Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture Yearbook 2023 (showcase version)

2022 ‒ 2023

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

CONTENTS Course List 03 Welcome 05 Introduction 06 Architecture 08 Creative Design 20 Fine Art 26 Interior Architecture & Design 44 Performing Arts Writing & Literature Creative Practice Masters Faculty Colleagues

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COURSE LIST AU927

Level 8

Creative Design

AU821

Level 7

Creative Design

AU925

Level 8

Architecture

AU926

Level 8

Interior Architecture and Design

AU820

Level 7

Interior Architecture and Design

AU928

Level 8

Fine Art

AU822

Level 7

Fine Art

AU931

Level 8

Performing Arts

AU823

Level 7

Performing Arts (Acting)

AU824

Level 7

Performing Arts (Theatre Design)

AU929

Level 8

Writing and Literature

AU930

Level 8

Writing and Literature Online

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ATU WELCOME CREATIVE SHOWCASE 2023

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

On behalf of Atlantic Institute of Technology (ATU), it gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the 2023 Creative Showcase by the students of ATU’s Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture (YAADA).

This annual event is a celebration of the creativity and innovation that lies at the heart of the Yeats Academy and indeed the wider ATU community.

It provides an opportunity for our students to showcase their work, share their ideas, and engage with one another in a spirit of collaboration and discovery.

YAADA’s programmes in art, design, and architecture are recognised for their excellence and their ability to prepare students for successful careers in these dynamic fields.

This year's Creative Showcase promises to be an exhibition of cutting-edge ideas, innovative projects, and inspiring works of art and design.

I would like to extend my thanks to the students and staff of YAADA for their hard work and dedication, and to all the participants for their contributions. I truly hope that you enjoy the showcase and take away some valuable insights and inspiration.

Once again, welcome to the 2023 Creative Showcase by the Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture at ATU! Dr Orla Flynn, President of Atlantic Institute of Technology (ATU)

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ATU WELCOME CREATIVE SHOWCASE 2023

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

I would like to congratulate this year’s graduating students and wish them every success with their future creative endeavours. This yearbook is a celebration and an important testimony of what they have achieved already.

Welcome to our Yeats Academy Yearbook. This is the fifth year to publish the Yearbook which celebrates our end-of-year Creative Showcase of our final year students’ creativity and art.

It is an exciting time for ATU Sligo since we became a Technological University last year. As we integrate with ATU Galway-Mayo and ATU Donegal and incorporate St Angela’s, our vision is that the Creative & Cultural Arts, which are so central in the West and Northwest of Ireland will play a pivotal role in this new university. Our Yeats Academy of Arts, Design & Architecture (YAADA), which will soon see the completion of refurbishing buildings in the creative hub on the Northern campus, will be a key player in these formative university times.

Sincere thanks to our Yeats Academy staff who provided such a rich educational experience. They encouraged each of our students to develop their unique imagination and creativity to help them acquire the knowledge, skills and experience needed to find their distinctive voice as an actor, architect, artist, designer or writer. I am very proud of what the Yeats Academy, both students and staff, have achieved.

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An end-of-year show would not happen without a great team of people on board. A special thank you to our Yeats Academy academic and technical staff who supported the students, our ATU Sligo administration, marketing, communications and estates teams, the award sponsors, our event manager Oli Melia and the YAADA Head of Department Emmet O’Doherty and acting Head of Department Dara Burke. Congratulations to the students on their remarkable achievements and wishing them every success in their future creative endeavours.

I hope this yearbook and the Creative Showcase inspires future potential students to come to ATU Sligo, to push the parameters of their creativity and to pursue their dreams.

Tá súl agam go mbainfidh tú taitnamh as an leabhar seo. Úna Parsons, Head of College and Head of Faculty of Engineering & Design, Atlantic Technological University Sligo

YAADA had another great year of growth and is going from strength to strength with over 60 staff and 600 full time students. We have rapidly growing numbers in our Architecture and Interior Architecture programmes in particular. Well done to everyone involved as the increasing demand for our courses is a testament to hard work and dedication of the staff and their passion for teaching.

The Block L is now nearing completion and will be ready for the next academic year. I had a site visit to the new black box theatre space in Block L and even in its raw state, the space is looking fantastic. It is now entering the final stage of fit out and this new performance space and will surely establish itself the heart of the Yeats Academy when it opens later this year. I want to thank Ed Millar for his tireless work with the design team and the contractors to get this project delivered.

Taking on the role of Acting Head of Department in January gave me a great opportunity to get know all the staff across the department in a short space of time. It strikes me that despite the wide variety in modes of creative practice, we are bound by our common interest in artistic communication and self expression. While the medium of communication could be writing, drawing, painting or performance, it’s that impulse to create and express ourselves as artists and designers that ties us all together as a creative group. There is so much we can learn from each other by collaborating in teaching and creative practice. The recent scrimshaw launch was a wonderful testament to that shared pursuit of artistic expression. Congratulations to all staff involved with the publication.

the 300,000 new homes we need to solve the housing crisis. New zero carbon methods of construction and housing delivery are needed and the architecture studio is the perfect environment to test these ideas. The ground breaking work led

by Mary Byrne and her Year 3 students working on the pilot project shows the potential of an innovative project like this.

We were very lucky to have two new full time technical staff join us on in YAADA this year. I would like to extend a warm welcome Brendan Hurley and Daveth Fox who joined recently. We all wish them the best in their new role and we are delighted to have them on board.

On a personal note, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has shown so much support to me in my role as acting head of department.

Thanks also to Oli Melia for all his work on the Showcase and Leon Butler and Muireann Charleton who developed the new concept for the Yearbook design this year.

I want to say a special thank you to Kate McCarthy who makes everything happen behind the scenes in YAADA. The department could not function without the energy and enthusiasm she brings to her role.

On the Architecture programme the staff have been working hard on a HCI funded research project – Building Change: Designing a Resilient Future through Architecture Education. All six schools of Architecture in Ireland are working together to research how education can respond to the dual challenges of the climate emergency and the housing crisis.

I hope everyone takes some time to enjoy the great student work on display around the campus.

Congratulations to all the students in YAADA who produced such an amazing body of work this year and good luck to all of our graduating classes.

These two challenges are inextricably linked as we can not meet our carbon targets if we build

Dara Burke, Acting Head of YAADA

I look forward to a very exciting upcoming year for YAADA.

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

ARCHITECTURE

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

INTRODUCTION The Bachelor of Architecture in Sligo is Ireland’s newest architecture programme, situated on the edge of Ireland in the Atlantic Technological University. It is a Level 8 five year full time honours programme and provides education and training for the practice of architecture.

Our ideas of architecture have evolved over 20 years, seeking new territories of experimentation with place, and endeavouring to engage with the transformative role of architecture. Our aim is to stimulate social engagement and dialogue around the identity of the local region, redefining the genius loci of this place, at this time and into the future. Building on this legacy and acknowledging the energy specific to this place, our Architecture School aims to make a significant contribution to the region and beyond as it takes its place amongst the cultural legacy of Sligo and its distinctive wealth of creative history.

Our projects develop from an intention to interrogate the layers that constitute a unique understanding of place – through its cultural fabric, history, topography, climate, urban morphology, and through its community possessing a unique pattern of memory and identity.

The challenges of the present demand a radical response to a future which demonstrates concern for both people and planet. This requires a deep understanding of place that tasks us all with the responsibility to innovatively respond to current and future local and global issues, relating to daily living needs while protecting our climate.

We view architecture as addressing the practical and the poetic.

We aim for a strong student-centred and student-led culture and our ambition is to impress upon the students their role in contributing to society as a new generation of architects for this area and beyond.

The Bachelor of Architecture has four philosophical vision points: Interpretation of Place, Regionally Transformative Architecture, Architectural Regeneration of Built Heritage, Human Experience and Perception of Space.

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LOUIS BENISON

‘Artist In Residence’: An Artist Work Space And Dwelling, No. 17a The Mall

The project brief is to rework an existing building and site in the cultural quarter of Sligo Town Centre, to turn it into a place for living and working and public engagement. The challenge is to adapt to new needs for efficiency, sustainability and well-being.

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HANAN DHAFER

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

The project is aimed to provide the artists with a comfortable living space and studio workplace through the restoration of the 17A building, The Mall.

The concept was inspired by the artist's work itself: the movement of the beads in the Sabha and the contrast between the circular, small pieces and the straight string which connects all pieces together, and that was reflected in the design by creating a spiral concrete stair which can define as the key element of the design.

An Artist Workplace and living space

The design includes a gallery and a workshop in the basement, a spiral stair and two floors which host the artist's living space with a skylight, in addition, to the existing windows to allow daylight/sunlight to flow through the spiral stairs, enlightening the whole building during the day.

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ABIGAIL HIGSON The project brief was to rework an existing building and site in the cultural quarter of Sligo Town Centre, to repurpose for an Artist in Residence, a place for living and working and public engagement.

Statement: The design intention stems from three themes, of which are derived from the context and history of 17a and the client.

The perception of the sloping landscape - creating different level access points throughout the space and creating off-set spaces, altering the perception of the space inside vs outside. Inspired by the existing two level access points, facilitated by the sloping landscape.

The fusion within the craft - using the method of glass fusion to inspire the nature of the connections and thresholds. Highlighting the permanence and strength in the craft of the joining pieces.

The vessel - Addressing the history, or lack thereof. Taking direction from the once vertically spanning chimney and representing this in section. Also by re-dressing the historical skin of the building, which remains the only original piece of 17a, and creating a vessel to support its new life. Overall creating a structure which offers respect to the bones of what was while giving life back to the mall and creating space for a new type of creative hub.

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17A The Mall . Fused Restoration YAADA 2023

ROBERT IGOE

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

The project brief is to rework an existing building and site in the cultural quarter of Sligo Town Centre.

‘Artist In Residence’: An Artist Work Space And Dwelling, No. 17a The Mall

The intention for this house is to create a space that inspires creativity and artistic expression. the building need to successfully house and maintain the relationship between the three main functions required by the artist. A space for creating art, a space for displaying their art and a space for living. The spaces for the client to create and display their painting needs to be well lit by natural light when possible. In my design these spaces are lit by southern light or diffused light through a light well. The intervention is mainly focused on the interior while preserving the character of the building in it's context.

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CIARA MACFARLANE The project brief was to rework an existing building and site in the cultural quarter of Sligo Town Centre, to repurpose for an Artist in Residence, a place for living and working and public engagement.

No. 17A, The Mall – Enamellist’s Residents

The concept for this project was inspired by the transitional qualities of the artist’s work. The client is an enamellist who uses glass powder on metals like steel and copper. The end result is a completely new creation, with unpredictability and one-of-a-kind pieces. Strategies I brought forward in the early design stage were respecting the existing skin of the building by using an insertion strategy into the existing footprint. Separating the floor plates from the existing chimney and original walls was a second strategy used for the same reasons. Like the fluidity of the artist’s work the internal living spaces will flow around the large chimney shooting up the building. A clash of atmospheres creating a stronger internal experience. The internal void at the North of the house is intended to create drama in the experience of transitioning from the existing building to new internal insertion. A change in materials, space and light reflects the uncertainty in the transitioning of glass powder when put into the kiln. The result is a completely new and unique element. The space is intended to reflect the art of enamelling and its process.

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PATRICK M C CAFFERY

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

The ‘Rework’ Project of first semester has been designed to house a public gallery and workspace along The Mall for an artist of our choosing with residency on upper floors.

My client / Artist is a Irish hand felting artist, she uses layers of unspun wool to depict the landscape she is creating. This specific artist was chosen in hopes her evocative and playful work will inspire and attract more people to Mall to rejuvenate the street.

The Design concept was developed around the process of her work , the opening and closing of the pores within the material which open when wet and fuse when dried and finished, architecturally conceptualised by spaces opening and closing above and below each other.

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LIAM M C GETTIGAN The project brief was to rework an existing building and site in the cultural quarter of Sligo Town Centre, to repurpose for an Artist in Residence, a place for living and working and public engagement. This residence is designed with the client’s work as central to the concept. The client’s are glassblowers from Northern Ireland. Their works involve intricate and delicately designed glass cups and baubles that often have filigrana spiralling around them.

The concept of the design is based on the manufacturing process of these works, the way glass is expanded as it spins in the blast furnace.

The floor plates expand the higher one traverses through the building. The basement level is the public space and shop, with the workshop where the glassblowing process takes place. The street level is semi-private, and consists of small walkways that serve purely as access, with stairs serving as the vertical connectors to the public and private spaces. The stairs connecting to the private dwelling spaces spiral to an additional intermediate level, which conceptually relates to the filigrana that the artists are known for. This dwelling is on two levels. The first level contains the bedrooms and bathrooms, and the level above serves as the living and kitchen spaces, completely open to the upper shell of the building and connecting to a balcony on the exterior. The upper floors are connected on the south and east walls, but do not touch the north and west, allowing triple and quadruple height spaces to be achieved in the workspace.

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17A – House for a Glassblower YAADA 2023

LIAM M C PARTLAND

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

The brief for this project is to rework an existing building and site in the Cultural Quarter of Sligo Town into a place for living and working, and for the wider public to engage with. The ‘Rework’ project serves as a catalyst for the renewal of the area in which the building and site is situated. The building is situated on The Mall forming the historic streetscape found along this street which earliest records show it mapped on the 1689 map of the Fortifications of Sligo, formerly known as Gore Street. The buildings that make up The Mall in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was one of the ‘select’ areas of Sligo town, and was home to many tall grand houses, which were designed for wealthy buyers, with long gardens sloping down towards the Garavogue River. Around 50% of the buildings on The Mall are protected structures, however 17A is not a protected structure but it must be taken into consideration the architectural importance of the building situated on the historic street of The Mall.

Concept: The concept for this project derives from the craft of the client, woodturning. The craft is subtractive. The craftsperson begins with a solid form and through subtraction carves and crafts the piece. Exploration of the design through this concept of working from a solid piece to a finished crafted element when examined looking at 17A specifically, the front street elevation of 17A because of its architectural importance on the streetscape should remain untouched, being the solid raw piece of material and as you move through the building it is carved and crafted. Internally the intention was to create crafted spaces with a centralised void housing the vertical circulation as corten steel staircases 'carve' through the spaces.

‘Artist In Residence’: An Artist Work Space And Dwelling, No. 17a The Mall YAADA 2023

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CHARLIE NOLAN Description: The project brief was to rework an existing building and site in the cultural quarter of Sligo Town Centre, to repurpose for an Artist in Residence, a place for living and working and public engagement.

No. 17A, The Mall – Enamellist’s Residents

The client was Colm Brennan, a wood turner from Sligo. He makes his pieces by using small blocks glued together in the shape of the object he wants and then turns the wood to give it a smooth finish. I have taken inspiration from the process he uses by making each room an individual block which will be located on either side of the stairs which creates many half levels.

For the outside of the building, I have taken inspiration from the material he uses, wood, and used it to clad the exterior of the building. The large window is referencing the large voids he is able to create in his pieces. The client wanted an open-plan workshop where customers are able to see the full process of his work.

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DANIEL TANSEY

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Aiming to draw attention to the recentness of the physical forms we best associate with the past and present such as transient impressions of habitation, the projects hopes to explore the ephemerality of architecture within overall historic timelines. The aspiration of which, to elude to the contrast between fast-changing settlement growth/development within Sligo (Kinetic Morphology) set against the backdrop of a continuous eternal landscape (Static) — an ‘ever-changing’ performance at the foreground of a permanent ‘stage’. Much like the monuments and landscape, the building is to act as the unchanging backdrop to human activity and expression, where the work conducted within is presented as a performative expression within this constant environment.

From its elevated siting, it hopes to provide the same interconnectivity to Sligo and the surrounding geological features as the ‘network’ of neolithic structures. Though Sligo is perceived as part of the landscape, the idea explores the dichotomy of both elements — the city as a changing organism with tangible links to the past and future and the the landscape, the existence of which extends further still. With aims of providing implied/ perceived connection between physical distanced spaces which make up the program of the building across varying vertical levels, the inspiration of its design was derived from the perpetuation of architectural forms, permanence of landscape and the megalithic monuments which now form part of it.

Static | Kinetic Morphology

Concept Model: Kinetic model to present an ever-changing inhabitation/ movement of the in-between/void around stoic monument, separated yet interconnected, denoting the unchanged landscape with acts as the backdrop to the presence and product of civilisation from early regional settlement to the present day. The projection of light hopes to provide a rhythmic atmosphere and aims to demonstrate that the tangible links we best associate with the past are the product of fleeting moments of human habitation and are of very recent origin — a brief appearance on the overall timeline of human settlement

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

CREATIVE DESIGN

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

INTRODUCTION Students from the Creative Design programme at Atlantic Technological University, Sligo, are offered an in-depth education in all aspects of design, from products to services and systems.

During their studies, students develop essential design skills from user-centred research to design thinking, sketching and the ability to model and visualise design solutions. On graduating, Creative Design students understand the diverse and rich contribution design makes to 21st Century living.

The most significant aspect of the BA in Creative Design is that the students work and create in a variety of relevant design contexts. The large and diverse range of student projects include Apps, consumer electronics, medical equipment and car

accessories often in response to social and cultural issues.

Students learn to work and develop ideas in collaboration with external bodies, individual clients and companies. These authentic learning skills are essential to the designer’s toolbox.

Students have the opportunity of professional work placements and to travel abroad on Erasmus exchange to European universities including the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya in Vilanova, Spain and Mid Sweden University in Sundsvall, Sweden.

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DAWID BLASEVAC As a designer my passion is for working in 3D space. My Wild brand project was created for the RSA student design competition. The brief that I chose to design a solution for was one that asked the question "How might we promote new relationships to food that are more secure, regenerative and culturally appropriate?" I enjoyed working on this project because it allowed me to develop my attention to design detail and engage in all the detailed project elements.

My design intention is to utilise my experience in 3D Graphics for future work projects. Digital skills and design thinking are key to my practice.

My design solution, Wild, addresses our current food system and proposes a new solution to better food health.

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KORNELIUSZ DABEK

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

As a designer I love working on projects that require a wide variety of skills as this allows me to showcase my full range of design expertise. This project was great for experience, and brought together all my design tools including research, sketching, prototyping, 3D modelling, and CAD. My design practice also includes UX and UI skills as I created a full working prototype which users can explore through a QR code.

For this project I worked with Spotify, and I was faced with a brief that required me to create a product to enhance the lives of workers. From my extensive research which consisted of interviews, reading case studies and articles, I concluded that remote workers struggled with connecting with their co-workers. This can cause a disconnected workplace with low morale. My design process led me to creating MusicMates, a new entertainment system that helps connecting with your colleagues through music.

My design solution, MusicMates is a new product that reduces distractions by eliminating phone usage in selecting and exploring music. Share, explore and discover new music via the department radio feature, which allows you and your colleges to share the music you love, creating a connected positive working environment in your workspace through the Spotify MusicMates platform.

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VICTORIA HAMBSCH Not every expectant parent in Ireland is able to use the HSE Home Birth Service because a significant number of locations across the island are not covered. Due to a limitation in adequate and equitable government funding and staff allocation, no self-employed community midwife (SECM) is available. This indicates a barrier and disadvantage based on geographical location to an essential health service for many individuals and families.

Through my design research practice, I identified that lack of knowledge, lack of availability of community midwives and access to information are key barriers for expecting parents to access a home birth. My research highlighted the need to adequately, and transparently inform, support, and empower pregnant women about their birthing options. I observed that new parents in Ireland are renting inadequate and expensive short-term housing.

My design solution, Bábóg is a social enterprise platform which connects expecting parents who live in an area which is not covered by the HSE under the national home birth strategy with hosts that can offer appropriate shortterm accommodation to support them on their journey to a successful and peaceful home birth.

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GERARD MAGUIRE

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Discovering unique user insights is key to my practice as a designer. Several participants that were interviewed through primary research held vital insights, which informed my final design project. Insights obtained from the interviewees were key in guiding a solution due to the clarity and important data collected from each participant.

My design intention is to create awareness of renewable energy in the community. Respondents were aware of its existence but generally not sure what it is or associated benefits. The ESE (phonetically pronounced EASY) calculates the sun’s energy via a LUX sensor and converts the reading into euro. The ESE is self-sufficient with its own PV film and rechargeable battery back-up. The design is intentionally simple for a hassle-free experience.

My design solution is a device that generates awareness for the user about how much money they can save through using the ESE. The product is designed to promote the installation of PV panels by estimating potential savings on energy bills. It allows the user to see the positive benefit PV panels will have on their energy bill. It displays savings on a clear screen. As a designer focused on sustainability, my product is a bridge between saving the environment and saving financially for a greener future.

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FINE ART

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

INTRODUCTION Here at ATU Sligo we offer a three-year BA and a four year BA (Hons) in Fine Art; both options are studio based and practice-led.

Our programmes offer students a wide experience of materials, processes and ideas within a supportive and stimulating environment.

Individual modules include Ceramics, Digital/Lens Based Media, Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture Studies and Visual Literacy. Over the duration of their studies students are encouraged to develop their own particular interests and pathways.

There is a special emphasis on Drawing as a tool to connect a diverse range of ideas and activities.

Contemporary and historical art practices are examined through a series of lectures, seminars, field trips and written assignments.

Professional Practice and Work in Context modules offer practical, real-world experience within the arts sector.

All of our students have individual studio spaces and access to specialised, well-equipped technical workshops. Our Fine Art lecturers are practicing artists and historians that bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to their teaching roles.

We have a regular visiting artist lecture series and we offer regular local, national and international study trips.

The beautiful Sligo environment, which offers unrivalled outdoor pursuits, is extremely well served as a cultural hub for the entire North West region. We have strong ties with art institutions in the region (e.g. The Model, Leitrim Sculpture Centre, The Dock) and students are afforded a number of opportunities to gain experience, collaborate with artists/projects and to exhibit in a professional environment. We currently offer a studio residency award in association with the Ballinglen Arts Foundation and we are also thankful to The Dock for offering a substantial cash award to one of our final year students.

We aim to equip students with the practical skills, knowledge, and intellectual resources necessary for a rewarding career in the arts.

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REBECCA DEVINS I am a multidisciplinary Artist with an objective to breakdown preconceived ideas about beauty within the grotesque and reverse its fearsome reputation. I use reminiscence, motherhood, memory and ritual as a channel for inspiration.

From a young age I’ve had a growing fascination with the anatomical form of all creatures, predominantly Humans, always questioning what’s tissue deep.

My work explores the realms of nature and culture, mainly focusing on the subconscious mind with an aim to evoke emotions; predominantly to cast unease. I’m interested in the world within, and the psycho-analytical process of pouring one’s emotions into work as therapy.

This body of work is aimed at the idea of self: Why we have such anxieties about our exterior? Why has photoshopping and altering your face with brutal cosmetic surgeries become common practice? What goes beyond the selfies we portray on social media, and what do we face when we just plainly look at our reflection in the mirror? What are society’s norms and expectations – and how do we challenge these?

I use Sculpture, Sewing, Embroidery, Drawing, Installations (incorporating hair, nails, skin) Photography, Painting, Performance and Print as my mediums. Through my practice I aim to create my own domain; proposing my taunted realm of reality to the viewer.

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LAURA GRISARD

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Boglands. An ominous place of death, decay, rebirth and regrowth, a landscape where layers of time are embedded. A portal for time travelling. A benevolent custodian of history, collecting and preserving.

A wisewoman, a seer, walked these lands in a different time, reflected and mirrored in the making of this work by wandering the land and collaging the film together. The female figure was immersed, memorialised forever in another time, and now I am too. I am not aware, but the bog knows, the landscape knows its history, but I do not. She is there and part of the land. I am mirroring and repeating history by just living on it, and maybe one day I will be part of it. A cycle of growth and evolution.

Under the peat’s skin lie things beyond our threshold of perception. When we peel back the layers, we release things that were buried deep in the ground Both our past and present are disturbed. What lies beneath the surface, under the skin, the skin of the bog?

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NESSA HEALEY The forms I create consume the space and occupy the mind. Throughout the year I have used materials such as carpets, fur, pineapple skin and bubble wrap to visualise concepts about hair, skin and self.

Through my current artwork I am exploring identity by recognising and challenging societal norms regarding conformity. The themes in my artwork deal with concerns that are personal to me: I use the artwork to contemplate and resolve these issues. I enjoy using everyday materials as a starting point then extending the idea with a level of play.

I am interested in the way materials communicate together sculpturally to create an uncanny presence.

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CONNOR O'BRIEN

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

For my project Subversive Signals, I have been investigating how signs direct and control our everyday lives. I have been collecting, and reworking, a large selection of scrap and forgotten signs previously used for direction or warning for construction. I have also experimented with making my own signs.

I’m interested in a ‘street’ vernacular and ‘Americana’- a pop-culture urban aesthetic. I work with spray and acrylic paints on largely found materials, using stencils I’ve created.

I use appropriated imagery borrowed from mass media and I try to use humour to create something thought provoking and subversive.

I am interested in anti-establishment ideology.

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OLIVIA LOHAN My practice evolves from an intuitive technique of staining, drawing and mark-making in order to recreate an imaginative sense of landscape.

My choice of colour is not directly borrowed from nature but is a reinterpretation. My most recent work evokes a sense of energy and spatial awareness which leaves room for the viewer to explore the composition, and engage with the process and materials.

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JESSICA M C ILWAINE

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

My work is currently focused on the goddess Venus and representations of the female figure. I have always been interested in mythology and wanted to explore how the image of Venus has changed the way in which women are seen in art, but I also want to create my own interpretations and to give it a flowing, dream-like feel.

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SAMANTHA O'REILLY Tenacious Threads is an investigation into the archetypal trope of birth, death, and rebirth, as embodied by silk insects. The transcendent symbolism of these creatures serves as a metaphor for the cyclical nature of life, as well as the concepts of adaptation and metamorphosis. The threads of life are woven by change in the loom of time; to live is to experience its undulations and intersections, to be strengthened by their tension.

Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy of living as a state of becoming, rather than being, serves as a guiding principle in my practice. The work embraces the fluidity of perpetual change by mirroring the life cycle of silk insects. Drawing parallels between the ritual connection of humans to fabric and that of insects to silk, I create immersive installations combining painting, video, and performance.

Recycled bedsheets are transformed by the intersection of vibrant liquidised pigments, coupled with sculptural form these create bold abstractions. The video element utilises illusion, layering, repetition, rhythm, and sound as a means of poetic storytelling. I explore the materiality of the narrative body through live art and performance to camera.

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ONIOSA DALY

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

As an artist, I am fascinated by the dark recesses of the human psyche and the terrifying potential that lies within us all. Through my imagery and drawings of current interests, I aim to explore the realm of psychological horror and delve into the depths of the unknown.

My work is deeply personal and introspective, drawing on my own fears, anxieties, and experiences to create a visceral and unsettling visual experience for the viewer. By using myself as the subject of my art, I invite the audience to confront their own vulnerabilities and confront the darker aspects of their own psyche.

In my drawings, I blend elements of the familiar with the uncanny, creating images that are both unsettling and alluring. By juxtaposing the mundane with the macabre, I seek to create a sense of unease and tension that lingers long after the viewer has left the piece.

Inspired by other contemporary artists such as Jesse Reno, Si-ku, Takeshita Murakami and Joyce Pensato, I hope to challenge conventional notions of beauty and explore the darker corners of the human mind. By embracing the psychological horror genre, I aim to create art that is thought-provoking, visually striking, and emotionally resonant.

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SUSIE HARTY My art practice is predominantly focused on sound art, drawing and ceramics. I let my meditative experience of nature guide my work, taking inspiration from the intuitive process and delicacy of artists such as Christin Johansson and William Blake, and the nature-based writing of Sharon Blackie.

There is much to learn in the emerging of one’s own practice, and mine has changed significantly this term as I navigate the ways of making that are available to me. The creative unknown beckons, and with it come liberating movement and mark-making that fill my page, a freedom of edges and shapes, and colour that pools and gathers in a collection of playful forms.

I enjoy the mesmeric timelessness of sound art and use it to describe my connection with nature; trees my friends and plants and animals my equals.

We observe one another with reverence and mutual appreciation. With my artwork I would like to acknowledge this manner of relationship; the aliveness of the world.

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AVERY LAWRANCE

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

My drawings are influenced by the inhabitants of the natural worlds that surround us and the large, unrelenting amount of media we are exposed to on a daily basis. Themes of nature and life are depicted in the subject matter of my work. I am enraptured by the visual motifs and symbolisms of feathers and talons, of teeth and fur, of scales and fins. I depict marine, terrestrial, arial and insect life, creatures from various domains in my work, to explore their mysterious forms and secrets, to connect and resonate, living thing to living thing. Throughout my work I take inspiration from artists such as Peter Deligdisch, through his understanding of line and shape. As well as Lauren Marx, her animal subject matter, set in beautiful and macabre tableaus.

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ZHILING LIU My passion lies in traditional art, particularly in Chinese painting and calligraphy. Despite the various modern artistic styles and diverse painting communities present today, Chinese painting has retained its allure, even though it has undergone considerable changes.

In my artwork, I blend traditional symbols with my individual style, and I am actively engaged in experimenting with integrating Western art concepts of colour and composition into the fundamentals of traditional Chinese ink wash.

Inspired by Wu Guanzhong's use of bold stokes and bright colour, and Zhao Wuji's abstract and expressionist style, as well as both masters' ability to combine traditional Chinese painting techniques with Western modernism, I strive to create my distinct style of contemporary art, rooted in the essence of traditional Chinese art.

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CLAUDETTE LUGINIESKI

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

My area of focus points to the different configurations of relationships between humanity, the environment and nature.

Landscapes are the result of our human interventions on the territory.

We construct the landscape, as well as the concept itself. How we see and interpret landscapes is a visual and sensory process permeated by our cultural background. Therefore, all the representations of landscapes which I create, using wide perspectives of drawing are not neutral. Not even the little elements that I frenetically draw, such as grass, rocks, or leaves, are impartial; on which I overlay my culture, my experiences, my history and my interpretation.

Some visual resources that I use are threads, abstracted lines, blots, stains, soil, fabric, and so forth. Using photographic or memory references of landscapes, I spread the materials on the surfaces and wait for them to become alive. Then, when they ask for more, I try to solve the problem. And “we” can spend hours and days staring at each other, until it is concluded.

Briefly, my works are an invitation to think, together with plants, nature, and landscape, about our relationship with other forms of life. We all have the power of a continuum of becoming. The question is: Becoming what?

I am influenced by artists who draw our attention to natural spaces, such as Anselm Kiefer, Van Gogh, Barrie Cooke, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Claudia Hamerski.

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MARIA MAY FLEMMING Recycled paper and plastic become vehicles for a narrative, pasting, cutting, drawing, and stitching a layered story. The materials take me as the maker on a journey, where the destination is not set. Exploration and imagination are my travel companions, and somehow, as if by magic, I arrive where I need to be. My practice is strongly rooted in the natural world and through the use of sculpture, collage, and drawing, I seek to portray connections, both seen and unseen, between people, the land and things that exist inside and around us. By building layers and cutting back into them I search for the intangible, enchanting, and yet to be explored. In a world where many natural connections have been severed or severely distorted, my hope is that the work can influence, heal, and repair some of the damage.

An everlasting fascination with contrast, light and colour is sought, pursued, almost grasped, but ever elusive. Myths, legends, and folktales are constant sources of inspiration. Works are energetically influenced by sacred geometry, nature’s cycles and the works of Mark Bradford, Tomoko Fuse, Harry Clarke, Emma Kunz, and Georgiana Houghton, among many others.

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

ELYSSA M C DONAGH

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

I’m drawn to exploring the truths behind the human condition through grotesque, carnivalesque and abject art usually with a sense of humour and absurdity. Enjoying the beauty in the imperfect, which grew into a fascination of the deformed, mangled and even decaying bodies.

My inability to express my thoughts and feelings through words is why my art is so vital to me, being able to articulate oneself and give physical form to abstract concepts. Francis Goya, Doris Salcedo, and Alison Sommers are artists whose works have inspired my own.

Currently I’m influenced by the anatomy and autonomy of the human body, from flesh to bone and the entrails in between. As I deform the humanoid figure, bloody viscera, teeth, and bones are often reoccurring elements giving life to sculptural amalgamations. My work is emotionally charged, directed by the materials used, everchanging in the making and creating a dialogue between myself and my artwork.

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MAKAYLA PETRYNA Fascinated by the human condition, my work focuses on the reflection of the inner narrative of wants and fears. This is achieved by highlighting the weird, the disturbing, and the wonder it may bring. Using the depiction and repetition of eyes, my work touches on potential psychological factors. With the aid of these body parts and other features, my art forces viewers to reflect on paranoia, anxiety, and mental illness.

There is also an ethereal feature to my pieces, pushing the viewer to imagine a world far beyond the stars of this universe. Using my overactive imagination, I can create and bring to life unusual creatures and environments.

I find myself drawn to and inspired by artists such as Alex Garant, Michelle Moé, and, more recently, Peter Burns.

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STEVE WICKHAM

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Fundamentally I am a musician. My practice is eclectic and includes disciplines of music, film, animation painting drawing and printmaking. I feel the need for these broad range of disciplines to articulate ideas, think of different voices in a choir. There is also a feeling of order from Chaos.

My process begins with listening and trying to be in the now. I then try to give voice to any ideas that might arrive. They might be musical, textual or visual. There is joy or fulfilment for me in manifesting an idea successfully.

Time is a dimension of my work. The passing of time, a moment in time, recording time. In many respects this comes back to the challenge of being present as much as possible.

I Consider myself a Nauist, this is my manifesto. Nauists sit at a nexus, neither futurist nor retrospective adding weight to the gravity of now. The Nau is weightless, and like Kandinsky’s point, it leads to a line which leads to art which leads to intelligence. The singularity of the present regards all previous points as historical. For Nauists, a future is known and therefore considered when exploring the present. Near past and near future are implicit in the Nau. Everything comes from the Nau. The Nau is never what it used to be. We share the Nau. Among the many artists I admire are David Bowie, J S Bach, Nina Simone, Alfred Hitchcock, Käthe Kollwitz, Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Chagal Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Goya.

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN

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INTRODUCTION The vision of our programme stems from the core philosophical aspirations: Care for human experience Inspired, environmentally conscious response to place - community, location, culture Creative communication and global engagement We offer accessible experiential learning that fosters creative, versatile and ethically aware designers with developed collaborative and communicative skills.

Our Interior Architecture and Design programme focuses an environmentally conscious approach to the re-use, reimagination and innovative re-invention of the existing built environment with a strong focus on sculpting interior space. Our students are challenged to offer imaginative responses to spatial problems, which cut across interior architectural aspects of place, cultural and built heritage and recognise the design needs and identity of clients.

Through interactions with live clients, real sites and diverse design projects our students learn to position urgent stories in a coherent spatial and sociological narrative.

Memory, identity and sense of place along with the intrinsic qualities of community and culture are explored and often juxtaposed with a global context, to inspire resonant, sensitive and rich design projects.

The Interior Architecture and Design course at ATU Sligo provides an internationally recognised level of education and training aligned with European Council of Interior Architects standard and best practice across Europe.

Our graduates are ethically and professionally motivated, to be innovative, responsible and versatile design professionals, inspired by current knowledge of the design world, equipped with an industry ready creative and technical skill-set and experienced in design collaboration.

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AMY MAY FREEMAN The purpose of this project was to redevelop and relocate Naas library into a community and cultural centre to meet the needs of the most heavily populated and fastest growing commuter town in Kildare. The current Naas library (built 1990) does not meet the requirements of the ever expanding population & new housing developments. Additionally, the introduction of working from home now more than ever seems ideal opportunity to provide co-working & meeting spaces for the community. This new space will take a portion of a currently derelict base built shopping centre (built 2010).

Currently a grey mass in the town centre, the scope of includes the provision of a two level community library & co-working spaces while upgrading of existing structure designed in accordance with up to date regulation and universal design.

The schedule of accommodation provides for the modern needs of the community, including spaces such as meeting rooms, focus rooms, a large universally accessible library, café, mother’s rooms, prayer rooms and yoga studios.

The idea of reinvigorating a derelict structure into a new purpose is something I drew heavily on for inspiration. When looking at leaves during the autumn & the structural embroidery they create it remind me of an aerial view map. All the roads create a skeleton to a community. A key strength in the project lies in its connectivity within the spaces. The vision is to create a universal library and public community space in the heart of the historic town of Naas.

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ALICE HODDER

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

The McKenzie Art Centre is an arts centre located in the heart of Cork City.

The Centre is designed to unite the community, providing a positive, social, and creative hub in a disadvantaged area that currently lacks cohesion or a sense of community. It is a space for everybody. Students, professors, artists, and journalists are the gallery's primary target user groups, but the art centre is free and open to everyone in the public.

The centre is a space that supports visual artists, exhibiting their work, and providing them with exposure to the public, collectors, the media, and other cultural organisations. This functional arts centre has a specific remit to encourage arts practice, and provides facilities for arts events, classes, and exhibitions. The gallery space, bar and café will gather people together to enjoy art and celebrate the local culture and community that are present in the space. This sense of togetherness is reinforced by beautiful curves and arched windows that create a rhythmic sense of connection throughout the building. The curvilinear shapes in the building strengthen a positive sense of unity and community.

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KAREN KEANEY In a city where creativity flows and imagination knows no bounds, a derelict building stands as a blank canvas, eagerly waiting to be transformed into a hub of artistic expression. The decaying structure, with its faded walls and broken windows, is about to embark on a journey of rebirth as a new art centre. A vision of revitalisation and community engagement, this project seeks to breathe new life into the abandoned building and provide a haven for artists, art enthusiasts, and the local community.

This centre entices the visitor through its doors with the friendly atmosphere of its café. From there, the visitor is tempted to explore further through the arched hallway. An awe-inspiring gallery awaits on the other side, lofty triple-height spaces evoke a sense of child-like wonder. Glimpses of the three multipurpose maker spaces and artist studios are visible, tempting the curious to explore further. The maker spaces are artistic sanctuaries, where dreams and visions come to life and creativity is explored, supported, and encouraged by resident artists.

Welcome to the birth of a new art centre, where imagination takes lofty flight, and the beauty of art unfolds in the most unexpected of places as we embark on this exciting venture and witness the magic of art coming to life in a once-forgotten building.

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SANDRA WALCZAK

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

The Shannon Family Center responds to the specific needs of the Longford community as identified in a series of interviews in local community centers at the start of the project. The facilities of the center respond to these needs directly, providing activities such as cooking, gardening, dance, yoga, and performance. Thus, the center provides families with the opportunity to engage in activities together that develop their potential, whilst discovering new and open new horizons.

Sand textures and warm colors provide a calm, warm and welcoming interior.

These base colours and textures are lightly enlivened with pastel colors, and various decorative elements and materials in the art-deco and boho style, providing a fresh aesthetic approach to a community center. The use of small, differences in color, form, and decorative elements celebrate the rich and individual variations, of people, cultures, and communities. Likewise, as a designer, I aspire to infuse spaces with creativity and to advance work that captures the special, qualities of human nature. I work to create environments where human behavior and experience are at the heart of the creative process and where feelings are integrated into projects. As a designer, I believe this building would bring communities together. This family center, responds to real community needs, supporting culture, education, and raising the cultural value of the society in which it is situated.

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IMELDA NORRIS The layout of the wellness rehabilitation centre provides an indoor oasis-like environment that encourages visitors to connect with the beautiful seascape surroundings. The design uses curves and other organic shapes that mimic the natural flow of the surrounding seascape, creating a sense of harmony between the indoor and outdoor spaces. Natural beauty is enhanced by a reflective, open and spacious layout that allows visitors to move around freely and explore the centre’s different areas; whilst enhancing the feeling of connection with the sea beyond.

The design prioritises natural light, the sea view and reflection. The existing building blocked the sea view. This design opens routes and views through the building. Wellness and light can have a significant impact on mood and well-being. Accordingly, light, mirrors, glass, and other reflective surfaces are used to bring a sense of depth, airiness, and spaciousness into the building’s centre, making it feel more open and welcoming. The subtle and delicate colours of the seascape are incorporated in elements such as counters and soft furnishings. As social interaction is essential for wellness, a café is included, complementing private spaces for relaxation and therapy. The presence of the wellness rehabilitation centre can help the local community, promoting wellness initiatives and encouraging community involvement.

In summary, by prioritising natural light, reflective surfaces, and privacy, and by considering the layout and community engagement, the wellness rehabilitation centre provides a welcoming oasis that promotes wellness and connection with nature.

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JENNIFER SEATH

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Last semester, we were tasked on creating a public health centre located in a rural Irish village called Killala—located in Co. Mayo.

I decided to create a centre for cancer patients who are going through chemotherapy treatment and who may need to experience a community hub with individuals who are going through the same or similar experiences as they are.

A big part of my design was the aspect of privacy. I created these wooden circular booths in the treatment area (Fifth Floor) to allow the individual the freedom whether they want to have a conversation with the person beside them - they could draw the wooden slacks of the booth right around themselves to create a whole enclosed space or leave it open to converse with one another and share experiences.

“The Tree Of Life” mythology is heavily referenced throughout this design too, by having a large oak tree merge through all three levels at the front of the building as well as locating miniature oak trees throughout occasional rooms and waiting areas, helps to reinforce to the patients , that hope is not lost for those undergoing the cancer treatments. I genuinely enjoyed doing this project and is probably my favourite so far!

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

PERFORMING ARTS

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INTRODUCTION Our vision is to provide a learning experience that is immersive, practical and creative, producing theatre artists who are self-directed and responsible, who can express themselves through their craft and who value collaboration.

In acting, students are introduced to range of acting techniques, developing alongside their vocal capabilities and physical range. Learners move from ensemble work to solo acting ensuring they are industry-ready when they leave.

In theatre design, students develop skills in designing for performance (screen, stage, TV), visual research, costume design, lighting design, model-making and building imaginative worlds and stories.

Both acting and design students have opportunities to collaborate with each other particularly in the directing for performance modules. They also get opportunities to meet professional practitioners, including directors, writers, scenic artists, filmmakers, lighting and sound designers.

Our programme has a unique relationship in Ireland with the Abbey, through the Yeats Bursary Award, leading to workshops, consultations, placements, and working with Abbey directors. It also benefits from theatre venues including Blue Raincoat Theatre Company and the Hawkswell in Sligo, the Dock in Carrick on Shannon and the Glens in Manorhamilton which further

enriches students’ learning experience. Our programme has added ballast from working with local artists, practitioners and community groups, basing us solidly in the region.

Sligo is central to our vision for this course.

Seamus Heaney spoke about the significance of place in the imaginative experience, “that nourishment that comes from belonging to or knowing a place.” The landscape and stories connected to Sligo have shaped the spatial and poetic exploration of place encouraged in this programme. Landscapes, ruins, dolmens, passage tombs, and sites connected to Irish mythology and folklore have been used for performance, design, filmmaking and storytelling.

We read, imagine, design, make, reimagine, adapt, perform, and create stories in every module.

Be it voice, body, movement, performance, space, words - we are making narratives.

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AIDAN COUTTS Aidan Coutts is a 21 year old actor, singer, and composer, from Ontario, Canada. He is a graduate of the Musical Theatre Performance program at St. Clair College, and is now finishing his Honours Bachelor's degree in Performing Arts here at ATU Sligo. In his work, he strives to tell stories from and about the queer community, to build representation in media for identities that aren’t often seen. In his years as an actor, he has performed in many musicals and plays both contemporary and classical, and even has a minor role in the upcoming movie “Vampire Zombies... From Space!”, a comedy film being produced by The Dot film company in Windsor Ontario.

He is currently writing music for two musicals, and one of which, “The Forgotten Baroness,” is going to see a workshop in Toronto this summer.

Beyond the stage and screen, he has written music for several indie games, such as “The Genesis Project” and “Shiba Cafe.”

Moving forward, he hopes to build a career as an actor in theatre, mainly musicals, both back in Canada as well as in Ireland and the UK. He would also like to branch out into writing music for film and TV, and expand his network as a musician for video games.

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BLANCA ESPINOZA

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Blanca Espinoza (she/her) is a versatile artist from Mexico. She began her acting training at a young age in Guadalajara and moved to Canada and Ireland to pursue her artistic dream. During this time, she discovered her love for production and direction, in addition to performing on stage.

During college, she had the opportunity to make her theatre directing debut with the original musical "Under The Fig Tree," a story inspired by "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath, collaborating with Calla Chapnik and Paris Healey.

She has also directed music videos for Maeley, theatre videos for the St. Lawrence College Theatre Department, and videos for other artists and projects.

Aside from her passion for the performing arts, Blanca loves creating content through various digital media, such as photography, graphic design, video editing, and film directing.

Coming from an artistic family has taught her to love art and to proudly share her culture with the world. Blanca hopes to continue acting and directing in film and theatre, as well as creating new works for the future of storytelling.

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CONOR SHERIDAN My name is Conor Sheridan. I am 22 years old. I am originally from Dromard, co. Longford. I am currently nearing the end of my fourth and final year of ATU Sligo’s level 8 Performing Arts. I have been trained in the Chekov and Stanislavski forms of acting by Declan Drohan, Niall Colleary and Agnes Pallai. The following pictures below are examples of some of the productions I have acted in in the Blackbox performance space here in ATU Sligo.

In regards to my future, my dream is to do solely acting, I want to start off in theatre and see where my career goes from there. As right now I am still deciding where in Ireland I want to go after college is over. I am stuck between Dublin, cork and Galway. My preference is to join the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. The problem is with that is the cost of living is fairly high in Dublin and I am not sure if a part time jo will e enough to support me as well as being a professional actor in that city. That might work in Galway of cork. If I had to choose between Galway and cork I'd choose Galway as it seems like it has got more to offer.

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DYLAN MCGLOIN

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

My name is Dylan Mc Gloin, I am a 4th year student at Performing arts (theatre design) at ATU Sligo. Having now completed my final year within this course.

The work created this year, has been a foundation in finding my style as a theatre creator. I have been allowed to develop as an individual artist, both in Design and Directing. Going forward in my career I am looking forward to creating new exciting theatre, using visual text and devising new works of theatre creating unique stories of theatre.

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ELLEN GILMARTIN My name is Ellen Gilmartin and I am 23 yrs old based in Sligo. I am a trained actor currently in my final year of Performing Arts ATU Sligo. I am also a trained dancer and have an Instagram account called @solo_dance_flow where I showcase my dance abilities. I learned different types of Acting training within the Performing Arts course such as Chekhov Technique, Stanislavski Technique and Brechtian. When I started this course , I was extremely shy and introverted and going into acting has brought me so much out of my shell. The stage is now my safe place where I can break out of my shell and absolutely love every second of it.

This course has given me so much confidence and knowledge within the Acting field. I definitely have to thank the lectures for encouraging me to break out and just go for it on the stage. These four years have really meant a lot to me, and I will never forget the time I spent here. I am extremely passionate about acting and I hope that i continue on doing what I love to do!

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EMILIJA PETRULYTE

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Labas! I was born and raised in Lithuania where I discovered my passion for the stage. When I was just three years old, I let go of my mother's hand and ran into a dance class in my local kindergarten. Running into dance classes became a routine, and I became a professional dancer in Competitive Ballroom (International Standard and International Latin) Dance. From that moment on, I knew that the stage was where I was meant to be.

In 2017, I moved to Ireland "just for the summer" to expand my English language skills, and I have not left since. As I got older, my love for the stage only grew stronger. Therefore, I applied for a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Performing Arts (Acting) at Atlantic Technological University, Sligo. This university provided me with the opportunity to receive training in a wide range of performance and acting techniques including Classical Acting, Stanislavski's Technique, Chekhov Method, Physical theatre, and Live Art and Performance. It also gave me a chance to explore various aspects of theatre, such as Stage Management, Facilitation, Writing, and Design. As part of my work placement, I had the chance to travel abroad to Hungary and meet amazing people and make strong connections with various artists in the theatre industry worldwide. After four years, I graduated.

The stage is where I feel the most alive, and I look forward to pursuing my career as a stage actor. Because of my background in dance and movement, I find pleasure working in Physical Theatre, and this is the path I have chosen to follow. I love learning from others, and I hope that someday, I can share my knowledge and inspire others too.

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EVA KELLY My name is Eva Kelly and I am currently in fourth year of the BA Level 8 in Performing Arts (Acting) at Atlantic Technological University Sligo. I am trained in acting, movement, voice, physical theatre, directing and facilitation. I have a particular interest in stage acting using Chekhov technique. I also have an interest in directing plays and playwriting. In the future I aim to tell stories from a female perspective and from the lgbtq+ community, through acting, writing and directing.

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GRACE DOWNEY

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

My name is Thea Downey, I'm a 21-year-old musical theatre artist from Toronto, Canada. I spent the last three years studying musical theatre at St Clair College, and I am finishing my degree in the acting course at ATU. I am a singer and actor first, with my vocal range being a mezzo belter. I usually play the empowered best friend, or an authority figure that yells at someone sometime in the course of the play. I was in the sold-out Hairspray production this past April, I am currently in the process of publishing my first novel, I will be a part of my first paid musical theatre gig this summer, and I plan on staying in Ireland. I love theatre because it allows me to express things on stage I don't normally allow myself to express, I get live so many lives I wouldn't otherwise, and the people are just fantastic.

ATU has been a big change. I loved the chance to do Irish theatre, play in a more experimental style, yet still sing from time to time. I'm excited to emerge into the professional world, and I have my sights set on the West End!

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JACK KELLY My name is Jack Kelly, I’m a designer with a passion for creating visually stunning productions and spaces in which every member of the production team can engage and play with. I recently completed my BA in Performing Arts (Theatre Design) and have been working tirelessly to create visceral and psychologically impactful designs.

One of my proudest achievements was being the sole designer of the 2022 Yeats Project (pictured), where I was responsible for everything from the set and costume to the props, lighting, and construction. It was an incredible opportunity to showcase my skills and bring my vision to life alongside director, Declan Drohan.

As a designer, I approach set design through psychoanalysis, and art movements that share themes with the text, always striving to create a seamless blend between the visual and the narrative. My style is characterized by organic shapes, bold colors, and a willingness to embrace raw, dirty, and messy materials.

I draw inspiration from the horror genre and the Theatre of Cruelty, using these themes to explore the underappreciated dark side of the human experience and the ritualistic nature of theatre as a whole. I am constantly seeking to learn more about this aesthetic and aspire to work as a prop maker for both theatre and screen in the future.

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JAIDYN GIENI

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

My name is Jaidyn Gieni, a triple threat performer from the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada. I graduated from the Music Theatre Performance Program at St. Clair College in Ontario, Canada in 2022, and continued training internationally in Sligo, Ireland, obtaining my Bachelor Honours Degree in Performing Arts from ATU. My biggest accomplishment this year was making my international debut as Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray, with Pop-Up Theatre Company in Sligo, selling out every performance. I was privileged to have several performance opportunities during my time at ATU, some credits include performing scenes from Irish plays and musical numbers in our scene show, Never Scene Before, and playing the title role of Emer in the Yeats Project, The Only Jealousy of Emer.

Creating a positive, accepting environment, sharing valuable stories, and forming meaningful connections, are what I strive to accomplish through theatre. My career ambitions and dedication to the work motivate me to take every opportunity available, to learn and gain experience. I am staying abroad in Ireland, while travelling to London to audition for West End, and aspire to perform in a variety of roles. I can’t wait to see what opportunities await!

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JAYDEN TINIANOV My name is Jayden Tinianov (he/him), and I am a 21-year-old autistic actor, singer, and advanced mover from Barrie, Ontario, Canada, where I grew up with an older brother and a younger sister. Before coming to Atlantic Technology University, I graduated from St. Lawrence College (Brockville, Ontario) with an Ontario Advanced Diploma in Music Theatre.

After graduating from ATU, I plan to move back home to start working in musical theatre. Some of my past credits include "Blind Man" in The Death of Cuchulainn, "Man in Chair" in The Drowsy Chaperone, and "Paul" in The Theory of Relativity. I have also co-written and co-directed a play called Code Blue for the National Theatre School Drama Festival, which won "Best Written/Directed." Aside from theatre, my passions include playing Dungeons & Dragons and video games.

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KELLY BRODERICK

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

I am graduating from ATU Sligo with a BA (Hons) in Performing Arts. The last four years have been a wild ride, I’m sure we all have fond memories of doing yoga over Zoom! I’ve learned so much thanks to this course, if I hadn’t been given a chance in third year I would have never discovered that I wanted to pursue a career in directing. Attempts On Her Life will forever be one of my fondest memories as the first production I ever directed. I also feel that I’ve developed as a writer these last four years, rewriting Iphigenia At Aulis was a highlight.

Going forward I want to further my education with a Masters degree. I have so many ideas going around my head surely at least one of them will make sense!

I also plan to continue pursuing directing, writing, and being involved with the theatre in general. To my classmates, we are all players that strut and fret their hours upon the stage so I’m sure we’ll all meet again. I believe that we are all made to create art.

The rest is silence.

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KOZMO SAMMARTINO Kozmo Sammartino (he/him) is an emerging actor, singer, and aspiring composer, born and raised in Nelson, Canada. He recently graduated from St. Clair College’s Music Theatre Performance program and is currently completing his Honours Bachelor’s Degree in Performing Arts at the Atlantic Technological University in Sligo, Ireland. He grew up playing classical piano and fell in love with theatre and musicals in high school.

Acting credits include Magnus Muldoon in The Real Inspector Hound, Count Dracula in Dracula, Grandpa Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Claude Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Father Alexandrios in Mamma Mia!, Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Lord Evelyn Oakleigh in Anything Goes, and Cosmé McMoon in Souvenir. He also played Macbeth in the first workshop of the new musical, Weird. Kozmo had a blast performing in the ATU Scene Show and also performed the Old Man in W.B. Yeats’ Death of Cuchulain as part of ATU’s annual Yeats Project. He has performed as a soloist twice with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra and has worked as an accompanist for various projects and theatre productions. He is particularly passionate about classical music and strives to create positive social change through music and storytelling."

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MARLEY CABRAL

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Hello, my name is Marley Cabral and I am 23 years old, I am from London Ontario. I graduated from Fanshawe College’s Theatre arts performance in 2020, and am finishing my degree at ATU Sligo. I played MacDuff’s son in Fanshawe’s 2019 fall Shakespeare project “MacBeth” and was supposed to perform as Essie in Fanshawe’s spring capstone project “You Can’t Take It with You” before covid hit. I knew from a young age theatre was my passion from being in every musical my public school did, to going to H.B. Beal an arts high school in London Ontario.

I was a member of Original Kids Theatre Company from 2011-2017 in those years, I got to be a part of 14 different performances and my most fond memory was getting to be in Chicago the musical during my final year in the company. I have also been in 4 short films “Tuned In”, “Malicious Attack, “Zeno” and “Blue Love”. Tuned in has won a total of 39 awards and I bring home 5 of those awards including “Best Young Actress” and “Actress in a leading role.

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MIA BLAKE My name is Mia Blake, I am a soon-to-be graduate of Performing Arts (Acting). After four years at the Atlantic Technological University of Sligo, I have gained knowledge in all aspects of the theatre industry along with meeting lifelong friends.

During my time in the course, I was introduced to technical theatre and I got the opportunity to work on professional productions in technical theatre and stage management.

After graduating, I hope to gain more experience working in the theatre industry, carrying the knowledge that I have learned in the Performing Arts course every step of the way. In the future, I hope to get the experience teaching English and Drama in different parts of the world.

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

PARIS HEALEY

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Paris is a Canadian theatre performer, writer, producer, and musician finishing her honours degree in performing arts at Atlantic Technological University (Sligo). While in Canada, she attended St. Lawrence College where she received an advanced diploma in Music Theatre - Performance.

Paris, a vocalist who is trained in multiple dance styles, is also versed in both Classical acting and the Chekov technique.

Her recent accomplishments include the writing, production, and release of her debut LP, “Burnout,” a confessional, pop-folk album she released under the stage name "Maeley"; the collaborative creation of a musical adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar”; and her work as a producer for the Nanaimo Fringe Festival. Paris is equal parts passionate storyteller and engaged listener, and her artistry is propelled by her commitment to excellence.

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PAULINA SOCHACKA

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

My name is Paulina Sochacka and I’m a certified theatre designer with a bachelor's degree from ATU Sligo, Ireland. I have had opportunities to work on projects which made me continue to improve my skills in model making, set construction, sewing, photoshop and AutoCad. As well as communication, teamwork and time management. I am also a make-up artist with 6 years of self-taught experiences and 2 professional ones which were a part of my college projects. One of the projects I have done is create a costume from scratch for The Tempest’s Ariel. The idea for the costume was to make a garment that can be more than just one thing. Ariel fit perfectly for that as it’s a spirit, it shapeshifts and flows around.

Therefore, there was an opportunity for me to play around. I divided the costume into three parts, Ariel’s shapeshifting parts; water, earth and the free spirit. Came up with a graphic design to paint on the water part which would complement the type of character Ariel is. The main thing about this costume is that it’s supposed to be transformative, as in the actor being able to simply “shapeshift” right on the stage. Blue and green really stuck to me as they are colours associated with the earth, and are different from each other, which that exactly what Ariel is when they shapeshift. The last piece, “the reveal” is supposed to be the biggest, most relaxing looking. As that’s when Ariel finally gets their freedom. I have used a bunch of ruffles to have this fluffiness. And a see-through cape that goes down Ariel’s back, which portrays the spirit finally being able to breath. I used make-up wax to create fins of fish and fishnet tights for the texture. As Ariel originality is water, I ultimately saw the character forming themselves from water in a human shaped form but with still a couple of fish parts.

I had the pleasure of working with a variety of talented artists and professionals which boosted my recognition for my work, as well as motivation to stay inspired and expand my art. I assisted Patrick McEneaney from Exit Theatre as a set designer during the summer of 2021 for his short film "Group Therapy." I have also had the opportunity to work abroad at an American summer camp "French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts" in New York, where I have done stagecraft and props for the camp’s theatre plays throughout the whole summer of 2022. And have returned in summer 2023, this time as a professional costume designer.

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RHIANNON SHINE

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

My name is Rhiannon Shine and I am a recent graduate of Atlantic Technological University in Sligo with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Performing Arts (Theatre Design) with a focus on set design and model making. I am passionate about creating immersive and impactful designs that engage audiences and enhance the storytelling experience.

Throughout my studies, I developed a strong foundation in visual storytelling, which I apply to every project I work on. I was head of set design for a Virtual Reality short film, I enjoyed the challenges that came with building a virtual 3D space. My artistic style is abstract, symmetry, and angular, geometric, and I am constantly exploring new techniques and materials to push the boundaries of traditional theatre. I believe that theatre design is not only about creating a beautiful visual environment but also about contributing to the overall narrative and emotional impact of a production.

As I look towards the future, I am excited about the opportunities that lie ahead in the field of theatre design. I am eager to continue developing my skills in set construction and breakdown artistry, as well as exploring new techniques and materials to create innovative and impactful designs.

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ROSALIND SAUNDERS I am Rosalind Saunders and my pronouns are she/her. I’m a Canadian actor, dancer, singer and musician in my final year of my Honours BA in Performing Arts at Atlantic Technological University in Sligo, Ireland. I completed an Advanced Diploma in Music Theatre Performance at St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario, Canada in 2022. Despite my focus on musical theatre, I have also worked behind the scenes as a production assistant with Westben Arts Festival Theatre and I’m passionate about all the roles that continue to foster a thriving theatre community.

I started playing the violin and trombone ten years ago now, and I love to get involved with community bands and orchestras. My most prominent artistic interest for my futureis being as silly as possible, as I believe there is always a new way of doing things. I aspire to be involved in new work, and I have a particular interest in Shakespeare (these can go hand in hand, I promise!). I am returning to Canada and I am ready to make a splash in the contemporary theatre scene with my energy, playfulness and my open mind.

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

SARAH M C KIBBIN

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Sarah McKibbin is an emerging musical theatre performer originally from the small town of Kemptville, Ontario. She is a graduate of St Lawrence College’s Music Theatre Performance program, and recently earned a Bachelors of Performing Arts from Atlantic Technological University (formerly IT Sligo) in Sligo, Ireland. She is a very versatile vocalist with 13 years of training ranging from classical arias to contemporary musical theatre, although she is particularly fond of anything folk, rock, or blues.

Sarah has had experience working on new Canadian musicals such as Going Under and Theory of Relativity (David Connolly, Heather Braaten); creating and devising the original piece Manifest: A Collective Creation (Heather Braaten) – for which she helped write & arrange original music – and reimagining the Sondheim revue Marry Me A Little (Liz Gilroy) for a postpandemic world. She also has experience in the creation and management of a production company (Phoenix Productions) along with her peers at St. Lawrence. Together, they wrote, developed, staged and starred in the new musical Under The Fig Tree, a contemporary folk musical based on Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. Sarah is eager to continue developing her skills as a young musician and artist, and she is excited to take part in new and imaginative projects as her career progresses.

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

WRITING & LITERATURE

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

INTRODUCTION Our aim is to provide students with the tools and knowledge they need to build lives and careers in the world of words. The broad, interdisciplinary syllabus ensures that students engage with work across a vast number of genres and practices.

They have the opportunity to tell stories digitally, aurally, on screen and in live performance. They learn to hone their critical abilities, to understand how literature operates, identify their own creative instincts and make intelligent, creatively grounded choices in their work.

Students learn that they do not exist in a void but are part of a rich and complex heritage and a highly textured contemporary scene. The course offers students a chance to explore the literary canon, learn about contemporary writing as well as critical and cultural theories and engage with the work of their peers.

Through workshops, readings and other events, students can begin to take inspiration and locate themselves in the literary landscape.

A writer is never finished learning.

That is why we focus, from the start, on equipping students with the ability to self-edit, to work with editors, to understand the power of the image, to develop voice.

Our most important job, however, is to clear the imaginative space in front of the student, to create the room where their own work as a writer can thrive. The art of the tutor in this field is to know when to guide and encourage and when to stand back and allow the writer to enter into their own practice.

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GLEN BRADY-POWER

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

I write short stories based on characters going through major moments in their lives, something that will irreversibly impact them. My characters are generally ones that you would feel sorry for in a funny sort of way, as they are typically zany, innocent, bumbling people. I admire high-tempo, fast-moving stories, and my style reflects this as my stories are intensely-paced plots that go from zero to one hundred as I want the reader to be on the edge of their seats, excited for the next line as they read it. My stories are typically comedic, with elements of thriller/horror. I like to build anxiety and create a real rush of emotions as the characters deal with kidnappings, terrifying fortunes, relationship problems, and many other issues.

Unfortunately, Marvin’s parents were getting older. He had been thinking a lot about how lonely it was going to be when they were gone. He tried to keep these thoughts out of his head, but he had just recently learned that his father was ill, and had gained a nasty infection that could be fatal to a man of his age. In what felt like the blink of an eye, Marvin had gone from being hoisted up onto his father’s shoulders, to hoisting his father into and out of bed. This truly terrified him and he sunk deeper and deeper into himself as the worries of loneliness plagued his mind, and the fear of losing his parents was slowly getting closer and creeping toward becoming a reality. He would stare at the cuckoo clock in the hallway, and every time the cuckoo screamed at him, he felt this horrible feeling in his chest, and he would pull at his eyebrows until his heart settled down. Another hour gone, just like that, edging closer to the inevitability that one day he would be well and truly alone, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Excerpt from ‘The Fortune Teller’

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JAMES BERRELL

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

My writing is a study of migration, movement, and belonging that explores the mobility of place and status. As a white immigrant with biracial children, my work asks questions about identity. How is acceptance achieved?

How do internal and external perceptions contribute to our identity?

What other forces do identities depend upon? My move from a workingclass Manchester estate to middle-class Viennese city life leaves me with questions about class and social mobility. What does it mean to belong to a certain class and what factors determine it? How much depends upon self-identification, and how much upon cultural capital? Probing these topics through the mediums of performance poetry and prose, I use music and language to highlight issues commonly associated with diaspora. My ideas on identity are developed by combining my native Manchester tongue with characters based in both the UK and mainland Europe. The multimedia form my work occupies becomes a bridge between the internal and external, questioning perception and identification through both lenses.

‘Question seven: In which year did the aviator, Amelia Earhart go missing when attempting to become the first woman to complete a circumnavigational flight of the globe?’

This is a good one. Arash has always been fascinated by aeroplanes. He used to go to the airport pub next to the runway when he was little. He’d pull his binoculars and an aeroplane checklist from his pocket while his dad supped pints and kept his eye out for any single mums. His heart still races when he thinks of their roaring engines rushing by. Their wheels like twigs under their vast aluminium bodies.

His favourite was KLM. The light blue paint draped over their fuselages like capes. White bellies that hovered over the ground as they crept towards take-off position. He’d talk to them as they went by. Their glass-paned eyes looked down on him as he prepped them for their journey. He’d ask them if they’d ensured all the passenger’s seatbelts were correctly fastened and their bags stowed away in the overhead compartment before sending them off down the runway. He’d grip the chain-link fence as they escaped into the grey Manchester sky. Arash smirks at the idea of a plane’s anatomy. Wings for arms; the pilots, a human brain behind those glass-paned eyes; the two sheets of metal that protrude from its tail are feet. Does that mean that the back wheels are its testicles? Maybe the third wheel is its penis, but that’s on its neck. He laughs.

Excerpt from ‘Quiz is Quiz’ YAADA 2023

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MICHAEL BURKE

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Hailing from the Drumlin County of Monaghan, I have always been drawn to the myths and legends of antiquity. It seemed a natural subject to use as the basis of my writing. In my work I have endeavoured to reimagine well-known myths ranging in location from the British Isles to Japan, through both short stories and poetry and retelling tales from the perspective of the marginalised characters in these sagas. These characters are also the subjects of much of my poetry.

Working with myths, I was drawing upon the similarities or common themes that appeared between different the legends, particularly death and imprisonment. I hope to provide a different perspective on these common tropes, by providing both a contemporary view and setting.

Woes of the Bull My name bears the curse of my birth, heralding my status as a half-breed and prisoner.

I have only ever known the Labyrinth. A ghastly place which I’m confined to forever.

Never have I felt the sun on my flesh, nor known any kindness, just the carved cold stone.

Others come into the domain of my torment, but they do not last. Only I remain alone.

Their screams and cries disquiet me. They raise spectres of the horror that was my youth.

Assaulted by these memories, control slips. Goring them on horn and break them under hoof.

Upon seeing the carnage, I have perpetrated. One is made to wonder if this is where I belong.

Red is all my bestial mind sees, all that can soothe me is the memory or dream of a song.

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

MÉABH CALLAGHAN

I have been working on a novel Cailleach Dhearg, or Red Witch, that tells the story of Poppy, an Irish girl who has seen ghosts her whole life and the events that transpire when she and her father move to a new town.

I am drawn towards the ghost story, which has a long tradition in Ireland.

Ghosts are liminal entities; they reside on our plane of existence but don’t fit in here. Teenagers are not dissimilar, stuck between stages, not children but not yet adults, often marginalised or invisible.

Usually my work is character driven, but as I’ve developed this murdermystery, the plot is becoming more central. As I continue to work, I realise now the extent to which I have to create complex storylines, which is both daunting and thrilling.

I turn around and the ghost girl is standing in front of me. She has muted auburn brown hair pulled into a ponytail and dead brown eyes. Denim jeans and a leather jacket over which I can see is the collar of a white t-shirt. She stands with a hand on her hip, assessing me assess her. I imagine we look like two boxers, facing-off in the ring. We’re not exactly toe-to-toe, but close enough that all my hair stands on end being near the spirit. A small voice in my head tells me I’m being reckless.

Stomping around, calling out a ghost, whose temperament I know nothing about. I could be getting myself into trouble. Eventually I break the silence, “Well… do you talk?”

The ghost looks a little shocked, though I can’t imagine why since I’ve been staring at her for over a minute.

“You can see me? Hear me?”

Her voice sounds scratchy, like it’s been unused for a while.

I roll my eyes, “No shit Sherlock.”

She huffs and clenches her fists. Then she walks right through me.

Bitch. I grab the door frame to steady myself. I’ve only experienced it a few times, my balance always thrown off-centre by the strange feeling. It’s like when you dive into the cold water of a swimming pool in summer except instead of you going through the water, the water goes through you.

“Thanks for that, I always enjoy a ghost passing through my body.”

Excerpt from Cailleach Dhearg YAADA 2023

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EVE CONNOLLY

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Having grown up spending every free afternoon and weekend in the cinema, film quickly became the medium I wanted to tell stories through. So, I became an actor, working in film and television, and aspired to eventually write and direct my own films. I have spent the past three years honing my voice and discovering the stories that I want to tell, stories that focus on the female experience. When I started writing I didn’t explicitly plan to focus on female stories but every story I started soon morphed into a story about women. A short story that began as the tale of a blind date became a story about the friendships formed in the girls’ bathrooms. Another that started as a disjointed description of emotions became the story of a fissured motherdaughter relationship. I’m inspired by writer/directors like Nicole Holofcener and Gillian Robespierre; I love quiet, character-driven films, and that’s what I tend to write. My television series One Day You’ll Thank Me explores the relationship between a mother and daughter and my film Everything Is Fine explores the relationship between sisters.

Grace walks out of the toilet block towards a red minivan. Beside the open driver’s door stands FRANK (60s), Grace’s easy-going dad. He’s still donning the killer safari-hat/ cargos combo, along with a t-shirt that reads ‘you don’t scare me, I have daughters’.

He’s chatting and joking with another dad in cargos he met five minutes ago.

FRANK (to the man) My eldest. (then) What happened? Did you fall down the toilet?

Grace forces a smile and waves as she goes to the car.

INT. CAR - DAY Grace climbs into the passenger seat. Immediately too hot, she rolls down the window and fans herself. Frank finishes up his conversation and hops in behind the wheel.

FRANK Right, we all set Grace nods.

EXT. CAR - DAY The car drives through the French countryside.

Excerpt from Everything Is FineDhearg

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

CAELA DAVEY

My primary focus is a fantasy adventure tv serial. I want to create a fun and engaging story, including elements of mature themes that children and teenagers could learn from, such as the importance of family, sacrifice, forgiveness, and redemption. I am also interested in character-driven plots and would like to create a script where the fans cherish a character.

When developing ideas for worldbuilding, I like worlds similar to the one we live in, just with my own tweaks and quirks. In the brainstorming stage, I like to use the notes app to jot down ideas before beginning. I also visualize my thoughts on paper and draw world maps and characters. I love small details in stories, ones that are subtle yet reoccurring, such as certain personality traits in a character, a silent message, or something that propels the plot further.

When I eat a Tesco bakery cinnamon swirl, an angel comes to me personally and wishes me good luck for the day. Or maybe I just ascend into heaven for a minute.

The crunch of the pastry is like walking through a field of leaves, colorful ones. Autumn ones. In red, brown, and yellow.

The shade of the cinnamon itself all blended together under the soles of my shoes as I slip and slide across it like Bambi on ice.

The moist tang of a sharp and powerful punch of cloves that leaves a bitter but satisfying taste in the mouth as it drizzles down the throat. And the pastry, though it tastes a bit like cardboard, makes for a delicious cinnamon combo.

After sampling Lidl, Supervalu, and Aldi’s cinnamon swirls, I can deduce that they simply do not possess the desired citrusy flavours or pastry cooked to perfection, with a crunch borderline on burnt, that Tesco’s can.

And the reminder it brings, of my granny’s porridge, where so much cinnamon was used, that I never enjoyed it until I could no longer have it.

Excerpt from Cinnamon

YAADA 2023

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DANIEL DERMODY

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Coming from both Irish and Polish backgrounds, culture and identity shape the questions asked about society in my works, specifically the roles they have in moulding an individual. My fiction explores the process of coming of age in a hyper-developed era. At 21 years old, I am wary of the dangers ahead in these uncharted territories, especially the consequences of an ever-expanding consumer-driven society.

I have a particular interest in politics, grassroots movements and anticapitalist theory. In my novel Times like These, the protagonist is a young runaway lost and disillusioned both by the brutality at home and the consumption that surrounds him. In the novel, his lens is muddled by frustration with the modern the world, leaving him adrift and questioning social conventions.

As soon as I step foot into work, my soul begins to dissipate. The bare white landscape brings out the ugliness of capitalism in one open plan area. The endless rows of large, branded foods full of shit, slowly killing us. The only colour in the place belonging to the well-advertised packaging, making it pop and stand out.

Artificial white lights running parallel to each other, lining the ceiling. Consumers in the form of zombies, stumbling down the aisles, trapped in their world of grief, shoving products into their trolley. There is no life here, not in this place. Simply a transaction of goods, built on the backs of many, to help profit few at the top. Yet they want us to be passionate about our jobs. Minimum wage, minimum effort, that’s my motto I’m afraid.

Commencing my duties of floor boy, I go straight to packing out the food. New orders are in, which means packing and unpacking. Days like this mean I can’t slack about hiding in the bathroom. The older ones never climb out of your ass.

In particular Sam, who comes down to check on me every five minutes. ‘You alright with the biscuit section kev?’ he says sticking his fat head around the corner again. If looks could kill, I’m sure he would’ve exploded all over the two for one Nutella deal. With no response Sam sticks up his thumb. His way of visually asking me if I’m alright, I’m not a child. ‘Sam, I’ll stick that thumb up your arse if you’re not careful’, I say as a lady walks by me, shooting me a look. I do forget I’m in public sometimes.

Excerpt from Times like These

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STEFANO DE SCISCIO

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Dark fantasy, alongside the Japanese Manga culture, always inspired my creativity and exploration of the source of evil and Darkness. I believe that dark notions stem from something beyond our understanding and merging them with fantasy would enhance this philosophical approach – I am currently finishing the first volume of a science-fiction/fantasy-driven franchise inspired by this passion for dark myths. My portfolio, Unshadowed Fear, consists of a novel Excerpt called Within the Mountains of Trorr, unravelling the tale of two brothers searching for their lost mother within danger-lodged and myth-whispered mountains. Likewise, it includes a collection of poems titled The Realm of Crina, unfolding illustrative verses about a mysterious fantasy realm within a dream.

Blake Crouch, J.R.R Tolkien, George R.R Martin, and Eiichiro Oda are the primary authors that inspired my concise, descriptive style and world-building ideas. Their fantasy is a prime example of the spectacular secondary world – the venture that swirls in our subconscious – that I wish to unroll for others to see fantasy as an escape from reality and a reflective notion of it.

She departed, leaving them without a kiss to bless their nights. Two young brothers, fatherless since birth, now motherless for a year, breathed desperately to find the one guardian that could still be alive within Trorr.

Ruled by raging winds and swarming snow that swayed against its vast chains of white, cloud-piercing eminences, the crescent-shaped island of Trorr was lodged by four scarce villages. In the southern sickle edge, there ported the fishing village of Norad. On the southwest of the island’s rising curve, there rested the misty village of Nurm. In the centre of the munched-moon shape, there rumbled the thunderous village of Tradir. And in the stark north, separated by Merelor – the lands of Giants that reigned the lower northern latitude – awaited the hunter village of Irika.

Throughout this artic realm, there dwelled untamed darkness whispered in their mother’s nightly tales – collected as arcane myths from tenebrous beasts and mischievous gods to heartless curses. Nonetheless, the brothers were the sons of a great iron-mettled warrior of the winter; thus, it was in their blood to dare against the cold and its minacious allies. It was in their blood to venture within the mountains of Trorr…

Excerpt from Within the Mountains of Trorr

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ROSALEEN GLENNON

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

My work is about observations I make in my daily life when I am out walking, travelling or when I am struck by some snippet of overheard conversation.

A word version of small scenes. To quote Seamus Heaney, ‘I’ve always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.’

In Fieldnotes for Leaving I am a detached witness, an ethnographer, collecting people’s habits, customs, and differences. But then there are moments when ‘Everything is lined up in the right order and we realise we had nothing to do with it. We are there, if we are lucky, to witness it. …It was quite a sight, and I was aware of a “goodness” something outside of myself.’

These notes or fragments are all stories in themselves, and I want to record them. They are not spectacular happenings but, somehow, they are important. While my portfolio focuses on the Fieldnotes, I have included here an Excerpt from novel in progress.

A little bird crashing into the window gave Kate a fright. She went out to see where it was. She had often found a bird on the ground after it had hit the glass but there was no sign of this one. Later, she saw Ben scraping at the grating which covered the window to the cellar. When she looked, she discovered a blue tit crouched into a corner looking up from the grating. She put Ben inside the house and opened the grating for the bird. But it didn’t come out. She went away and came back to look later, thinking it might have taken the chance. It was still there. Down on her hands and knees, she put her hand in and tried to catch it. It was jumping from place to place, and Kate could see it had hurt its wing. She picked it up and left it on the ground. It hopped across the yard into the bushes. It wasn’t going to fly. Later still, Ben was in the same bushes chasing something. He’d found the bird holed up under some sticks. Kate took it out and brought it into the house and put it on the floor in the hall. It was terrified and breathing heavily. She put it into a soft cloth on the window-sill. Thinking it might warm up but then its breathing slowed and the distance between the breaths got longer. It cocked its head at one stage, giving her hope, and stretched its wing out a little later. But she could see it was giving its last few breaths. Is that how it was for Adam? His last few breaths, his small chest rising and falling?

Excerpt from Headwinds

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

LUCY GOSS

My novel follows a young Irish photographer, torn between pursuing a creative practice and earning enough money to live and support her family.

The voice is shaped by her aesthetic sensibility, her interest in observing, and the story explores themes of guilt, displacement and conflict. It illustrates situations many Irish people are faced with such as homelessness and the rising of cost of living. I also write poetry and am interested in the common obstacles young Irish face from the demands and expectations of social media to climate catastrophe and over-pressured and failing health services.

As part of the 2023 Scrimshaw editorial team that produced a journal of writing and visual art, I am interested in multiple art practices and am inspired by everyday struggles that people face.

It’s raining heavily now, water pounding on the steel roof, but it still can’t get in. The sound of windshield wipers always transports me home. There’s something about that monotonous rubber squeaking back and forth. And the contrasting smell of rainwater combined with the heat from the engine blowing out onto my face. It familiarises me, even in a place that feels far away from home.

I look up and see a sign for the turn off; we are getting closer now. The muscles in my chest start to tense. I look at her, and I can tell she feels the same. She hasn’t said anything, but the silence hangs over us in the car. I lean back and eventually find other sounds. The whoosh two cars make as they pass each other, a different family in each one. I watch them as they drive closer to home, and we move further away. Their boots are filled with sports gear and school bags, and ours is full of boxes; stuffed with the last remaining items that needed to be moved from the house.

Excerpt from novel in progress

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ARTJOMS KALASNIKOVS I live on an intertidal estuary, Cartron Bay, and tend to take walks along the North Atlantic Ocean, sometimes stopping for a bit and observing the scenery and watching the water flow, occasionally clashing with the shoreline. While in secondary school, especially in Irish class, I took my pen and created a whole universe.

This universe was often inspired by the shifting landscape of the estuary, inspiring me to create the Devistian Expanse, a fictional set of Islands surrounding two main Islands. This universe is now six years old and my portfolio is its first public expression. My portfolio is split into two halves, a comic and an illustrated set of poems.

I wanted to combine the writing and drawing, and the portfolio seemed like the place to try whilst solidifying my universe. The portfolio focuses on exploration and nature but also on family. The illustrations are hand drawn digitally on Krita (https://krita.org/en/) in order to convey raw authenticity.

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

TONY KEENAN

I write fiction short stories based on real life and real places. I write about the people who queued through the night to call far-off loved ones from the magic phone box which, for weeks, refused to take money. I write about loneliness, like the old man on the night he dies, sitting in his armchair, watching the world go by and I write of the ex-navvy who concealed a nine-hole golf course on his neighbours land and sought a friend to play with.

Claire Keegan’s moving novellas, depicting painful social history in Ireland’s south-east, are an inspiration. I also like the wild short stories of Kevin Barry, his dialogue, his ear, the cadence of how Irish people speak.

While my prose is about people, my poetry is a lyrical response to the landscape itself. I will continue to write about my own strange experiences from Ireland’s midlands, where I grew up, and of the beauty of the north-west where I live.

‘Do you play golf?’ he asked me.

The question came out of the blue as I stood beside the gaunt figure that was Pat Diskin, in a muddy hilltop field in north Longford on a sunny June evening in nineteen eighty-five.

‘Do you play golf?’ Diskin asked again, swivelling his head from side to side and raising his arms in the air as he waited for me to answer.

I looked around me, then back at Diskin, mystified. I raised my arms and shoulders, a silent question. What was he talking about? Two men in suits; one a few inches taller than the other; standing feet away from each other: arms raised wide; two strangers in an open field in the middle-of-nowhere. He had something belonging to me. I needed to get it back. ’Look’, he gestured. I followed his gaze. The penny dropped. Despite my predicament, I smiled.

Pat Diskin’s cottage sat at the top of a hill about a mile off the Longford to Cavan road. A patchwork of fields and hedges fell away to the north, in the direction of Cavan. I hadn’t seen another house since I passed Bohans pub about three miles back. I hesitated on the road before striding up the path to his front door. A small metal gate clanged shut behind me. I knuckled the blistered wood and swivelled on my heel, looking back at my car, heat shimmering off the bonnet in the summer evening sunshine. Then I spotted the sheepdog, stretched inside the wall, panting.

‘Diskin’ – you better be home’, I whined, knuckling the wood again.

Excerpt from ‘Invisible Golf Course’

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DAMIEN KELLY

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

My portfolio (Digging Into the Psyche) consists of a collection of poetry and short stories.

The poetry focuses on natural objects in the landscape and my short stories address issues such as: mental health, disturbed psychology and ethical dilemmas.

They are also borderline science fiction stories that deal with the impact of technology on humans and society. I am concerned with advances in technology and powerful people using them in unethical ways.

My poetry considers natural forms in the landscape – a tree, the moon, a river – and reflects upon their structure and beauty, mythical stories associated with them and how they serve purpose to us: the moon acts as a compass, the river gently soothes and the tree’s apple provides food. For the future, I plan to work on a poetry collection and a series of short stories for publication.

LOUGH ERNE Across the border in a foreign land ruled by a new king, lies a picnic area with a wooden bench.

A sky-blue day with fluffy white clouds the water laps gently creating a soothing rhythm.

Across the lake and into the distance, sits a mountain near the heart of threats to peace through disturbing violence.

Plastic swirls around, please think of the animals?

Green, green grass; a luscious little pasture, bushes and trees poke out; shades of brown and green – birds sing melodious tones.

Serenity exists here, yet behind the lake… cars pass the wilderness.

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MAEVE M C CORMACK

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

How is it that a series of essays exploring the society created by internal migration in the 1950’s, turned into Relative, a fragmentary non-fiction memoir? Why did a politically-themed short story, Flag Check, turn into a young woman’s quest to find her place in contemporary Irish life? It’s because I just can’t get away from my fascination around how our past affects our present and how our present affects our future. In these convoluted passages of time, the manner in which we choose to catalogue and connect memories dictates how they impact us. In Relative, I juxtapose moments from my parents' past, my past and my present moment. I do this to try to work out who I am, who my parents were and what shaped us. I write the truths of ordinary people, asking what is our place and where do we belong?

The tide is running. It confused Paula as a child how the pebbly beach was there one night and covered in water the next. She disliked the unpredictability of not knowing what the landscape would look like when she woke up. So, she watched.

Every day. By the time she started school she knew if she was looking at an ebb or a flow. The unused boatshed and battered pier give the beach a forlorn look. Funny to think of Uncle Tom, Mam and the others dipping together there, decades earlier.

Mam and Uncle Tom used to tell her stories. Paula is not sure what is true, misremembered, or longed for, but both sets of stories mesh into disjointed fragments.

‘In a pair of togs, everyone was the same’, Mam used to say.

Contoured into the frame of the sash window, Paula sits on the floor of the boatshed, connected to the sea through gaps between wood and glass, the high tide sliding along the banked-up shingle, rustling the round pebbles, creating pockets of soft foam. The sound of home. That comforting regularity that four years in Belfast failed to smother. Sleepless nights curled up in bed; traffic, streetlights and late-night revellers were blocked out by closing her eyes and sensing the ripple of the tide amplified within, its flow lulling her to sleep against the sharp bleep of the traffic lights below her draughty window.

Excerpt from The Tide is Running

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DIANNE M C PHELIM Inspiration for my poetry, essays and fiction comes from observation of the small narratives that unfold about us. Be it in a cafe, graveyard, or supermarket, I collect overheard conversations and random sentences to explore, develop and reimagine later. Death and the natural world always find a way to feature throughout my narratives, and many draw on vignettes from memory or place. I’ve always found the process of creating both grounding and stimulating, and, as a child, my stories were always bookmarked by drawings. Art still continues to play a considerable role in my writing, my work is illustrative, using colour to influence imagery and create depth of feeling.

The creation of rich visuals that impacts all senses greatly inspires and enhances my writing experience. I hope for others to find meaning, comfort, or beauty in their reading of my work.

a skeletal man tosses packages aside lips move as if in prayer despairing of the fluorescent sale stickers whispering lies to vacant pockets frustration makes him vocal discount my arse he says to the stranger who nods in agreement, it seems the polite thing to do his basket stays empty as Bono sings over the shoppers Is it getting better, or do you feel the same? at the checkout, faded denim jacket counts out coins unsteadily a half flagon of Jameson and tin of dog food it’s too early the checkout girl frowns you can’t buy that yet she announces crossly louder when he offers her the money again it’s not time, wait till 10.30 she taps the invisible watch on her wrist he lifts the bottle with shaking hands brushes by me smelling of neglect and disappointment shuddering jaw unshaven she rolls her eyes he’ll be back in five minutes he lingers in the cleaning aisle my goods roll towards her, electric blue nails skim back and forth across the scanner screen like an accomplished pianist Excerpt from ‘Witness’

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HAZEL O'GRADY

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Fusing Antitheses is a collection of nine poems and four critical reviews exploring both a creative and a critical form of writing. Ubiquitous Entanglements explores in poetic form nature and the seasons. The everchanging scenery of Murrisk in County Mayo offers inspiration for my writing, and this sense of place is embedded in my poetry. There are poems in the compressed Imagist style as well as a modified villanelle, a Shakespearean Sonnet and an acrostic poem.

The reviews explore various texts all written by contemporary Irish women, including a novella and a film adaptation of the novella, a poetry collection, a short story collection, and a novel. Engaging critically with the texts helps me evaluate the ideas and content of my creative writing. Fusing Antitheses marks the beginning of my work both as a poet and developing an engaged critical voice.

A BLAZING STORM Thunder rumbles, lightning sparks in a cloud.

Droplets hitting the roof in a splat.

The flames in the fire stand proud – Droplets hitting flames like the hiss of a cat.

Rain buckets down slamming against the roof Like bullets ricocheting; while I inside, Ponder this odd feeling of being bulletproof Against the violent cold outside.

I sink further into this groaning leather marshmallow.

My eyes see past the metal guard into flames, shifting: Crimson red, tiger orange, marigold yellow, Observing until my mind begins drifting.

The crimson bed of embers glows dimly like a dying star of old.

In the ash left, the searing heat cuts differently than the violent cold.

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MAEVE O'HAIR I love the marriage of poetry, film and sound. Taking a poem I have written, and shooting an accompanying film, can give the written word added dimension and depth. Fusion of the verbal, visual and audible can occur in the most magical way. Those who may not read a book of poems may enjoy viewing a poetry film. I like the accessibility of it, where film brings poetry to a broader readership and spreads the beauty of the written word. An example of this is when one of my poetry films, Knitted Knockers, went viral quite quickly because a cohort of people identified with the subject matter. I want my poetry films to be visceral, relatable and easily found. The combination of moving image and spoken word is powerful. Technology can make poetry accessible to more people, which for me is everything.

My work can be viewed via the QR code here or at https://vimeo.com/showcase/9935460

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SARAH O'KEEFE

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

In my portfolio Talk Them, I use my family’s personal experiences to tell a non-fiction story about our time living abroad, and some of the challenges we have faced regarding our son Charlie’s long-term illness. Charlie has Cystic Fibrosis. As a first-time mother I found it difficult at times, but have always tried to look at the positive. It is important for me to advocate for those that need an extra bit of help, and I believe that story telling can give us the voice to do so. Talk Them also includes a screenplay for animation about a fairy with a prosthetic wing who dreams of being a singer.

I needed to up my entertaining game. My idol Anthony Bourdain, celebrity chef, author, and travel documentarian was visiting Cayman for a culinary event. His latest cookbook Les Halles had recently been released, and I was dying to meet him. The event was being held at an expensive hotel resort, and I couldn’t afford to buy pricey tickets when we had this mortgage looming. Instead, I devised a plan where I would casually run into him at the airport, because I knew when he was travelling. I brought my Les Halles cookbook to the restaurant, so that I could ask him to sign it during our impending casual run-in. As predicted, Anthony Bourdain was at the airport getting ready to take the 5:10 flight, but he never came to the restaurant. Instead, he went to the departure lounge bar, and it was busy. I tried to make it through security flashing my airport staff pass but it was no use, I wasn’t getting in. In a last-minute attempt, I saw one of the servers at the bar, gave her the book and she got it autographed for me. My dream of meeting Anthony Bourdain, telling him that I loved cookbooks and travel, that I used to write and that he could come to our place for a dinner party, was not to be.

Excerpt from A la Carte: recipes, dogs, and techniques for making butterflies talk

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AUDREY ROBINSON

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

My poetry exploits the layers of meaning in words to explore our bond with nature and to capture those instants when she reminds us of the accident of our existence. As I am based in the rugged, bleak, and unpredictable landscape of the Wild Atlantic Way, the work is inextricably linked to this environment.

My narratives explore the relationship between place and psychological spaces. My short stories and flash fictions centre around moments when external conditions force characters to decide how they want to be in the world. As an ex-journalist, who has lived in both the Global North and South, the impacts of world politics and global warming find their way into my non-fiction, which questions the way we treat each other and the planet.

I am inspired to push words to the limit of meaning by the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Seamus Heaney, and Emily Dickinson. I am also influenced by the compassion evident in the works of Samuel Beckett, Terry Pratchett, and Claire Keegan.

Like these writers, I want to create characters and situations that uncover our humanity and explore its potential as well as its failings.

REFLECTIONS At the top of Richmond Hill we turn to catch our breath, and find the city lit beneath us: A motorways phosphorescence, ribboned with red and white, softly spiderwebbed with lythe streetlamps.

So that we go reeling back to an apple-tinged night near Conn, where over the moonbright lake a spill of tailed meteors marbled the canopy, and saw their sky-roving reflected in dark water.

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NIALL SIMON

I try to write tender and intimate stories that reflect the human condition while also vividly describing a scene. My recurring themes are identity, masculinity, love, and loneliness. Currently, I am working on a story about an isolated young man who feels stagnant in his west of Ireland home. Jack Kerouac is an inspiration and his use of roman à clef is something I have adapted to my own stories. Other inspirations are Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Charles Bukowski. As a child I struggled in school and sport due to health problems I was born with. This sense of isolation and feeling different to the rest of the boys in school is something I have embraced in my life and has become a strong component of my work. My writing explores possibilities for young Irish men and exposes the limitations of toxic masculinity.

So, I packed my things, throwing all into the back of my Golf, and drove the three hour teary-eyed drive to Sligo, a town I had long since turned my back on with the coming of Anna to my life.

Now, a week later, I sat in McCool’s pub, waiting for my old friend Ray to arrive in. I had not been in Cool’s for a long time, but I could see no changes to the place: the blinds entirely down, patrons dashed by the slits of light piercing through; yellow tungsten bulbs created moody shadow, and the light in the far-left corner still quivered; the same creased faces and dark sunken eyes occupied the bar with mad John Swift still sat at the cheap fruity machine, a flat pint of muddy Carling beside him, pressing those buttons with all the hope in the world. Sitting directly under the glow of the cheap warm bulb, I felt like a hare in a wolf’s den.

Finally, Ray arrived in and I saw those lightbulb blue eyes that were so synonymous with him. He took my hand in his, those coarse gravel palms scratching my soft boyish mitt.

Excerpt from Red Sky at Night

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KERRIE TOLAND

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

I grew up in a small town close to the border in Donegal. Spending most of my life in the Irish countryside has influenced my style of writing with a strong sense of place. My nonfiction focuses on complex relationships with family and being nine thousand miles away from them and the place I called home for twenty years.

I decided to move to Perth, Australia in the middle of my final year of college, switching to the online version of the course. Growing up in a working-class household, travelling to the other side of the world and working various parttime jobs along the way has led to a mountain of stories I want to tell.

My non-fiction consists of issues I have personally experienced laid bare using scene rather than reflection. My nonfiction piece explores issues that so many young people face such as addiction, being away from home for the first time and of course family and relationship issues.

My nonfiction attempts to make sense of the world as I see it. My short stories attempt to distract from the world when things don’t make sense.

In Ireland, when I was still in primary school, the family next door had a cat who they thought was a girl. It was called Sarafina and he seemed to enjoy sitting on my back doorstep more than staying in their house because we gave him bacon and fish scraps. A black kitten appeared beside him one day and she was my cat from then on.

My whole family seemed to hate animals. My mum, dad and brother would kick the cat if it was sitting on the doorstep in their way. The cat stayed regardless. I would bring her in and hold her purring on my lap when I was home alone. She eventually had kittens and they all died off one by one. Their hardened bodies snuggled in a blanket I sacrificed for them in a cardboard box in the corner of the shed. I didn’t cry until the last one died. I sat holding the last kitten glaring at my cat who washed herself nonchalantly.

She had more kittens a while later and one of them lived. I came back from school one day and the cats were gone. I thought nothing of it, they would always come back. A few days passed and I asked my mum if she had seen them. She and my brother had put them in the boot of her car, drove somewhere and left them at the side of the road.

Excerpt from Home Thoughts

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

ALICE TURPIN

Specialising in creative non-fiction and screenwriting, I write about people and aim to probe the depths of human motivation. My work focuses on relationships, be they familial, sexual or otherwise and I am continually inspired by the human psyche’s unconscious desires and how these drive us to manufacture our own realities. Life is a story of our own creation, and I am interested in the underbelly, the shadow side of that story - we must venture into the darkest abyss of our cave to retrieve our gold.

My portfolio explores themes of love and desire; obsession and deception; spirituality and power. Alongside writing, I have a deep love of art, music and photography, and the coalescence of all four - film - is where I see the ultimate realisation of my work.

‘I suppose we should get on with it,’ she says, moving towards me.

‘Yes,’ I say. Thank fuck, I think.

When she kisses me, it is light and soft and her mouth is wet and cool. I hadn’t kissed anyone except Eoin in well over a year and I instantly miss the firmness of his tongue, the scratch of his beard, the manliness of him. I become immediately self-conscious of the red wine taste on my lips, the faint dryness of my tongue from the weed. Her mouth seems infinitely fresh and healthy in comparison. As soon as Eoin comes back I go to the bathroom and furiously brush my teeth, the smell of menthol entering ahead of me on my return.

Excerpt from Scorpio Rising

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Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

MASTERS IN CREATIVE PRACTICE

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INTRODUCTION ‘There is, it would seem, in the dimensional scale of the world a kind of delicate meeting place between imagination and knowledge, a point, arrived at by diminishing large things and enlarging small ones that is intrinsically artistic.’ (from Nabokov’s Speak, Memory, revised edition, 1966).

Akin to Nabokov’s assessment of the world, the arts make the world micro-sized, enlarged, and/ or fitting. The arts challenge us to record, think, feel, grieve, laugh, empower, and point to the future, because the arts matter.

This meitheal is what the Masters in Creative Practice is about – gather, roll up your sleeves and make creative work. Come to us from your chosen art-form and be prepared to work alongside others from different art-forms. Get inspired to be creatively challenged, to work collaboratively, and to be industryready.

Maybe you think you’re a fine artist, interior architect, theatre designer, novelist or sculptor but deep down inside there’s a short story writer, poet, dramatist or product designer fighting to get out!

Maybe it’s the other way around.

Whatever the case you’ll learn a lot, and will have fun finding out.

With us you will be part of a small unique group who will be taught by a range of tutors from different specialisms, as well as by regular guest artists in relevant cognate areas. We aim to develop voice, craft, technique, critical thinking and imagination, in a space which allows learners to engage in their own practice.

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TERENCE M C ENEANEY I am a writer, actor and educator based in Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal.

In December 2022, I completed a Master of Arts in Creative Practice (Playwrighting) at ATU, Sligo. As part of my Master's, I wrote and performed a play - Trinty: Son, Father, Ghost. As a member of Ballyshannon Drama Society I have acted in many award-winning productions, including major roles in The Importance of Being Earnest, Faint Voices and All my Sons I have also worked extensively as a featured extra in TV shows such as Game of Thrones and Ripper Street. My repertoire includes plays, poetry, and short stories. I am currently writing one full-length and two one act plays.

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NICK DEVANEY

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Byung-chul Han describes an achievement society where one suffers from excess positivity and incessant levels of activity. The hyperdrive for success creates a landscape in which navigation verges on the impossible.

Survival depends on the conduct of a proper and acceptable mental health regime. Once the forces of external influence are now internalised as one exploits oneself.

We look to doping for enhancing our capacities and to disguise the effects of the constant bombardment of information and self-assessment. We push through extreme tiredness in a society of work ‘in which the master himself has become a labouring slave. In this society of compulsion, everyone carries a work camp inside. This labour camp is defined by the fact that one simultaneously prisoner and guard, victim and perpetrator.’

1 The overwhelmed subject scrambles for the reprieve of an identity and purpose. Contemplation and creativity once holding a position of privilege become largely redundant tools playing minor roles in a coping mechanism.

The above offers a theoretical backdrop from which the ‘Man(escaped)’ body of work was developed to offer respite for a masculine subject. The transparent body is acted upon through a series of fictional procedures in the guise of luxury spa treatments. DIY tools become instruments for extreme skin exfoliation and teeth whitening, while the BBQ is utilised for heating rocks in a hot stone massage.

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GABRIELLE FLYNN

Transient, oil on canvas, 2022, 150 x 102 cm

Gabrielle Flynn is a visual artist based in Leitrim, who recently completed a Master in Creative Practice at ATU Sligo. She graduated with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Sligo Institute of Technology in 2018 and an honours Liberal Arts degree from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1980. Gabrielle previously had a long and enriching career as a professional librarian. She was Artist in Residence at The Dock, Carrick on Shannon, Co Leitrim from September 2018 to August 2019. Her work has been included in group exhibitions in Ireland and she had a two-person exhibition at Solas Art Gallery, Co Leitrim in August 2019 with Miriam Fitzgerald Juskova. Her work features in public and private collections. Her first solo exhibition was at Ballinaglen Arts Foundation, County Mayo, in 2020.

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REBECCA MILLS

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Rebecca Mills is a dedicated graduate student from the Master's degree of Arts at ATU Sligo. With a passion for theatre and teaching, she embarked on a project that showcased her expertise in drama education. Guiding a select group of students, Rebecca taught them skills in drama, improvisation and gesture from the Chekhov technique. Using the theme fairytales, she encouraged the students to write monologues based on their chosen characters. Recording and editing their performances, Rebecca skilfully crafted a fun movie, now available on YouTube titled: Magical Monologues.

She devoted one a half hours per week for five weeks to work with the students, providing a platform for their growth and creativity. Rebecca takes immense pride in the final piece, which stands as a testament to her teaching a abilities and commitment to aspiring actors. As she continues her journey, she aims to empower more individuals through the transformative power of theatre and inspire a new generation of performing artists.

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MARY BLAKE Mary Blake holds a BA Hons in Performing Arts and an MA in Creative Practice. With a diverse skill set, Mary excels as a writer, performer, and filmmaker. Her passion lies in breaking boundaries and challenging conventions, particularly when it comes to underrepresented voices and subverting stereotypes.

Throughout her career, Mary has dedicated herself to empowering young individuals through her work in Youth Theatre facilitation. Her repertoire boasts several original plays that she both wrote and directed, showcasing her ability to craft compelling narratives that resonate with audiences of all ages.

Her directorial and writing talents were prominently displayed in the short film "Bridey," which earned recognition by being selected for the esteemed Galway Film Fleadh.

Mary has recently embraced a new role as the Assistant Arts Officer in Co Leitrim. This position allows her to contribute her expertise and passion to further promote and nurture the artistic community in her home county of Leitrim.

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EOIN LEYDON O'CONNOR

Yeats Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture

Eoin Leydon O’Connor is a native of Sligo and a graduate of the M.A. in Creative Practice programme at ATU Sligo. His main vein of work is short story writing, although he dabbles in poetry, screenplay & playwriting occasionally.

He has also taken to self-publishing his work on Amazon as of 2023.

Eoin’s main interest in writing is delving into the paranormal and macabre, but also showing the lighter, more beautiful side to his characters and the world he creates. As an avid fan of horror, he delves into stories involving body horror, existential trauma, as well as writing about friendship, love, death, grief, happiness and hope amidst the darker moments throughout each piece.His debut collection of short stories Rural Tales is set to be published later this year.

The day will come when I shall walk, when I shall breathe air and my heart will beat like yours. I shall be new. I shall be whole. I shall slither amongst you. And you will never know.

I shall be flesh.

There's something wrong with the school. Something rotten has sunk its teeth into the underbelly. Something that will spread throughout these halls. It will corrode this school.

It's going to start soon.

I can already smell it.

It's inside the walls.

We have to escape.

Otherwise it will end us all.

In the hallway, I am all alone. Everyone else has retreated to the lunch room. The slithering comes into earshot. I pause, glancing back down the long way I've walked.

It’s inside the walls. It’s all around me. I move towards the cinderblock, cocking my head to one side to listen.

There … I can hear it, moving through the wall, Like a slug through mud. Wet and slippery, sliding around inside.

I will be flesh. I will grow inside you all. I will live and inhabit. You will all feel me.

Let me corrode you. Let me dry you out. Shrivel you. You can't dig me out. I have no origin. I am without root. I am amongst you.

It slithers away out of earshot.

Excerpt from A Human Named Rot

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FACULTY COLLEAGUES FULL TIME Agnes Pallai

Katarina Rodzvadska

Alice Lyons

Keith Hopper

Annemarie NiChuireann

Leon Butler

Bernadette Donohue

Lizzie Kinsella

Ciaran McCauley

Louis McManus

Claire Lorusso

Mark Pepper

Cliona Brady

Mark Rooney

Cliona Rooney

Marketa Formanova

Dara Burke

Mary Bryne

Dave Roberts

Masa Ruane Bratusa

Declan Drohan

Michael Mescal

Deirdre Greaney

Michael Roulston

Denis Farrell

Muireann Charleton

Diarmuid Timmons

Nevil Walsh

Elaine Regan

Niall Colleary

Elizabeth Caffrey

Niall Rea

Elske Rahill

Peter Scanlon

Emma Penney

Ray McNally

Emmet O'Doherty

Rhona Trench

Fiona Harte

Ronnie Hughes

Gerard Beirne

Rowan Watson

Hilary Gilligan

Susan Galavan

John Bruen

Tommy Weir

John Graham

Una Mannion

JP Feeney

Vanja Lambrecht-Ward

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PART TIME

TECHNICIANS

Angela Rolfe

Bendan Kilfeather

Elizabeth Clyne

Brendan Hurley

Eoin Casserly

Daveth Fox

Gavin Burke

Seamus Grogan

Grainne McGarty Hannah Slatne James Hamilton James McConville

ADMIN Kate McCarthy

Jane Meade Kiera O'Toole Marian Quinn Mark Stephens Niamh McCabe Sinead O Donnell Carey Emer Ward Jacinta Feeney John Weir Linda Norton

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