Press Play : Playing at the National Museum of Ireland Collins’ Barracks
Dublin City Council Culture Company: The National Neighbourhood 2016/7
The culmination of my work on Press Play: The School of Identity Museum with the Transition Year students of New Cross College, Finglas, Margaret Aylward Community College, Whitehall and Colaiste Mhuire, Cabra took place at the National Museum of Ireland Collins’ Barracks in March 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb18dGIoLro
Part of the process with New Cross College, Finglas involved the Young People bringing me on walks, walking and talking basically, showing me key places in their area and talking about their lived experiences, impressions, difficulties and hopes for the future. We took a trip into to Dublinia, talked about the Brehon Laws, about the remains of the Viking woman found in Finglas, apartments built over her now; we talked about housing, and the flats in Ballymun being torn down; how the Church in Finglas was going to be knocked down to build social housing, how there’s nothing to do in the area, and about the horses. We spent a long time trying to figure out what we wanted to make together, and ultimately made a short film “I’m Sick of me life - I’m Only Messin’ “ which is one of my most favourite things I’ve ever collaborated on making. Made with cinematographer Johnathan Ho and Sound Designer Carl Kennedy.
Some of the students worked with their art teacher Maurice Furlong to create a Celtic Inspired village, and small sculptures, and one portrait of a Sile-na-Gigh which were displayed in the function room on the day.
With the Transition Year Students in Margaret Aylward Community College in Whitehall, part of the process involved long conversations about identity, genders and ethnicity, as well as a significant conversation about grief which lead to our creating an installation and text called “We preserve this object... “ inspired by the preservation of objects in the museum but personalised in the objects that we each hold sacred, a large number of these were from people in the lives of the Young People who had passed away. We displayed the installation as part of the Press Play Day at Collins Barracks, and included a printed version in the style of a memorial card which the audience could take away. This piece has also become one of my favourite pieces I’ve ever been part of making.
The students worked with Artist Alison Conneely whose show 'The Shuttle Hive: A Century of Rising Threads' was being presented at the National of Museum of Ireland for the 1916 Centenary Commemorations. They made mood boards and mini looms after visiting the exhibition and spending time workshopping with Alison.
The Transition Year students at Colaiste Mhuire really connected with the exhibition in Collins Barracks “Proclaiming a Republic: The 1916 Rising” which was the key focus of our trip to the Museum. The Young People created a prolific amount of work, including paintings and drawings inspired by the 1916 Rising, an abundance of text and commentary about the exhibition and worked on a live performance in a mixture of rap, and direct address new text, which gave an impression of the content we’d explored together in workshops.
The process of this work with the three school groups and the culmination of the presentation at Collins Barracks was then reinterpreted and reimagined by Visual Artist John Conway, who created the School of Identity Pop Up Museum in Margaret Aylwards Community College in 2017. All of the students across the three schools who had participated in the Press Play National Neighbourhoods Project were then able to attend this museum and experience their work beautifully presented. I found this experience overwhelming, to have spent a number of months working with these Young People towards creating and then to have the opportunity to experience that work in a new context was one of the more powerful experiences I’ve had in collaborative practice. It’s unusual for me to be able to revisit and see again this kind of collaborative work, as by it’s nature it’s ethereal, of a specific time, place and grouping of individuals. It was a real gift to be able to witness again the depth of shared experiences during the months long process with the freshness that comes from the space between the ending and getting to rest and replenish afterwards, without the urgency of finalising and presenting work in a live performance context.
New Cross College Walking n Talking/Process video:
