City Council. Since 2008 Mr Meehan has worked as Deputy Town Clerk focusing primarily on
development and governance change.
Philip Delamere, (Arts Officer/TRADE Residency Programme)
Philip Delamere is currently the Arts Officer in Co. Leitrim. TRADE is a collaborative visual arts programme between Leitrim
and Roscommon County Councils providing knowledge, resources and opportunities for visual artists to engage
internationally. Rather than considering ‘rural’ as ‘isolationary’, TRADE emphasises that art is a global construct and
encourages a freeflow of ideas and opportunities both for local artists to engage internationally as well as for international
artists to participate locally. Since 2006, TRADE consists of two elements – a residential programme and a seminar event.
Under previous residential programmes, artists including Alfredo Jaar worked with a group of artists from the two counties
over the course of a year. The outcomes of which were presented at the TRADE seminar which followed each residency.
Sara Black, (Director, ProjectBase)
Sara Black is Director & Curator of ProjectBase (2004-), a visual art commissioning organisation based in Cornwall, UK,
curating new commissions with Lucy + Jorge Orta, Lawrence Weiner, SUPERFLEX, Eloisa Cartonera, Joseph Grigely, Regina
Moller, Surasi Kusolwong, Hassan Hajjaj and Christine Borland. Sara continues her independent practice and is developing
new projects focusing on the mobility or artists based in Cornwall, and is currently Project Manager for Nowhereisland,
leading on the production for this Artists Taking the Lead London 2012 Cultural Olympiad project. Previously Sara
was Project Manager for Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art – International programme in 2002 & 2004 for the publicly
sited works by Tatsuro Bashi, Choi Jeong Hwa, LOT/EK, Winter & Horbelt, Paolo Canevari, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Peter
Johansson; Assistant Curator at Henry Moore Foundation External Projects; Public Art Officer for a local authority;
Exhibition Co-ordinator for Artranspennine98.
Russell Lewis, (Executive Vice President and Chief Historian of the Chicago History Museum / Street Level
Youth Media)
Russell Lewis is Executive Vice President and Chief Historian of the Chicago History Museum. Among the numerous
exhibitions he has developed, significant there was the community history initiative, Neighbourhoods: Keepers of Culture
and the Teen Chicago project. Lewis also serves as board president of the not-for-profit that emerged from the
“Televecindario/Street Level Youth Media” project in the 1993 program “Culture in Action” in Chicago. Street-Level Youth
Media educates Chicago's urban youth in media arts and emerging technologies for use in communication, and social
change. Street-Level's programs build critical thinking skills for young people who have been historically neglected by
public policy makers and the mass media. Street-Level's youth address community issues, access advanced communication
technology and gain inclusion in our information-based society.
Ailbhe Murphy, (Vagabond Reviews)
Ailbhe Murphy is a visual artist whose collaborative practice has been based primarily within the community development
sector in Dublin. In 2011 she completed her doctoral degree with the University of Ulster where her research focused on
critical co-ordinates for collaborative arts practice within the spatial politics of urban regeneration. In 2007 she co-founded
Vagabond Reviews with independent writer and researcher Ciaran Smyth. Vagabond Reviews combines art interventions
and research processes in order to develop interdisciplinary trajectories of critical inquiry into a range of socially situated
arenas of practice. Projects include the Cultural Review a collaborative arts-based research initiative conducted with the
community development project Fatima Groups United and The Arcade Project a research initiative with the Rialto Youth
Project which sets out to explore principles of practice for an arts-based pedagogy in youth work. Vagabond Reviews is
currently engaged in the research phase for a major per cent for art commission in Galway City.
Annette Patton, (Donegal Community Workers Co-Operative)
Annette Patton worked for 20 years in the development of Youth Work in County Donegal progressing to the position of
Regional Director with the Donegal Youth Service. She was employed with the Social Economy Agency in Derry for 7 years
delivering the agency’s sustainable communities programmes in the border counties. She has lectured for a number of
years on the BA Degree and Higher Certificate courses in Letterkenny Institute of Technology. More recently Annette was
employed as ‘Centres for Learning’ Manager with Tuath based in LYIT. She is currently employed as Policy & Training
Development officer with the Donegal Community Workers Co-operative and co-ordinates an accredited Community
Development course as part of the ‘Harnessing Equality for Lasting Peace’ project funded by the EU’s PEACE III
programme.
John Peto, (The Nerve Centre)
John Peto has worked at the Nerve Centre since 2000 across a range of cultural and educational projects. Primarily a filmmaker John has produced a trilogy of documentaries looking at seminal events in the conflict history of Derry for the BBC,
in addition to a diverse range of broadcast and corporate productions through the Nerve Centre, including work looking at
the Apprentice Boys, Protestant depopulation along the border in Fermanagh and the experiences of former political
prisoners in Northern Ireland. Most recently John wrote and directed Voices, the bid film for Derry’s award winning entry to
2013 UK City of Culture competition. John facilitates the Cultural Diversity/ Community Relations programme at the Nerve
Centre and is involved in resource development and delivery, utilising multimedia and digital technologies for young people.
North-55