School of Fine Art
Phone: 01 6364396
Email: mcallisterh@staff.ncad.ie
Dr. Helen McAllister
PhD
Head of Applied Materials
Helen McAllister’s practice is rooted in Embroidery, that now positions the materiality and process in the Applied Arts. The practice has been a constant dialogue between the shoe–derived form, historical Venice, and the crafted artifact outcome. The work investigates notions of the narrative, symbolism and metaphor that are interdisciplinary within the maker discipline, through Design processes and thinking with that of Material Culture. The engagement with the viewer and the ‘display’ of the made artifact propels the work in new contexts, having new audiences and new teaching situations.
Dr Helen McAllister | CV
Education
2006 PhD Practice-based Design - (Embroidered textiles)
National College of Art and Design, Dublin Ireland
1999 MA Design – (Embroidered textiles)
National College of Art and Design, Dublin Ireland
1986 ANCAD – (1st Class) – (Embroidered textiles)
Commendation in History of Art & Complementary Studies
Teaching Experience
2014-present Head of Department, Applied Material Cultures
National College of Art and Design, Dublin
2009-2014 Head of Department, Fashion and Textiles
National College of Art and Design, Dublin
2014-2015 Coordinator, MFA in Design
Professional Activity
2020 External Examiner, MA art practice based
UL Limerick
2013-2017 Judge, Golden Fleece Award
Helen Lillas Mitchell Trust, Dublin Ireland
2013-2017 External Examiner, Textiles Undergraduate program
St. Anne’s College, Sligo Ireland
2011-2014 External Examiner, Textiles Undergraduate program
G.M.I.T. Galway Ireland
2009 Peer Review Panellist, QA Undergraduate Degree p
London College of Fashion. London England
Special Projects
2012 Innovation Voucher | Polio Society Ireland
Then and Now Fashion Event Project Manager,
Grants and Awards
2011 An Post | Crafts Council of Ireland Collaboration Stamp Collection
2002 The Golden Fleece Award | Overall Winner
1986 Taylor Award, RDS Craft Award
Exhibitions
2020 Equality – Invisibility Series – on line exhibition and sales
raised money for ALONE charity through COVID
2017 Shoe making Kit (travelling show)
Knit & Stitch, Olympia, London | Edinburgh, Scotland
2016 Adaptations
OPW Gallery, Farmleigh, Phoenix Park, Dublin
2015 Shoe Making Kit (solo show)
R-Space, Lisburn, Co Down
2014 Interlace
National Craft Gallery, Kilkenny
2013 CultureCraft – Culture in the Making (UK City of Culture)
London Street Gallery, Derry
Art & Style
Brown Thomas window, Dublin
International Academic Conferences
2021 CIVAE – 3rd Interdisciplinary & Virtual Conference on
Arts in Education
https://www.civae.org/conference-proceedings-2021/
2019 Equality Symposium |Curator / Presenter
NCAD, Dublin (published papers)
Women in Design |Seminar
N.G. o A.A. Dublin
D-Tex | Conference
Univ. Lisbon – Lisbon
2017 Crafting Education iJADE
NCAD/ Dublin Ireland
Making Futures (on-line publish.)
Plymouth College of Art, Plymouth, UK
2013 More for Less | Cumulus (on-line publish.)
Dublin Ireland
Objects in Focus| Seminar
N.G. o A.A. Dublin
Design learning for Tomorrow | DRS/Cumulus,
Oslo (published)
Knowing (by) Design
Sint-Lucas, Brussels (published)
Publications
2020 Equality |compiled / edited / contributor
Self-publishing
2018 Iterations – Design Research & Practice Review Issue 6 Feb
Institute Designers Ireland
2013 CultureCraft - Reclaim | Repurpose Catalogue Introduction
UK City of Culture Derry
2012 Textile Surface Manipulation | Co-Author with Nigel Cheney
Cheney/McAllister, Bloomsbury London
Membership
Design Crafts Council of Ireland
Venice in Peril
The Belfast Natural History & Philosophical Society
(edited CV 2021)
Artistic Practice
Artistic work has always been visually inspired by Italy and in particular Venice resulting in small to large wall hangings. For a number of years this created a ‘recognisable style’, but questioned the need to ‘re-brand’ the practice. The completion of a MA Design (embroidery) shifted the work from ‘decorative’ outputs to that of an in-depth inquiry of Venetian 16th Textiles and ‘Chopines’ with 3D outputs. The artistic practice formed a platform to question notions of a creative practice, the made art artefact and the interdisciplinary of the field of study resulted in the completion of a practice based PhD (embroidery).
Themes and Influences
The research inquiry questioned the fundamental definition of what constitutes a pair through shoe-derived forms. Prown states that ‘artefacts are in addition to their intended function, unconscious representations of the hidden mind’. This seemed particularly apt when considering the recognizable, iconographic object of the shoe. Research has been grounded in the practice of making art artefacts, dovetailing with Venice for visual, historical, and societal themes. The artistic practice has come from textile processes and discursive thinking that now locates the work in the field of Applied Materials.
The ‘pair’ is still the vehicle to question duality, identity and materiality; reflecting on the made and its manufacture, aligning meaning to making and private to public engagement. Venice has been the single most important influence not only for visual references but as a metaphor of a carefully ‘crafted’ creation of itself that conveys complex duality and dichotomies. Venice, as an ‘entity’, has allowed investigation of pairs, pairings, binary oppositions, of duplication, counter praxis and co existing duality of tensions and torsions.
The shoe form narrates, becoming portrait and protagonist. Often misconstrued as an object of adoration, therefore superficial in meaning, belies a more complex relationship, even perverse, where the shoe form conveys different meaning from interactive wearing with that of passive gazed upon artefact.
Current work focuses on the shoe making process in a large body of work called the ‘Shoe Making Kit’, this reflects on a brief historical moment that saw female makers and sellers of shoes. The ‘Shoe Making kit’ series also conjures up the secret hordes, the fetishism of collecting and coveting such objects.
(PROWN & HALTMAN (2000) ‘American Artifacts; essays in material culture’ (edited) Michigan, Michigan State Unv. Press Page 13)
