The NCAD is committed to collaborative coordination of research seminars, symposia and conferences in order to facilitate critical debate and the sharing of insights gained  from student and staff research activity.

Captions (from left to right): Interdisciplinary PhD Research Seminar, 2006.
Fine Art Research Seminar December 2005.

Áine Phillips PhD student at NCAD: still from performance research presentation at “From Experience” March 10th 2006.

Leah Hilliard, Department of Fine Art Media, Conference presentation Bergen Norway, 2005.

Research events throughout 2006 and 2007

• IMMA / NCAD artists’ seminar series.
• UCD / NCAD spatial cultures interdisciplinary seminar.
• NCAD doctoral studies interdisciplinary seminar.

Participants from UCD Architecture, NCAD MA Art Contemporary World and MA Design History & Material Culture in the first joint UCD/NCAD Spatial Cultures module. (25/9/06)	PhD and Masters students at the conclusion of the postgraduate introduction seminar day (28/9/06)

Participants in the joint seminar series between the NCAD MA Art in the Contemporary World and the IMMA Artists Panel. (3/11/06)

Declan Long (NCAD) Brian Ward (UCD) and Anna Moran (NCAD) jointly presenting the first session of the UCD/NCAD Spatial Cultures module. (25/9/06)

2020 Visions: Imagining the art & design college of the future. (G05)

Thursday 22nd March 2007

This was the third annual Irish Art & Design Research Network symposium and it examined visions of the future of art and design education in the 21st century. Presenters included Kevin Atherton (NCAD), Dr. Siun Hanrahan (DIT), Brian Hand (IT Carlow), Dr. Helen McAllister (NCAD), Russell Mills (Guest Speaker), Prof. Marie Redmond (TCD), Dr. Ed Carroll (CityArts), Dr. Aislinn O’Donnell (UCD), Nuala Hunt (NCAD) and Sinead Hogan (IADT).

The symposium was followed by the opening of the MA Art in the Contemporary World work-in-progress show at thisisnotashop.

Which future?

In recent years there has been a significant growth of debate about the future role and nature of teaching, learning and research in art and design education at third level. Debate has ranged over operational and procedural issues & modularisation, assessment, tenure, departmental divisions, management hierarchies, institutional organisation, external relationships, technology change, access,  inclusion, quality assessment, harmonisation across Europe & but it has necessarily also turned upon basic issues of purpose and philosophy. Questions such as - What for? Who for? Wherefore? & have also been raised.

This symposium invited participants to put forward what the future should be, could be or would be in their own creative imagining and thinking of all possible futures. The day was constructed around a series of panel sessions with question and answer and discussion threaded throughout the day.

Participants discuss with Dr. Suin Hanrahan in response to her presentation on virtual learning environments at “2020 visions”. (22/3/07)

Russell Mills and Dr. Ed Carroll (CityArts) presenters at the 2020 visions symposium. (22/3/07)

Visitors at the MA Art in the Contemporary World work-in-progress show at “thisisnotashop” venue Benburb Street, Dublin. (22/3/07)

Learning Labs 3

This was the third in a series of three seminars that took place over 2006/7. The sessions are targeted at emerging practitioners and address longer-term cultural acts located in practice and context. Organised by CityArts in partnership with NCAD.

Seminar # 3: A research agenda for participation in the culture of the city.

Friday 2nd March 2:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Venue: Room H005 Visual Culture Block

Having looked at two specific examples of participatory practice & seminar 1: Jay Koh’s Myanmar Project Nov. 17th 2006 and seminar 2: collaboration in a time of change: Tower Songs Jan. 26th 2007 & this final seminar in the series sought to establish a sense of the specific issues at stake in themes of “participation” and the future possible directions for research in this area.

In the discussions of the first two seminars it has emerged that there are a number of critical impasses: (i) in the exchange between established “avant-gardist” models of art practice and various forms of “participatory culture” and (ii) in the dialogue between art criticism/theory and various forms of embedded socially-engaged practices. Central to these difficulties in dialogue are the uncertainties presented by the various vocabularies in play - “participation” “inclusion” “access” “cultural democracy” “the social” “community” “engagement” “authorship” “expression” “ownership” “class” “location” “site” “audience” “dialogue/dialogical” “collaboration” “relational” “sustainable” etc.

A further difficulty identified was the complexity of organisational initiatives at work in the broad area of participation in the culture of the city at present. These initiatives include those of CityArts, CREATE, % for-art-schemes (e.g. Breaking Ground), City Council Arts Office, “cultural quarter” and “cultural corridor” initiatives, regeneration boards, art college projects (e.g. NCAD’s Cork Street projects,  DIT’s Arts-in-Context projects), museum education and outreach programmes and a great deal more.

This seminar attempted to clarify the field by addressing the specific vocabularies in play and identifying the significant conceptual and practical differences at work across this broad spectrum of activity.

RESOURCES

1. Introduction by Grant Kester to the broad context of participatory cultural practices and vocabulary issues:
   http://digitalarts.ucsd.edu
2. Current CityArts city projects strands are detailed here:
   http://www.cityarts.ie
3. This is an example of a %-for-art scheme in the city Ballymun’s “Breaking Ground”:
   http://www.breakingground.ie
4. This the Dublin City Council’s city and culture initiative
   http://www.dublincity.ie/
5. The Agenda 21 for Culture promotes the adoption of a series of principles, commitments and recommendations to strengthen the development of culture on an international scale from the local arena, considering it as a collective right to participation in the life of societies. (Local Agenda 21 is the main product of the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The U.N. charter identifies sustainable development as a key principle for governance in the 21st Century hence the term “Agenda 21”. Ireland among many countries has signed the charter committing itself to the principle.)
   http://www.barcelona2004.org
6. This is an example of the kind of debate happening internationally with respect to issues of cultural inclusion and the culture of cities. It is in direct response to Agenda 21 for Culture.
   http://www.barcelona2004.org

Participants in the learning labs 3 seminar discussing the vocabularies and practices gathered variously under the heading “participatory.”

Cross-College Postgraduate Seminar Day (Noel Sheridan Room)

Thursday 15th February 2007

Postgraduate students participating in the cross-college postgraduate seminar day. (15/2/07)

Audience-participants at the filmbase launch of “screenshow” an exhibition of work by students, graduates and staff associated with the MA Arts in the Digital World programme. (15/2/07)

Beyond the Studio Conference (G04/5/6)

Thursday 8th and Friday 9th February 2007

In conjunction with Dublin City, Hugh Lane Gallery, and the National Sculpture Factory, a major international conference on the studio (coinciding with the exhibition "The Studio" at the Dublin City, Hugh Lane Gallery.)

Participants included Daniel Buren, Jens Hoffmann, Iwona Blazwick, Thomas Demand, Karen Wright, John Miller, Jaki Irvine, Ronan McCrea, Christina Kennedy, Jon Wood, Hen Slager, Coaimhin Mac Giolla Leith, Tara Byrne, Tessa Giblin and Lonnie van Brummelen. Over 270 people attended the conference with participants coming from North America, Europe, the UK and from all over Ireland.

The concept of the studio has long captivated audiences with its associations of unbridled creativity, freedom from convention, bohemian lifestyle and struggle for success. BEYOND THE STUDIO sought to examine the relevance, role and function of the studio today:

• What is the “studio” within the diverse and competing terms of contemporary art practice?
• Is there a tension between the studio as a workshop and the studio as both a space and an object of spectacle?
• How might we approach the lived experience of inhabiting and operating the studio?
• In terms of the economy of objects what are the multiple relays between the studio and the museum?
• What is the “location” of the studio for the multiple nomadic practices of contemporary culture?
• The city as studio: how do we conceive of the extension of the studio?
• What makes the studio such a topical matter for discussion?
• In what ways do contemporary discourses on the studio continue or diverge from earlier discussions?
• Is the studio a place; a situation; an activity; a fetish; a space of sociability; a zone of autonomy; a vestigial limb or an undisclosed possibility?

Postgraduate Open Evening

The National College of Art & Design is holding a POSTGRADUATE OPEN EVENING on Thursday 1 February 2007 in the School of Design for Industry, 100 Thomas Street, Dublin 8.

You should arrive between 4:00pm and 6:00pm.

The evening provides an opportunity to meet staff and learn about the wide range of innovative practical and theoretical options for advanced study at Masters and Doctoral level. Study opportunities cover the spectrum of art and design activity, including practice, education, history, criticism and theory. Staff from all Faculties will be available to answer your questions and to show you around the College. There will be a special presentation on PhD study opportunities at NCAD.

Seminars on the Higher Diploma in Art & Design Education and the Higher Diploma in Community Arts Education will be running on the evening. If you wish to participate in these seminars you should arrive at 5:00pm and go directly to the Faculty of Education desk to arrange attendance. Refreshments served.

• HDip Art & Design Education 4:30 & 5:30 Sybil Connolly Room
• HDip Community Art Education 6:30 Sybil Connolly Room
• MA in Design 4:30 Seminar Room 106
• PhD in all subject areas 5:30 Seminar Room 106
• Taught Masters programmes 6:30 Seminar Room 106

“Hauntology”: The Annual CAR-NIVAL Research Seminar.

Friday 8th December 11.00 am & 6:00 pm

Contemporary Art Research & National Irish Visual Arts Library collaborative seminar.

Invited keynote speaker: Brian Dillon (Writer and Critic)

Brian Dillon is a columnist for frieze. His writing has appeared in Cabinet, The London Review of Books, The New Statesman, Modern Painters, Art Review and The Wire. His first book, In the Dark Room, won the Irish Book Awards non-fiction prize, 2006. He is currently working on Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives, to be published in 2008.

Speakers include: Dr. Francis Halsall and Tim Stott as well as a range of invited artists whose work is informed by the themes of haunting, the spectral and the ghostly.

“A spectre is haunting Europe…” (Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, 1848)

“Repetition and first time: this is perhaps the question of the event as the question of the ghost. What is a ghost? What is the effectivity or the presence of a spectre, that is, of what seems to remain as ineffective, virtual, insubstantial as a simulacrum? […] Let us call it a hauntology. This logic of haunting would not be merely larger and more powerful than an ontology or a thinking of Being…” (Jaques Derrida, Spectres of Marx, 1993)

Strictly speaking, there is never a better or worse time for speaking of ghosts & they have always (not quite) been there, and they are untimely to the very core of their non-being. But as spectres grow in abundance, then we must gather together to figure out just why spectrality persists as a cultural trope. What use can be made of this untidy and shifty figure that resonates so intensely (and in many cases undetected) through concepts, logics, and technologies? How can we rethink the unstable architectures of the political, social and cultural in ways that do not disavow, but are enabled by the ghostly manner in which they function?

The schedule and programme of this seminar will be available here shortly.

If you would like to book a space at this event e-mail postgraduate@ncad.ie with the word “hauntology” in the message title.

Learning Labs

This is a series of three seminars in 2006/7 for emerging practitioners about longer-term cultural acts located in practice and context. Organised by CityArts in partnership with NCAD.

Seminar # 1: The Art of Listening

Friday 17th November 2:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Venue: Room G04 in the Design for Industry Building

Led by artists Jay Koh & Chu Yuan from Malaysia, in Dublin as part of CityArts ongoing international residency programme. This seminar examines their practice over the last decade which involves collaborations in Thailand, Myanmar, Finland, Poland and Sweden.

Followed by the launch of Learning Labs 01 - Visual Arts in Youth Work, Research and discourse about practice in context. A joint publication between the National College of Art and Design and CityArts, based on a two day seminar exchange between arts and youth practitioners in 2004. Published by the Irish Youth Work Press

Artist Jay Koh presenting his work as part of the CityArts/NCAD Learning Labs Seminar (17/11/06)

Artist Jay Koh responding to feedback from workshop participants in the Learning Labs Seminar (17/11/06)

Students and staff chatting at the launch of the book “Visual Arts in Youth Work” produced by CityArts/NCAD and the Irish Youth Work Federation (17/11/06)

Prof. David Hopkins “Dada’s Boys: Duchamp; Warhol; Gordon.”

Friday 3rd November 2006 2:00 pm & 4:00 pm

NCAD (Art in Contemporary World) @ IMMA (Education Department)

The lecture explored the theme of identity, projection and masculinity in modern and contemporary art. The lecture drew upon material that Professor Hopkins investigates in his forthcoming book for Yale University Press on male identity in and after Dada and which was also the theme of his recent exhibition Dada’s Boys in Edinburgh.

David Hopkins is Professor of Art History (Modern and Contemporary) at the University of Glasgow. Among his publications are:

• After Modern Art 1945-2000 (Oxford, 2000)
• Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2003)
• Marcel Duchamp (co-authored, Thames and Hudson, 1999)
• Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst: The Bride Shared, (Oxford, 1998)
• And the edited volume Neo-Avant-Garde (Rodopi: Amsterdam, forthcoming)

He recently curated the exhibition Dada’s Boys: Play and Identity in Contemporary Art for the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2006)

Rethinking the Everyday: (Material Culture)

Thursday 2nd November 2006 10:00 am & 5:30 pm

On Thursday November 2nd a special one-day conference event to examine the diversity of approaches in the study of design, material culture and the everyday will take place in the National College of Art & Design, Dublin. The dominant themes proposed for speakers to address are those of (i) diverse methods and (ii) cross-disciplinary dialogues. Presenters are drawn from across disciplines including design history, visual arts, design practice, archaeology, cultural studies, sociology, technology development and philosophy.

Design Research Group Keynote speaker: The internationally acclaimed designer and design commentator Ken Garland, currently Visiting Professor in Graphic Design, Brighton University.

Admission free, booking recommended: email postgraduate@ncad.ie with the word “everyday” in the title of your message.

Speakers to include:

• Dr. Tina Basi, University of Leeds.
• Julie Behan, University of Limerick.
• Mary Ann Bolger, Waterford Institute of Technology.
• Adam Drazin, Trinity College Dublin.
• Sarah Foster, Crawford College of Art & Design/CIT, Cork.
• Lisa Godson, Royal College of Art London.
• Dr. Daniel Jewesbury, Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster, Craigavon.
• Thomas Kador, School of Archaeology, University College Dublin.
• Anna Moran, National College of Art & Design, Dublin.
• Sherra Murphy, School of Creative Arts, Institute of Art Design & Technology, Dun Laoghaire.
• Dr. Stephanie Rains, Department of Humanities, Institute of Art Design & Technology, Dun Laoghaire.
• Jane Tynan, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts, London.
• The Design Research Group, National College of Art and Design, Dublin.

Papers will include:

Ageing in Place: Rethinking the Everyday
Dr. Tina Basi, Julie Behan and Adama Drazin.

Boring Types: Why some things don't 'go without saying'.
Mary Ann Bolger

Novel Evidence and Everyday Interiors.
Sarah Foster

Archive: Lisburn Road. The material culture of a Belfast suburb.
Dr. Daniel Jewesbury

Past lives from materials: an archaeology of the everyday.
The conference brochure will be posted here shortly.
Thomas Kador

Reflections in the Necro-Zoo: The Natural History Museum, Dublin as Material Culture.
Sherra Murphy

The Everyday and The Academy: A New Generation of Cultural Studies?
Dr. Stephanie Rains

Designing Bodies for Unstable Spaces: Design and Military Culture
Jane Tynan

Click here to view the conference timetable...

Download: Rethinking the Everyday Conference Brochure (PDF 1Mb)

This conference is supported by a design history society event award

Speakers at the conference "Rethinking the Everyday" (left to right) Sherra Murphy (IADT), Dr. Stephanie Reins (IADT), Jane Tynan (CSM), and Lisa Godson (RCA). (2/11/06)

Roundatable discussion with Ken Garland (keynoter speaker), Sorcha O'Brien (NCAD), Ciaran O'Gaora, Bob Grey (DRG) and Dr. Ciaran Swan (DRG). Rethinking the Everyday (2/11/06)

Lisa Godson (RCA) presenting her paper "Against the everyday every day." (2/11/06)

new constellations of practice, enquiry and research

C   R   O   S   S   O   V   E   R
a conference on creative practices
across art, architecture and design

CROSSOVER: One&day Conference at the National Gallery of Ireland.

Saturday 23rd September 10:30-17:00

CROSSOVER: new forms of creative practice.

A conference exploring creative practices in art, architecture and design that move between disciplines, blurring distinctions and generating new constellations of activity, enquiry and research.

Rationale: This event responded to the broad sense in contemporary cultural practice that the blurring of distinctions between different domains of practice is a key feature of the most dynamic and experimental of contemporary practices across art, design, architecture and cognate fields. These hybrid practices often trouble conventional critical categories and require a more creative critical response. This conference provided an opportunity to consider and reflect upon concrete examples of ‘crossover’ work. It was also an opportunity to consider future opportunities for research-driven explorations of the interaction across the various fields of creative practice. Questions considered were:

• What do these cross-over practices look like? Are there common features to be discerned?
• Are these cross-over initiatives primarily project driven or is there some larger process of cultural change at work?
• What importance do these initiatives have for future education and research in art, design and architecture?
• What are the problems encountered in working across disciplines?
• What is the role of cultural institutions in respect of such cross-over practices?
• What are the critical issues that need to be addressed in this area?

"What Does It Take? Design, Research, Economy, Society."
Organised by the Design Research Group.

Friday April 7th 2006

This event has been organized by the recently established Design Research Group (Bob Gray, Feargal Fitzpatrick, Margaret Lonergan, Dr. Ciaran Swan) and will provide a forum for visual communications practitioners, other design practitioners, tutors and theorists to consider issues of visual communications practice and theory..

Critical Voices 3: Henry Giroux
Cultural Studies and Education in Dark Times

Thursday 30th of March

Critical Voices 3: Stephanie Springgay
A/r/tography as living inquiry:
Arts-based research in educational contexts

Friday 31st of March

Continuing our collaboration with Critical Voices 3 programme NCAD, in conjunction with ESAI will host a public lecture by Stephanie Springay on Friday 31st of March at 11:00am in the School of Design for Industry at NCAD. Read more...

Educational Studies Association of Ireland Conference
at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin

March 30th – April 1st 2006

Rethinking Educational Policies and Practices in an Era of Globalisation: Challenges and Opportunities

From Experience: PhD through practice in art and design.
The 2nd Art and Design Research Network Symposium.
(Hosted by Limerick School of Art & Design/LIT)

Friday March 10th 2006

This event was co-organised by NCAD, LSAD/LIT, DIT, and IADT in collaboration with other partner schools and departments of art and design nationally. Following upon the success of the April 2005 Symposium “Research Questions” this symposium examined concrete examples of PhD through practice in art and design and the issues and opportunities that growth in this area presents. The day included contributions from PhD students (Aine Philips [NCAD], Cordula Hansen [WIT], Marie Coleman [DIT], Brendan Earley [NCAD]) and PhD Supervisors (Kevin Atherton [NCAD], Paul O’Brien [NCAD], Mia Lerm Hayes [UU], Timothy Emlyn Jones [Burren], and Siun Hanrahan [DIT]).

Audience at “From Experience” art and design research network symposium March 2006.

Supervisor’s panel at “From Experience” art and design research network symposium March 2006.

NCAD Postgraduate Research Symposium

Thursday February 9th 10:00-18:00

This was the first College-wide postgraduate research symposium and provided an opportunity for staff and student researchers in art, design, education, history and theory to critically interact and exchange ideas. This is an annual event and will take place again ion 2007. If you would like to receive information, or if you would like to participate on the day, please e-mail research@ncad.ie with the words “ Postgrad Symposium” in the message title.

Presentation at the College-wide postgraduate symposium February 2006.

Audience participants at the College-wide postgraduate symposium February 2006.

Third Text: Criticism and contemporary art in Irish contexts: the national and the postcolonial

Friday December 9th 14:00-18:30

To mark the launch of the Irish themed special issue of the international journal Third Text, edited by Lucy Cotter, the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) co-organised a seminar on contemporary art practices, the role of criticism and the possible future directions for art practices based in contemporary Ireland. Key themes examined included the tension between the construction of national cultures, globalisation and the modes of internationalism in contemporary art. Speakers included Richard Dyer (Third Text), David Lloyd , Luke Gibbons, Val Connor, Brian Hand, Vic Merriman, Gavin Murphy, Declan Long, and Nevan Lehart.

Captions (from left to right): Ciara Healy, Gavin Murphy, Victor Merriman, Lucy Cotter, David Lloyd, and Brian Hand panelists at the NIVAL/Third Text seminar December 2005.
Nevan Lehart and Luke Gibbons panelists at the NIVAL/Third Text seminar December 2005.

Captions (from left to right): Director of the NCAD Library Edward Murphy introduces the NIVAL/Third Text Seminar.
Val Connor, Ellen Rowley, Brian Magfuire, Richard Dyer, and Nevan Lehart at the NIVAL/Third Text seminar December 2005.

“Research Questions” Symposium:
The 1st Art and Design Research Network Symposium

Friday April 22nd 2005

In conjunction with the launch of the Journal Printed Project’s special issue on the PhD by practice - the first annual meeting of the newly established art and design research network took place through a conference on practice-based research with contributions from local and international speakers.

Participants included Prof. Colm O’Briain [NCAD], Mick Wilson [NCAD], Margaret Lonergan [NCAD], Declan Long [NCAD], Dr. Gavin Murphy [GMIT], Prof. Angela Woods [NCAD], Sorcha Fox [Independent Theatre Practitioner], Donal O’Kelly [Independent Theatre Practitioner] Eamonn Crudden [NCAD/Edinburgh] Dr. Niamh O’Malley [Independent Artist], Dr. Maeve Connolly [IADT] Dr. Paula Gilligan [IADT], Prof. Timothy Emlyn Jones [Burren] Catherine Fitzgerald  [Independent Artist] Dr. Gearóid Ó Conchubhair, [NCAD], Dr. Kieran Cashell [LSAD/LIT], Dr. Susan O’Shea [LSAD/LIT], Helen McAllister [NCAD], Kieran Corcoran [DIT], Anna Colford [IADT], Dr. Gearóid Ó Conchubhair [NCAD], Dr. Siun Hanrahan [DIT], Dr. Michael Biggs [Hertfordshire] Craig Smith [Goldsmiths] Prof. Liam Kelly [UU], Prof. Brian Maguire [NCAD].