switch 2021 by switch project

switch 2021

SWITCH SWITCH CONTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARYVIDEO VIDEOART ART

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The switch project is a continuing investigation into place, locating art in public space in a contextually focused way. International film and video artworks are back-projected for one week onto the windows of shops and other spaces throughout the town of Nenagh, Co Tipperary, Ireland. 2021 presents 9 visual artists and one poet who invite us through their works to consider the theme of PLAY.

Now in its 13th year, switch is an artist-led project funded & supported by the Tipperary Arts Office.

Ojo Taiye is a young Nigerian artist who uses poetry as a tool to hide his frustration with society. He also makes use of collage and sampling techniques. His poetry has been published or forthcoming in Rumpus, Offing Magazine, Cincinnati Review, Willow Spring and elsewhere. Recently, he was selected to participate in Capital City Film Festival’s Inaugural Poetry Project, Michigan & also selected as a participant in the Poetry Ireland Introduction Series 2020. He is currently living in Agbor, Nigeria. You can follow him on twitter @ojo_poems.

Ojo Taiye YOU ASK - BUT UNLIKE THE REST OF THEM I write to you from the joyfulness of childhood. You see, all my life I only care for laughter. It is impossible to walk through darkness without playing. There is no better way to live than to smile the whole time. Take it or leave it, I write to you from an ugly world that’s isn’t ugly. I write to you with a bright yellow. I mean, sunlight playing on my brown hair. Admirable? Obviously. I write to you when a joke is all I know. I write myself out of play-act. I said no more to personate. I write to you as the young cubs at play clawing through most doors. I write to you from the blinds of a playhouse. Comedy comes from pleasantry. Tragedy means heartbreak, Like when my mother wouldn’t let me play with my friends the negroes’ downstairs. I hate it when the world doesn’t know what to do with fun. I’d rather be sad, it’s too much guilt when I fail to share my R&R with my friends.

Berit Dröse (DK / D), lives and work in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is a multidisciplinary visual artist. From 2017-2019 she was one of eight danish artists chosen to represent Denmark at the JCE Biennale (Jeune Creation Europeénne). Her latest screenings and exhibitions were shown at Kunstkraftwerk in Leipzig, Germany, Science and Art Center “Bruzis”, Cesis, Latvia, Blindside Melbourne, Australia. Dröse is educated from Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee, Germany and the Jutland Academy of Fine Arts in Denmark. She works with visual spaces, sculptures and installations that point to other dimensions. Circles around the connection between a physical and a mental reality.

Berit Dröse Untitled

2012 Duration: 27 sec The video piece “Untitled” is shown in black and white and contains only circular movements. The quick cuts and the high pace gives the piece a playing and hectic dimension. Watching at it for several minutes the video creates a hypnotic presence and dizziness to the spectator.

Berit Dröse is based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

British artist Mark Neville works at the intersection of art and documentary, investigating the social function of photography. His latest book, Parade, a multilayered portrait of the farming community in Brittany, France, was nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2020. Neville is currently working on a new book project about Ukraine which will be published later this year by Steidl. Stop Tanks With Books will employ his activist strategy of a targeted book dissemination, and try to make a direct impact upon the war in Ukraine.

Mark Neville Backdrops

2011, 9 mins 46 secs, digital transfer from 16mm film Filmed on the frontline in Helmand against backdrops depicting photographic or painted artworks from previous conflicts, ‘Backdrops’ dislocates elements of real life from the Province which are commonly presented to us by the media. Through a series of vignettes, life in the war zone is relocated to previous eras, and itself becomes part of a cycle of wars and their depictions. This contectualisation not only works to make us re-examine the works of Nash, Piper and Burke, and to relate these to war now, but also makes us re-examine our numbered response to the over-saturation of mediated images of Helmand.

Mark Neville is based in London, UK and Kyiv, Ukraine.

John Conway is a visual artist working extensively in community, youth and health settings. His work is characterised by the production and co-production of innovative multi-disciplinary projects which respond to sensitive and often challenging themes resulting in sophisticated solo and collaborative outputs. He frequently commissions, curates and collaborates with other arts and non arts specialists and orchestrates complex multi-stakeholder projects. Recent awards include the Next Generation Award 2021, Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh project funding 2021, and the Arts Participation Bursary 2020

John Conway NEET

NEET is a video work in which we see deconstructed mechanical wind-up toys explore new functions and purpose outside of their original designs, eventually dispelling their potential energy and coming to standstill. NEET is an acronym for Not in Education, Training or Employment: The work was originally created as a response to the experience of building a career in the arts - finding a space and a relevance outside of standardised labour processes. Produced in 2016, NEET has taken on a new relevance during the COVID19 pandemic and has connotations to experiences of lockdown and social isolation.

John Conway is a native of Kildare, Ireland, and is a studio artist in Rua Red, South Dublin Arts Centre.

Chris Finnegan is a visual artist and educator whose practice explores common phenomena and occurrences, primarily through lens-based media. The mundane qualities of objects and events are often exploited and presented with a pseudo-scientific rigour. Permutations, sequencing and progressions are employed, sometimes logically. Throughout the work, the photographic image can be seen to occupy two simultaneous states; empirical artefact and conceptualist proposition.

Chris Finnegan Recursion: Rock/Paper/Scissors

In mathematics recursion is the process of defining a problem or its solution in terms of itself. In this video, the recursive nature of the traditional children’s hand game, Rock Paper Scissors, is observed through cyclical sequences of all possible outcomes. Unlike a conventional round of the game, the players here follow pre-determined instructions and can be seen to enact a choreographed simulation of the game’s fundamental code.

Chris Finnegan is based in Cork, Ireland.

Ojo Taiye I DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW IF THIS IS TRUE Every song I know Shapes joy. And sometimes I feel As if our best years Never fade— To be caressed With language And with laughter A gush of tenderness And freedom. Till we are left with the Mass of silence the surrounds Compassion. I guess that’s how children Play without knowing how.

Deirdre Byrne is a visual artist from Gorey, Co. Wexford. She has a Fine Art Painting degree and a Postgraduate diploma in Visual Art Education from NCAD. Her work has been exhibited in Ireland and internationally. Recent exhibitions and projects include; selection to the 191st RHA Annual Exhibition, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, selection to the 139th RUA Annual Exhibition, Royal Ulster Academy of Arts, Belfast. This year she was commissioned by Creative Ireland and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Arts Office to create a new animation that was projected onto dlr LexIcon as part of Light Up Dún Laoghaire.

Deirdre Byrne Sugar Rush Mountain, Murmuration, Iceberg, Milford Sound, Brinicle, and Plant Hunter

These six short animations were made using the technique of stop motion. Drawing, painting, cutting, pasting, moving, shooting and editing are some of the processes involved in making these paper cutouts appear to move across the screen. A lot of the cutouts were made from cutting up sections of old drawings and paintings. The work tries to capture a sense of movement within a brief moment rather than creating a specific narrative. The animations are titled Sugar Rush Mountain, Murmuration, Iceberg, Milford Sound, Brinicle, and Plant Hunter. Each animation stemmed from a curiosity about naturally occurring phenomena.

Deirdre Byrne is based in Dublin, Ireland & Seville, Spain.

Makiko Nishikaze b.1968 in Wakayama, Japan. Composer, Pianist, Media Artist, Performer. Based in Berlin. She studied composition in Japan, California and Berlin and is currently a lecturor at the Bauhaus-University Weimar, Faculty of Media. Though her background is music, some of her video works do not have sound, in order to persue the theme „Can we hear with our eyes?“

Makiko Nishikaze te to te – hand and hand

„Te“ is hand in Japanese. Except when I am playing the piano, I don’t normally observe the movement of my hands and fingers. For this video I made various different choreographies of my hands. If you start paying attention to each finger, you can see it as if it has its own “personality”. Play - my “pianist’s” hands perform on screen without music.

Makiko Nishikaze is based in Berlin, Germany.

Christy Walsh is a New York-based multidisciplinary artist who works in dance, photography and video. Walsh has been a dancer, choreographer or teacher for numerous companies and schools in the United States, Greece and Korea. She has created and performed in evening-length theatrical works and sitespecific performances with musical and visual-arts collaborators in the United States and in Greece. Her videos and photographs have been presented in festivals, galleries and commercial spaces all over the world.

Christy Walsh Play

For many of us, our very first playmates are our siblings. Sibling relationships can be fraught and full of mischief, as is the case with the sisters in this dance theater piece I created for the Figment Festival on Governors Island some years ago. In this piece, the sisters attempt an elegant dance that devolves into violence, and then battle in an earnest imitation of martial artists. I toyed with the footage to make it seem like old home movies, and to make it more playful. Choreography: Christy Walsh Dancers: Laure Duverger and Christy Walsh Videography: Spyros Stefanou Post-production: Christy Original performance produced by FIGMENT FESTIVAL, Governor’s Island, New York.

Christy Walsh is based in New York, USA.

Heleen Wiemer is a Dutch artist who works within and in between the fields of drawing, installation, theatre and film. She graduated at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam in 2002. Next to her solo practice, she has been collaborating with the artist collective Het Harde Potlood (The Hard Pencil) since 2006, developing an experimental oeuvre that includes murals and performances. Furthermore, next to T. Koelewijn, she is the other half of the audiovisual duo T.H. Koelewiemer; they combine synthesizers and ukulele with vocals and a unique sense of rhythm. Since 2015 Heleen has been teaching at ArtEZ University of the Arts in Zwolle.

Heleen Wiemer Endings and beginnings

I am fascinated by how things in this world constantly seem to move, come together, and fall apart again. A slight reluctance to either start or finish anything, plus stings of jealousy and frustration, drive me to create quirky scenes. The video work Endings and beginnings was developed in bits and pieces over a period of years (2018-2021). It reflects an associative visual journey, propelled by curiosity about where we come from and where we go to.

Heleen Wiemer is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Max Hattler is an artist who works with abstract animation, video installation and audiovisual performance. He holds an MA in Animation from the Royal College of Art and a Doctorate in Fine Art from the University of East London. His work has been shown at institutions such as Resonate, ZKM Center for Art and Media, MOCA Taipei and Beijing Minsheng Museum. Awards include Annecy Animation Festival, Prix Ars Electronica, London International Animation Festival, Punto y Raya Festival, and several Visual Music Awards. Max has performed live around the world including at Anifilm Festival, Fest Anca, Expo Milan, Seoul Museum of Art, and the European Media Art Festival. He lives in Hong Kong where he is an Assistant Professor at School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong.

Max Hattler Concrete Abstraction: Road Triptych

A motion painting across three synchronized screens that takes Hong Kong’s urban topography as its canvas. Road markings, graffiti and asphalt textures explode and contract in this portrait of the paints and stains that adorn the city’s streets.

Max Hattler is based in Hong Kong.

Ojo Taiye LET ME JUST SAY THIS, I love to play. This is probably Because I think childhood doesn’t End. It’s a memory strong enough To lead me until I am stuck.

switch pays a special thanks to the community of Nenagh and the local shop owners who have supported the project by loaning the premises for the duration. the switch event is funded by

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7th - 14th November 2021 www.s-w-i-t-c-h.org