Artist Chats: Borders and Barriers, Feminism and Femininity

18 Jan, 12pm - 2:30pm

Suitable for ages 16+

€5 suggested donation

The idea of a ‘border’ can be interpreted in many ways: something that separates one thing from another; the part of a surface or other area that forms an outer boundary, verge, periphery, or rim; a line, limit, or geographic feature separating one space from another; and the sometimes-invisible obstructions that sperate humans from each other, the environment, or parts of themselves. Women often come up against borders and barriers simply by existing, whether they choose to our not. Each of the artists participating in this programme engages with themes of feminism/femininity in their practice and this is reflected—in conversation with their individual interpretations of ‘borders’—through the artworks on display.

The schedule for the day is included below. Please keep an eye out for any changes here or on our social media accounts. Time will be set aside at the end of each artist’s talk for questions and discussion. Tea and coffee will be provided at the end of the programme, and a chance to chat more informally with participating artists, subject to their availability. Please not that these talks will take place in Rua Red Gallery and will not be seated. However, chairs will be available upon request for anyone who needs one.

SCHEDULE

12:00 - 12:30: Cecilia Bullo

12:30 - 13:00: Breege Fahy

13:00 - 13:30: Olga Anacka

13:30 - 14:00: Sorcha O’Brien

14:00 - 14:30: Tea and Coffee

Artists

CECILIA BULLO is a visual artist working in sculpture, installation, sound, and spoken word. Her practice is research-based and influenced by historical, mythological, psychoanalytic, and ecofeminist theories reflecting on collective and individual healing mechanisms in cultural traditions. A recipient of numerous awards, including Dublin City Council, Culture Ireland, Creative Ireland, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Art & Disability Ireland and Fire Station Artists’ Studios, Cecilia is currently a studio resident at RUA RED contemporary art space, and will be undertaking a residency in Paris at the Centre Culturel Irlandaise in spring 2025. She holds: a BA, Fine Art sculpture IADT, Dublin; a BFA, Brera Fine Art Academy, Milan (ITA) and an MFA (2009) from NCAD, Dublin. Recent solo shows include Being haunted by the breezes, now how will you exist ?, Gallagher Gallery, RHA, (2023); LEIGHEAS- LIMINALIS: antidotes for melancholic gestures, The Dock (2023). Her work is in the collections of the Arts Council of Ireland, the Office of Public Works (OPW), and in numerous private collections nationally and internationally. She is crucially supported by The Arts Council of Ireland

BREEGE FAHY has been a costume cutter and maker for thirty years. Her practice focuses on textiles and embroidery. The focus of Féile na Vulva is female body positivity and Vulva pride. Her main embroidered pieces are on the backs of costumes because so much of the reality of women’s bodies and work goes on behind the scenes. This imagery explores some ancient female symbols, putting the Vulva out and proud into the light. Many women today consider cosmetic surgical procedures such as Labiaplasty, believing their Vulva is not textbook or porn-perfect. Breege is attempting to show that each Vulva is as individual as a fingerprint. Her costumes include pockets hanging from the waist, following the eighteenth-century style. Traditionally worn underneath clothing, here the pockets are displayed outside, honouring the hidden economy produced by often unseen female labour. Historically, needlework is often associated with mothers, grandmothers and female relatives, who worked without renumeration. Therefore, it didn’t have a value. Féile na Vulva pays homage to the unseen long hours of learning and practicing required for these skills, rather than knowledge being somehow inherited by gendered magic.

OLGA ANACKA is a conceptual artist who creates mixed media work from her Newbridge studio. Born in 1977 in Poland, she graduated from the University of the Arts in Poznan in 2004. In 2005, she received distinction at the Olsztyn Art Biennial for her Sacred Landscapes metal and clay installation. Her Cocoons, fabric sculptures from the ME

SORCHA O’BRIEN is an artist based in Limerick. A graduate of LSAD and Wimbledon College of Art, she is a member of Wickham Street Studios in Limerick and the Spilt Milk Gallery in Edinburgh. “My personal practice takes the body as a starting point, using it as a material in which to explore the forces that work with and against it, be they environmental or societal, with a particular focus on the maternal experience. My interest is in the tensions that are created when these elements are brought together and intertwined.” Though beginning in collage and predominantly drawing based, my practice also includes work with wax, ceramic and soft sculpture using pillows pulled taught with wire to relate ideas of physical comfort, malleability, and restraint. The body is over-encumbered, but there is also a deliberate ambiguity of struggle and mergence in the works, the body becomes treated as an equivalent material, an object that can be shaped adjusted and re-organised.