TACTICAL MAGIC: TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TAC T I C A L M AG I C

CU RAT E D BY KE RRY GUIN AN

TU L C A F E ST I VA L OF VI S UAL ARTS 1 - 1 7 NOV E M BER 20 19

TAC T I C A L M AG I C Anri Sala (Albania)

Barry Mulholland (Northern Ireland) Branwen (Ireland)

Christian Fogarolli (Italy / Czech Republic) Clodagh Emoe (Ireland) Day Magee (Ireland)

Diana Copperwhite (Ireland / USA)

From The Bogs of Aughiska (Ireland)

Geels lampa a Ela (The Hope Collective) (Ireland) Helen Mac Mahon (Ireland) Jesse Jones (Ireland)

Katherine Sankey (Ireland / Australia) Linda Pense (Germany) Mark Cullen (Ireland)

Martina O’Brien (Ireland) Michael Fortune (Ireland) Michelle Doyle (Ireland) Natalia Beylis (Ireland) Paul Duane (Ireland)

Rajinder Singh (Ireland) SUBSET (Ireland)

Una Quigley (Ireland)

www.tulca.ie

TAC T I C A L M AG I C

www.tulca.ie

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

In emphasising collective engagement and the power of connection over bombast

and chasing footfall, this year’s TULCA echoes our broader commitment to the

ability of art to provoke meaningful conversations about the things that matter.

The result is a festival that commits to engaging audiences and examining and

reappraising folk knowledge as a useful orienting force in an increasingly commodity-driven world.

Every year the production of TULCA is truly a Promethean undertaking. Our

WELCOME Board of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts

team slowly transforms spaces as the winter sets in, maintaining the belief that our audiences will abandon cosy nights in for our events, tours, talks and performanc-

es. TULCA’s magic is unthinkable without our team, who, under the guidance of our producer David Finn, tirelessly work to marry curatorial concept and artistic

ambition with high production values. TULCA festival-goers are rewarded with the warmest of welcomes made possible by our volunteers, led by Grace Mitch-

It is a pleasure to welcome you to TACTICAL MAGIC curated by Kerry Guinan,

ell, and carefully-crafted learning experiences guided by our education team now

the seventeenth edition of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts.

headed up by Dee Deegan. We warmly welcome these new TULCA team mem-

As the festival has taken shape, so too has the board’s belief in and understanding of

of luck in their new endeavours. The current success of the festival bears the mark

bers and wish Sue Roche and Joanna McGlynn who have moved on the very best

the prescience of Tactical Magic as an orientation for the festival. Magic is rarely ever

of their years of consistent passion and professionalism.

pursuits antithetical to its inherent dualism; theme parks, brands and public spectacle

Our partners and funders, old and new, assist in the realisation of these two weeks

her artistic work, represents a thoroughgoing commitment to its concept, engaging a

vindicating TULCA’s belief in the power of art to subvert, to call our thoughts

of its darker connotations. This, in turn, has forged a festival that beckons audiences

clamour of pseudo-pressing concerns.

meaningful engagement with challenging and progressive work. As such, this year’s

TULCA is now on the brink of adulthood. As we approach our eighteenth birth-

multi-faceted text that is TULCA 2019 is both a love letter to ex-centric wisdom and

prompts us to reignite our curiosity when we need it most.

a merely descriptive concept. Fired with evaluative power, magic is often paired with

attempt to harness its promise yet eschew its subversive side. Kerry’s curation, like

of magic despite precarity. We thank them, and you, our audience members, for

cohort of artists committed to magic’s purposive political implications and unafraid

to order, to suggest the new and to reinvigorate forgotten practices against the

to become not passively enchanted but activated by the alchemical effects wrought by festival engages with folklore and fine art, music and political subterfuge alike. The

day, the opportunity to become tactical magicians proffered by TULCA 2019,

a clarion call that challenges our dominant realities.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

Art is magic. This is the simple claim made by TULCA Festival of Visual Arts: TACTICAL MAGIC 2019, albeit one that opens a realm of possibilities. Magic

is characteristically difficult to define, being the route towards all that is ineffable, unclassifiable, absolutely unknown. It is a notoriously slippery subject, roughly

treated as science’s opposite and as distinct from religion, though we will see that these divergences are not so clear. Answering the question ‘what is magic?’ seems as

impossible as answering ‘what is art?’, but it is precisely this resistance to classification that the festival seeks to (sometimes paradoxically) explore and preserve.

TAC T I C A L M AG I C

To narrow this initial focus, TACTICAL MAGIC relates to magic as a tactic, a device created to accomplish a particular end. In its most ordinary manifestation

magic is functional in this way, mobilised, perhaps, to heal oneself (as in Rajinder

Singh’s My Sister’s Coven), realise an inner wish (Una Quigley’s Birds of my Weakness), or communicate with those that have left us (Day Magee’s Keening Garden Door

Kerry Guinan

and Linda Pense’s Spirits). Magic thus places cause and effect on a continuum that

cannot be accounted for, empirically or linguistically, but that has real consequences, for its believers.

I offer that art operates in a similar fashion. Marxist Cultural Critic Ernst Fischer

wrote that, in its earliest origins, the function of art reached far beyond the aesthetic.

By way of example he raises the case of the primitive cave painting, which is to be most often found in the darkest corners of caves, where it could not have been

appreciated in its time. For this reason Fischer speculates that the primary function of the represented beast could not have been aesthetic beauty. Rather, the dark

environment implies a shamanistic intention, perhaps to immortalise the animal or, on the other hand, to bring it into life. In this interpretation, art’s decisive function

was/is to ‘exert power over nature, an enemy, a sexual partner, power over reality, power to strengthen the human collective’1. It is this magical function, this resolute

belief in affecting, accessing, or creating realities through art, that supports my claim that art is magic.

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1

p.35. Fischer, Ernst. 1963. The Necessity of Art: A Marxist Approach, Penguin Books ltd.

English translation by Bostock, Anna.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

The possibility of magic as a reality-constructing device is elaborated in Federico

However- caution is to be exercised in the task of positioning Magic within the

a reality-system, diametrically opposed to that of the Technic. While Magic involves

and myth have become prime commodities in the tourist and culture industries, and

Campagna’s Technic and Magic (2018), in which the Philosopher proposes Magic as a certain animistic conception of the world, acknowledging the innate occult value

in everything and anything, the Technic entails a technological view, legitimising only ‘the accumulated instrumental value of everything and anything’. The politics 2

of these two opposing reality-systems emerge in their power relations. Magic, for

example, views the human body as being imbued with internal, intuitive powers, capable of affecting reality with minimal work; while the Technic views the human body only in terms of its labour-power, the value extracted from work. Hence, as

recorded by Silvia Federici’s The Caliban and the Witch (2004), in the development

of early capitalism ‘the body had to die so that labour-power could live’3. From the

16th century magic was ostracised and demonised by religious, political, colonial, and patriarchal institutions in Europe, with the shared aim of quelling folk power and

establishing the rationalist, productivist reality-system of Campagna’s Technic, which

Technic. As elucidated in Michelle Doyle’s video-work Distance from Stone, magic

this is especially true in the West of Ireland, where this festival is located. Hence, it

is worth examining what is expressed by recent, local invitations to ‘Let the Magic in.’ To let the magic in involves a rejection of the reality-system of the Technic and

its instrumental view of culture, which would reduce art and magic to the arbitrary figures that can be extracted from them. Letting the magic in means valuing the

innate powers contained within art and the ineffable effects these powers can have on our reality. To let the magic in is to recognise the power inherent in people, and

the potential of this power to affect real changes. In a slowly secularising Ireland, in which magical and religious beliefs are to be replaced or re-appropriated by an equally mythological economic system, it is crucial, and political, that these values are preserved. This is the aim of TACTICAL MAGIC.

has dominated the modern world ever since.4

Nevertheless, magic has persevered. Nor has its perseverance been particularly

marginal or exceptional: magic has remained a normative practice in everyday life, albeit in a somewhat magical realist sense, since it is rarely acknowledged for what

it is. TACTICAL MAGIC, for example, identifies magic in aesthetic achievement

(Diana Copperwhite), in living folklore and traditions (Michael Fortune, Geels lampa a Ela), in artistic protest (SUBSET), as well as in the unexpected disciplines of

science (Martina O’Brien, Helen Mac Mahon, Christian Fogarolli), politics (Barry

Mulholland) and the economy (Anri Sala). These latter incidents are indicative of a mutual influence between Magic and the Technic and the inconspicuous presence

of one in another. In the works of Katherine Sankey and Mark Cullen, for instance, even the ideal of eternal technological progress, elemental to modern capitalism and

the Technic, is shown to contain symptoms of magical thinking. Magic is in no way limited to the natural world in this regard, and TACTICAL MAGIC instigates as

many interventions from within the technological sphere, laying the groundwork for a magical future.

2

p24. Campagna, Federico. 2018. Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality.

3

p141. Federici, Silvia. 2004. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the body, and primitive

accumulation. Autonomedia. U.S.A. 4

p143. Federici, Silvia. 2004. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the body, and primitive

accumulation. Autonomedia. U.S.A.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

A RT A N D M AG I C K I N T H E 2 1 S T C E N T U RY : REFLECTIONS OF A NEOPHYTE Pádraic E. Moore

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

We are living in an era in which the word magic means something again within the

The Golden Dawn was one of several organisations that heralded a new age of

mannerism, others utilise their work in the service of magical practices, with the

included) to found their own magical organisations. The period saw the emergence

sphere of art. While some artists adopt the visual trappings of magic as an aesthetic

aim of achieving practical results. All share a desire to identify alternative ways of negotiating reality and looking at the world. This resurgence of interest amongst contemporary artists is echoed in the fields of art history and academia. This is notably manifest in the recent wave of recuperative exhibitions that posthumously

revisit the oeuvres of artists, revealing how occult activities or esoteric organisations directly shaped their work.

1

In her notes outlining the curatorial rationale for TACTICAL MAGIC, Kerry

Guinan states that in the context of this exhibition, magic is ‘not so much about abstract spirituality, or inward journeys of the self, but is rather viewed as a tool

created for a particular use’ (K. Guinan, personal communication, September 19th,

magic and spurred many members (of which W.B. Yeats and Maud Gonne were of many occult orders founded by those who wished to bring together a constellation

of practices and proclivities as exemplified by Crowley establishing his system of

Thelema.4 The repositioning of magic is demonstrated by Crowley’s attempt to reclaim and distinguish magic from its associations with entertainment and illusionism by adopting the spelling magick. It is significant to the subject of this essay that

Crowley viewed his work as an artist (producing paintings and poetry) as inextricably intertwined with his magical practices. Moreover, Crowley believed that the power

of one’s will and mental focus was vital, and viewed magick as an agent of the psyche.

These are some of the factors that make Crowley’s contribution to the development of modern magick pivotal, and his influence continues to be felt in the 21st century.

2019). This definition evokes one (of several) given by Aleister Crowley in his

Another notable example in the context of TULCA is that of Austin Osman Spare

‘the Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with Will.’ Initially

Notably, Spare too viewed magick as being rooted in the psyche of the practitioner.

1929 book Magick in Theory and Practice. In this book Crowley defines magick as 2

Crowley was affiliated with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, one of several

orders responsible for the magical renaissance of the late 19th century. Founded in

England in 1887, the Golden Dawn reinstated the idea that magic could have real and practical applications in all matters of human life. This revived magical practices 3

which had been relegated to the fringes for centuries. As late as the 16th century, certain forms of magic were not only viewed as credible, but were also closely aligned to more mundane forms of science. This is evidenced by figures such as the legendary

(1886 –1956) whose art practice and spiritual life are, like Crowley indivisible.

Rather than summoning angels or demons, the aim was to harness the mind and its latent powers. Spare was also a pioneer in his use of sigils. In the Medieval era, a sigil

was the symbol used to denote and evoke a particular demon. Spare personalised

this system and began to devise symbols that represented his own desires and needs.

This process is illustrative of the psychologisation of magick at this time and was

particularly important to the formation of Chaos Magick later in the twentieth century.5 Formalised in the late 1970s, Chaos Magick is staunchly subjective, DIY

John Dee (1527- 1608/09) who advised Queen Elizabeth I. However with the rise

and built upon the individual’s desire to realise very specific outcomes. Crucially,

and symbolic elements of magic came to be viewed as suspect and were ultimately

by the individual, and having emerged as it did in the late 1970s, it can also be

of the ‘rational’ sciences that provided quick and quantifiable outcomes, the ritual jettisoned during the Enlightenment.

1

This is demonstrated by the cases of Georgiana Houghton (1814-1884) and Hilma af Klint

(1862-1944). These artists were influenced more by their engagement with Spiritualist and

Theosophical organisations, as opposed to magickal orders, but nevertheless, they can still

be viewed has having been significantly influenced by esotericism.

2

Aleister Crowley. Magick, Liber ABA, Book 4, First published 1930. Corrected edition included

in Magick: Book 4 Parts I-IV, York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1994.

3

The Golden Dawn was founded by William Robert Woodman, William Wynn Westcott and

Samuel Liddell Mathers all of whom were Freemasons.

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Chaos Magick is not built upon a codified system but is intended to be constructed

seen possessing postmodern tendencies that also typify the art forms of that period; pastiche, irony and bricolage. Its potency as a cultural catalyst has lead to it informing much of the thinking behind this year’s TULCA, as well as the practices of the collective ‘Center for Tactical Magic’ (CTM), which shares the festival’s name.

4

Crowley developed Thelema in the early 1900s following a spiritual epiphany that he claimed

to have had with his wife Rose Edith Kelly in Egypt in 1904.

5

Chaos Magick was formalised in the late 1970s with the publication of Ray Sherwin’s

The Book of Results in 1978 and later Peter Carroll’s Liber Null in 1987.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

A pioneering researcher investigating convergences between occultism and

When Pasi’s essay was published in 2010 this ‘esoteric turn’ in the sphere of art

magic in contemporary art for over a decade. In his 2010 essay Coming Forth By

adopt this approach was not apparent. Magickal practices would go on to be used

contemporary art is Dr. Marco Pasi who has been analysing the tendency towards Night, Pasi discusses the early phases of this tendency which has perhaps now

reached its apogee. In his exploration of the various ways contemporary artists have embraced magical vocabularies and practices; Pasi emphasises that esotericism is a

sphere comprised of various facets, many of which are motivated by distinct and often contradictory concerns. Pasi categorises four main tendencies of how engagement with the occult or esoteric may take place in contemporary art. These are instructive

and worth considering, hence my including a substantial excerpt of Pasi’s text below.

Undoubtedly, these tendencies can be found in various combinations in the work of the artists participating in this year’s TULCA festival.

“I see four main ways in which the relationship of the occult with (contemporary)

art can present itself. The first is the representation of esoteric symbols or images associated with esotericism. This takes place of course at the most explicit level of visual language, and is based on the legacy of esoteric visual lore which has a very

long visual history of its own. The second is the production of artistic objects (picture, sculpture, installation, etc.) that can be interpreted as talismans or fetishes or in manipulating matter that can be associated with occult sciences such as alchemy or

magic. In this case, the object is the final step of a magical procedure and/or is endowed

with magical powers. The third way is when the artistic work becomes a means to induce extraordinary experiences, which can be interpreted as having spiritual /

was well underway. However, even at that stage the extent to which artists would

in the service of activism and protest, resonating in particular with artists working

with queer and feminist practices and methodologies. Alongside Chaos Magick, the practices of Wicca have also been embraced by contemporary artists.7 This is

a testament to the eclecticism of these practices and the flexibility of the methods

they offer; which can be adopted and modified subjectively. Furthermore, the nonhierarchical and non-centralised structures of these paths ensures that they continue to flourish in our internet age, having been adopted by legions of artists who wish to subvert dominant forms of knowledge.

The work of South African artist Linda Stupart, epitomises how strategies appropriated directly from magickal practices are being utilised within contemporary art contexts. Stupart authors and performs spells with titles such as ‘A spell to bind

straight white cis male artists from getting rich off of appropriating queer aesthetics

and feminine abjection,’ ‘a spell to bind Richard Serra,’ and ‘a spell for binding a super trendy sexist hot young male artist’s internet access.’8 The late Chiara Fumai (1978 - 2017) used practices influenced and adapted directly from chaos magick

and combined them with elements appropriated from radical feminism, terrorist

propaganda, and Italian Autonomist Marxism. A reconstruction of one her final

works (entitled This last line cannot be translated) was presented posthumously for the first time in the Italian Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennial.9 This expansive wall

mystical / initiatory / shamanic / magical / qualities. This has of course particular

mural integrated an invocation known as the ‘Mass of Chaos’10 and demonstrated

extreme art performance, such as pain, fear or narratives of death and rebirth have

a manner that was directly influenced by Austin Osman Spare and Thee Temple ov

significance in the context of performance and body art. Some of the ingredients of

also been traditionally associated with esoteric initiation and mystical experience.

Finally, the fourth way is when the artistic work is the result of a direct inspiration / communication from spirit entities or of a visionary / mystical experience.”6

6

Marco Pasi ‘Coming Forth by Night. Contemporary Art and the Occult’, in: A. Vaillant (ed.),

Options with nostrils, Rotterdam: Piet Zwart Institute 2010, 103–111.

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how in her later work she was particularly interested in using sigils in her work in Psychick Youth.11

7

Wicca originated in the early decades of the twentieth century among several esoterically

inclined Britons who wanted to resurrect what they viewed as the faith of their ancient

forebears, and arose to public attention in the 1950s and 1960s, largely due to a small band

of high profile followers.

8

These spells by Stupart can be accessed via her website: http://lindastupart.net/Spells.php

9

The Italian pavilion at the Venice Biennale also featured works by Enrico David, and Liliana

Moro and was curated by Milovan Farronato.

10

An invocation found in Liber Null & Psychonaut (1987) by Peter J. Carroll.

11

Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth (aka TOPY) was a magick fellowship founded in 1981 by

several artists of which Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is perhaps the most renowned.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

The work of artists such as Stupart and Fumai exemplifies how contemporary artists

The constellation of artists embracing methodologies of magick is as diverse as their

borrowed from the mythos that surrounds it symbolically to give representation

transcend and resolve some of the inequalities and injustices that beset our current

are actively performing practical magic. At the same time others use archetypes to feminine power and the rejection of traditional gender roles. This approach is

demonstrated in the multi-media exhibition Tremble Tremble by Jesse Jones which constituted Ireland’s presentation at the 2017 Venice Biennale. The central facet 12

of the work is a film presented on a cinematic scale, depicting a witch or wise

woman figure (performed by Olwen Fouéré) speaking straight to the camera. Her

monologue is both a supernatural invocation and a political polemic; she urges all to ‘reject the law that all men follow.’ The title refers to a slogan chanted during Italy’s

Wages for Housework campaign of the seventies: “Tremate, tremate, le streghe sono

tornate! (Tremble, tremble, the witches have returned!”). In making this work Jones was influenced significantly by Sylvia Federici’s groundbreaking book dating from

1998 entitled Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation.

The monologue also makes reference to Irish legislation, which in those pre-repeal

days continued to criminalise women for having abortions in most circumstances.

By channelling and reinforcing the sentiments of historical and contemporary social movements, Jones’ witch underscores the idea that organised dissent has the capacity

to transform reality. The writings of Federici were also of importance to Kerry Guinan in her preparations for this chapter of TULCA and a reading group led by Jones is

work is different. However, they are for the most part unified by the impulse to

condition. Magick today is imbued not only with a sense of possibility but also insurgency. There are still those who look back to particular episodes from the past

with nostalgia and try to reconstruct crepuscular scenes from periods in which magical revolutions occurred, such as the 1890’s or 1960’s. However, most artists that I have encountered who have adopted magical disciplines are of a far more radical bent; they look ahead and construct systems that enable them to protect and survive

in these bleak and turbulent times. Whether it be circulating sigils on the internet, convening covens for ‘public hexings’ or simply repurposing one’s smartphone as a scrying mirror, the vocabulary and vitality of esotericism has been reawakened. In

this, the second decade of the 21st century, magick offers catalysts for generating community and symbols with which oppressive and outmoded structures can be

undermined. TACTICAL MAGIC is just one of many occurrences taking place in

the world of contemporary art that reminds us that both art and magick have similar

origins and can satisfy similar needs. Art -like magick- offers us tools that enable us to create alternative forms of knowledge and provides us with skills to persevere in an old world whilst conjuring up a new one.

scheduled to take place during the festival.

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This exhibition by Jones later toured to venues in Singapore, Dublin and Edinburgh.

Pádraic E. Moore is a curator, writer and art historian. Recent research has focused upon the influence that esoteric philosophies have had upon the literary and visual arts. Moore’s projects often examine how contemporary culture has embraced aesthetics and ideals informed by such esoteric traditions.

Chronicling the work of artists who refer to or follow these traditions is also an integral aspect of his practice. Moore is currently curating a series of exhibitions at Garage, Rotterdam.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

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WO R K S

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1 2 6 A RT I S T - RU N G A L L E RY

M A RT I N A O ’ B R I E N Peripheries, 2017.

Two-channel HD video projection, 9’25”.

Fifty-Two Years from Monday, 2017.

Series of 16 drawings, each 10” x 7”; thread, fabriano paper, tailor pins.

Both supported by the Arts Council of Ireland’s Project Award.

Clairvoyant visions of future Irish storms, forecasted to take place between 2040 and 2099 as a result of the climate crisis.

Image: Peripheries, video still, courtesy of the artist.

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T U L C A F E S T I VA L G A L L E RY

D I A N A C O P P E RW H I T E Orbital, oil on canvas, 100 x 150cm, 2017.

Alpha, oil on canvas, 180 x 320cm, 2016.

An Escape Velocity, oil on canvas, 170 x 220cm, 2019.

An Escape Velocity commissioned by TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019.

Image courtesy of the artist, Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin, and Thomas Jaeckel, New York.

Glimpses beyond the limits of human perception.

Image: Orbital, digital photograph of painting, courtesy of the artist Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin, and Thomas Jaeckel, New York.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

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T U L C A F E S T I VA L G A L L E RY

K AT H E R I N E S A N K E Y Transposon, 2018.

Sculpture, 140 x 70 x 100cm; wood, copper, brass, & video loop, 24” on monitor.

Desmosome, 2019.

Sculpture, 300 x 150 x 200cm; wood, copper, glass, salt water, copper ash, electric components, filler and paint.

Meddling concoctions of mineral and organism with supernatural consequences.

Images: Post, 2019 (l) and Protist, 2018 (r), digital photographs, courtesy of the artist.

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T U L C A F E S T I VA L G A L L E RY

MARK CULLEN Metal Slug Seer, 2018.

Sculptural entity, 90 x 70 x 30cm; aluminium, aluminium tape, 12v motor, plastic pipe, pvc tape, mylar sheet, expandable air duct, incense, asymmetric timer.

A vision of becoming cyborg is manifested with Metal Slug Seer, where a member of a biomorphic priestly underclass serves an undying transhumanist elite.

Image: Metal Slug Seer, digital photograph, courtesy of the artist.

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T U L C A F E S T I VA L G A L L E RY

A N R I SA L A Slip of the Line, 2018.

Single channel UHD video and stereo sound installation, 9’47”.

Courtesy of Galerie Chantal Crousel.

A magician finds his place in the heart of the production line.

Image: Slip of the Line, video still, courtesy of Galerie Chantal Crousel, France.

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DAY M AG E E Keening Garden Door, 2019.

Performance, 20”, with structure, 200 x 90cm; ply, silicon, and quartz, soil from the artist’s father’s grave mixed with fresh souls.

In the wake of the bereavement of his Father, the artist performs a male equivalent of the keener.

Image: Keening Garden Door, digital photograph, courtesy of the artist.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

HALL OF THE RED EARL

M I C H E L L E D OY L E Distance from Stone, 2018.

HD Video, 10’.

A visitor centre video from a future museum of Dublin, presenting Pebbledash as a mythical Irish material.

Image: Distance from Stone, video still, courtesy of the artist.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

Q UAY L A N E

SUBSET Climate Series, 2019.

Large format artwork.

Commissioned by TULCA Festival of Visual Arts in partnership with Galway City Arts Office.

A reminder of the beauty and magic that will be lost if humanity continues its destructive approach to the natural environment.

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Image: Crush Walls - “Climate” Series, 2019, USA, digital photograph, courtesy of the collective.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

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G A LWAY C I T Y MU S E U M A selection of magical artefacts from the collection.

Co-curated by Galway City Museum and TULCA Festival of Visual Arts.

G E E L S L A M PA A E L A (THE HOPE COLLECTIVE) Rubōg Ela, 2019

13 x 13cm wood and copper box; blessed beads, rolled candle, St Philomena cord, St Brigid’s Brit Brat, Winifred’s well water, branch of a sacred plant, found coin, wooden flower.

Commissioned by TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019.

A gift to Galway from members of the local travelling community, inviting a response.

Image: Rubōg Ela, digital photograph, courtesy of the collective.

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G A LWAY A RT S C E N T R E & T UA M L I B R A RY

M I C H A E L F O RT U N E The Plants, Flowers and Trees of Our People, 2019.

‘Video, 15’, digital prints, plant slips.

Commissioned by TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019.

Supported by Creative Ireland Galway County Council Bursary 2019.

Records of plant-based folk beliefs in East Galway, made in collaboration with Skehana & District Heritage Group.

Images: The Plants, Flowers and Trees of Our People, digital photographs, courtesy of the artist.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

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G A LWAY A RT S C E N T R E

L I N DA P E N S E Spirits, 2018.

8 woodcut prints, each 15 x 20cm.

Prosperos Insel, 2018.

Lithograph, 32 x 24cm.

The frontiers of the spiritual world captured on paper.

Image: Prosperos Insel, digital photograph, courtesy of the artist.

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G A LWAY A RT S C E N T R E

C H R I S T I A N F O G A RO L L I Allégorie de la folie, 2018.

Installation, 40 x 30cm; glass casting, stones, UV light.

An introduction to ‘the Stone of Madness’, a Middle Ages superstition in Northern Europe which held that stones in the skull were the cause of deviance, madness, and strangeness, and ought to be surgically removed.

Image: Allégorie de la folie, digital photograph, courtesy of the artist.

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TACTICAL MAGIC

G A LWAY A RT S C E N T R E

ÚNA QUIGLEY Birds of my Weakness, 2018

Digital 16mm and Super8 film, 8’40”.

Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.

A contemporary adaptation of the play that introduced Surrealism, ‘The Breasts of Tiresias’ (1903) by Guillaume Apollinaire, in which a housewife gains psychic powers to change her body.

Image: Birds of my Weakness, video still, courtesy of the artist.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

Q UA D G A L L E RY N U I G

H E L E N M AC M A H O N Scintilla, 2014.

Light installation, dimensions variable; cut glass crystals, motor, tripod, LED pinspot lights.

Spectacular fragments of refracted light, inspired by the alchemical creative spark.

Image: Scintilla, digital photograph, courtesy of the artist.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

C O LUM BA N H A L L

B A R RY MU L H O L L A N D Bogeyman, 2019.

Mixed media installation, dimensions variable; wood, mdf, laser-cut acrylic, acrylic, oil on canvas, LED lights.

Commissioned by TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019.

A re-enactment of a Satanist mass scene in an abandoned farmhouse in Antrim, staged by British Military Intelligence in 1973 in order to stir social chaos at the height of the Troubles.

Image: Bogeyman, digital photograph, courtesy of the artist.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

E N G AG E A RT S T U D I O S

RAJINDER SINGH My Sister’s Coven, 2019.

Mixed media installation, dimensions variable.

A tribute to the artist’s sister, who turned to magic as a healing device in the last years of her life.

Image: Untitled (Magical Being), 2018, digital photograph, courtesy of the artist.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

EVENTS

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

PAU L D UA N E

F RO M T H E B O G S O F AU G H I S K A

N ATA L I A B E Y L I S

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

BRANWEN — 58 —

TACTICAL MAGIC

JESSE JONES — 59 —

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

EVENTS L AU N C H O F M I C H A E L F O RT U N E ’ S T H E P L A N T S , F L OW E R S A N D TREES OF OUR PEOPLE TUAM LIBRARY - THURSDAY 31 OCTOBER - 12.00 Marking the opening of Michael Fortune’s TULCA commission in Tuam Library.

O F F I C I A L L AU N C H O F T U L C A F E S T I VA L TULCA FESTIVAL GALLERY - FRIDAY 1 NOVEMBER - 19.00 A reception marking the opening of TACTICAL MAGIC with performances by Day Magee and Mark Cullen.

C U R AT O R ’ S T O U R N AT U R E ( A L L AG E S ) MEET AT 126 ARTIST-RUN GALLERY - SUNDAY 3 NOVEMBER - 10.30 What is the difference between the natural and the supernatural? In this family-

friendly tour Curator Kerry Guinan highlights how exhibited artworks respond to the theme of magic and nature, against present threats to the environment.

A N I N T RO D U C T I O N T O W E AT H E R - R E A D I N G W I T H N I K I TA C O U LT E R ( A L L AG E S ) NUNS ISLAND - SUNDAY 3 NOVEMBER - 12.00 Environmental scientist Nikita Coulter combines scientific and folk techniques in this unique weather reading and prediction demonstration.

S A M H A I N A F T E R PA RT Y C E L E B R AT I O N W I T H G A S H COLLECTIVE ELECTRIC - FRIDAY 1 NOVEMBER - 21.00 GASH collective leads a journey from darkness into light.

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A RT / M AG I C / M A R X I S M S E M I N A R O’DONOGHUE CENTRE - THURSDAY 7 NOVEMBER - 14.00 Artists and academics propose a reconciliation between Marxist analysis and more intuitive forms of knowledge. Speaking: Andy Merrifield (UK), Sinead Mercier (IRE), Clodagh Emoe (IRE), and the Center for Tactical Magic (USA).

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

C U R AT O R ’ S T O U R L I F E & D E AT H

C U R AT O R ’ S T O U R REALITY

MEET AT ENGAGE ART STUDIOS - SATURDAY 9 NOVEMBER - 12.00

MEET AT QUAD GALLERY, NUIG - WEDNESDAY 13 NOVEMBER - 18.00

Does magic give life? In this tour Curator Kerry Guinan leads a discussion on how

Is magic real? In this tour Curator Kerry Guinan poses questions about the nature

ideas of life and death have influenced exhibited artworks, investigating magic’s role in the life cycle.

K E E N I N G GA R D E N D O O R P E R F O R M A N C E B Y DAY M AG E E TULCA FESTIVAL GALLERY - SATURDAY 9 NOVEMBER - 13.00 In the wake of the bereavement of his Father, the artist performs a male equivalent of the keener.

W H AT T I M E I S D E AT H ?

of reality in exhibited artworks, exploring how magic may be used to shape, access, or create realities.

A N E V E N I N G O F MY T H O L O G I C A L MU S I C W I T H N ATA L I A B E Y L I S & F RO M T H E B O G S O F AU G H I S K A RÓISÍN DUBH - THURSDAY 14 NOVEMBER - 20.00 Musicians respond to the myths and landscapes of their homes in the West of Ireland.

F I L M S C R E E N I N G F O L L OW E D B Y Q & A W I T H D I R E C T O R PAU L D UA N E

K E E N I N G GA R D E N D O O R P E R F O R M A N C E B Y DAY M AG E E

PÁLÁS CINEMA - SATURDAY 9 NOVEMBER - 18.00

TULCA FESTIVAL GALLERY - SUNDAY 17 NOVEMBER - 17.00

In 2017 Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, formerly The KLF, returned after 23

In the wake of the bereavement of his Father, the artist performs a male equivalent of

years of silence with a new project. They were no longer a pop group but under-

the keener.

takers, building the People’s Pyramid out of bricks made from the ashes of dead people. This documentary follows their reunion and new venture.

R E A D I N G G RO U P W I T H J E S S E J O N E S - ‘ C A L I BA N A N D T H E W I T C H ’ B Y S I LV I A F E D E R I C I

T U L C A F E S T I VA L CLOSING EVENT TULCA FESTIVAL GALLERY - SUNDAY 17 NOVEMBER - 18.00 A reception marking the conclusion of TACTICAL MAGIC, featuring a special performance by Branwen Kavanagh.

BLACK GATE CULTURAL CENTRE - TUESDAY 12 NOVEMBER - 18.00 Artist Jesse Jones facilitates a conversation around Federici’s seminal feminist text,

which inspired Jones’ installation Tremble Tremble, exhibited in the Irish Pavillion of the Venice Bienalle in 2017.

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TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

BIO GRAPHIES Anri Sala

Branwen

Anri Sala was born 1974 in Tirana, Albania. He has received the Vincent Award (2014), the 10th Benesse Prize (2013), the Absolut Art Award (2011), and the Young Artist Prize at the Venice Biennale (2001). Sala has taken part in many group exhibitions and biennials, including the 12th Havana Biennial (2015), the Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013), the 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012), dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), the 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010), the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2007), and the 4th Berlin Biennale (2006). In 2013, Anri Sala represented France in the 55th Venice Biennale with his exhibition ‘Ravel Ravel Unravel.’

Branwen is a musician and performance artist who was raised on a diet of salty sea air and sideways rain in the West of Ireland. She is a self proclaimed imaginary horse enthusiast. Well known from her previous incarnation as one half of Twin Headed Wolf (praised as “Glastonbury’s most special festival find”); this is her first solo project. As an award nominated performance artist (RDS Graduate Award 2017), sculptor, puppeteer, writer of surreal visual plays and a lively adventurer she gathers many of these strands together in her live performances. Her live show involves an array of unmusical objects employed as instruments, as well as actual instruments including loop pedals, banjo and guitar.

Berlin, Germany

Dublin, Ireland

branwen.bandcamp.com

Andy Merrifield

branwenmusic@gmail.com

Andy Merrifield is a freelance scholar and author of eleven books, translated into ten languages, including Metromarxism (2002), The Wisdom of Donkeys (2008), Magical Marxism (2011), The New Urban Question (2015), The Amateur (2017), and What We Talk About When We Talk About Cities (and Love) (2018). His many reviews and essays have appeared in The Guardian, The Nation, Harper’s, Harvard Design Magazine, New Left Review, Brooklyn Rail, Literary Hub, and Dissent, amongst others.

Cambridge, U.K.

andymerrifield.org/ andymerrifield10@gmail.com

The Center for Tactical Magic Inspired by initial studies with a private investigator, a magician, and a ninja, the Center for Tactical Magic was established in 2000 as a collaborative authoring framework dedicated to the coalescence of art, magic, and creative tactics for encouraging positive social change.

Their work has been presented by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art; Hayward Gallery, London; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Vigo, Spain; Deutsches Theater, Berlin; a major public commission for the City of Toronto; and numerous publications. www.tacticalmagic.org

Barry Mulholland is a Belfast-based visual artist and studio member at Flax Art Studios (now located at Havelock House old Ulster Television building). He focuses on painting, sculptural installation and art practice as research. Mulholand holds a MA in Visual Arts Practices from the Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT) Dublin, 2015 and a BA in Fine & Applied Art from Ulster University, 2012. Previously he was a co-director of Platform Arts and co-founder of South Studios Project, Belfast. Awards include the 2012 RDS Taylor Art Award, Dublin.

Belfast, Northern Ireland

barryiadt@gmail.com

From the Bogs of Aughiska

Clodagh Emoe’s collaborative projects include Crocosmia × (2018), The Plurality of Existence in the Infinite Amount of Space and Time (2015-17) with asylum seekers living in Ireland, Mystical Anarchism (2009-2013) with philosopher Simon Critchley (Prof. of philosophy, New School for Social Research) and The Unveiling (2010) with older members of the community. Projects have been funded by the Arts Council of Ireland, European Cultural Fund, AHRB, UK, Culture Ireland, Dublin City Council and South Dublin County Council. Emoe has been commissioned by Serpentine Gallery, London, Taipei Biennial, Museum of Contemporary Art Seoul, Nýló, Reykjavik, IMMA, documenta XIII, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Project Arts Centre and the Model Niland.

Dark ambient black metal alchemists FROM THE BOGS OF AUGHISKA hail from the harsh coastline of the West of Ireland, drawing their inspiration from its bleak environment and rich history and culture. They have released three albums, including a 2011 split with Ukraine’s Dark Ages, the theme of which is the Famine in both countries, 2013’s ‘Roots Of This Earth Within My Blood’ (Bizarre Magazine Album of the Year), featuring guest appearances from Irish storyteller Eddie Lenihan, and ‘Mineral Bearing Veins,’ 2018. FTBOA are known for their fierce live performance and have shared stages with the likes of Anaal Nathrakh, Arcturus, Dragged Into Sunlight, Solstafir, Wardruna playing various international festivals including Amplifiest, Eistnaflug, Inferno and Incineration.

www.clodaghemoe.com

www.facebook.com/fromthebogsofaughiska

Day Magee

fromthebogsofaughiska.bandcamp.com

Dublin, Ireland

Christian Fogarolli Christian Fogarolli is an Italian artist born in 1983. His research is characterised by the relation of art to theories and scientific disciplines and by their unconscious entwinement, beneficial for both. Fogarolli has shown his research in dOCUMENTA(13) (2012), Museum of the Modern and Contemporary Art of Rovereto, MART (2013), La Maison Rouge of Paris (2014), Foundation Museum Miniscalchi Erizzo (2015), de Appel arts centre of Amsterdam (2015), 5th Moscow International Biennale (2016), Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles (2018), Hrdlicka Museum of Man, Praga (2018), and Musée de Grenoble (2019). In 2019 he received the prestigious Italian Council Award conferred by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities.

midnight@apocalypticwitchcraft.co.uk

Day Magee is a live and visual artist based between Limerick and Dublin. Since 2011, he has performed as part of Dublin-based live art organisations such as Livestock (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019) and the Dublin Live Art Festival (2015, 2017). Recent exhibitions include ‘The Queeratorial’ curated by Aoife Banks at Pallas Projects / Studios (2019) and ‘OUTlines’ at One Art Space, New York (2019). Magee is a co-founder of the Limerick-based live art collective Evil, staging performance-based events. He is in his third year pursuing a BA in Sculpture & Combined Media at Limerick School of Art and Design.

Limerick / Dublin, Ireland

Instagram.com/day.magee artistdaymagee@gmail.com

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Diana Copperwhite

Geels lampa a Ela (The Hope Collective) Geels lampa a Ela are a group of Travellers with a connection to Galway City and County who came together to produce a Rubóg Ela (Hope Box) for Galway. The box serves as a vessel for blessing and a sharing of connections, understanding, cultural framing, pisoga, magic and lore, but also as a welcome to the wider community and the institutions to respond with an authentic reply, to offer up direct bridges of inclusion and a furthering of the dialogue we seek to extend. Magic is sometimes considered only ethereal, distant and based on ancient threads and understanding. However Magic is also the manifestation of a personal and collective will upon reality – we seek to be included, understood, seen… dare to be enchanted with us.

Ireland

Diana Copperwhite’s work stems from an idiosyncratic practice that embraces the temporal nature of painting practice. Her work is in public collections, including The Irish Museum of Modern Art; The National Gallery of Ireland, Arts Council of Ireland; The Rothko Center, Latvia; The Limerick City Gallery of Art; Office of Public Works; Contemporary Irish Art Society; Mariehamn Stadsbibliotek, Aland, Finland; International Red Cross Netherlands — and private collections in the US, Australia and Europe. She has exhibited widely, including in London, Dublin, Tokyo, Sydney, Amsterdam, Barcelona, New York. France and Amsterdam. She was a finalist in the Guasch Coranty Fundacio Painting Prize, Centre Cultural Metropolita Tecia Sala, Barcelona (2008) and was the winner of the AIB Art Prize (2007).

Helen Mac Mahon Helen Mac Mahon is an artist living and working in Dublin. Her work, which is principally a study of light and its behaviour, takes the form of installations, sculpture, drawings and photography, and is influenced by architecture, physics, the history of science and developments in material technology. Mac Mahon graduated from DIT Fine Art, Portland Row in 2013. Since graduating she has had a number of solo shows in Ireland and has exhibited in group exhibitions in Ireland, Europe, Asia, New Zealand and the USA.

Dublin, Ireland / New York, USA

Trento, Italy / Prague, Czech Republic

info@kevinkavanagh.ie

www.fogarolli.eu

www.dianacopperwhite.net

c.foga7@gmail.com

Clare, Ireland

www.instagram.com/ftboa

San Francisco, USA

Barry Mulholland

barrymulhollandvisualartist.com

Clodagh Emoe

www.532gallery.com

www.kevinkavanagh.ie

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Dublin, Ireland

www.helenmacmahon.com

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

Jesse Jones

Mark Cullen

Natalia Beylis

Úna Quigley

Jesse Jones is a Dublin-based artist. Her practice crosses the media of film, performance and installation. Often working through collaborative structures, she explores how historical instances of communal culture may hold resonance in our current social and political experiences. Her recent work proposes a re-imagining of the relationship between the Law and the body through speculative feminism. Using a form of expanded cinema she explores magical counter-narratives to the State drawn from suppressed archetypes and myth. She represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale 2017 with the project “Tremble Tremble” whose title is inspired by the 1970s Italian wages for housework movement, during which women chanted “Tremate, tremate, le streghe sono tornate! (Tremble, tremble, the witches have returned!)”.

Mark Cullen was born and works in Dublin with various media. He was artist in residence in the School of Physics, University College Dublin in 2013 – 2014 and exhibited Mandala: As within so without, in the O’Brien Science Centre, UCD in November 2014 – June 2015 and Daily Practice – Selected Works 2007 – 2016, solo exhibition in The Molesworth Gallery, 2016. Recent group shows include: Dearly Beloved..., Visual Carlow, 2019, and Difference Engine – Altern_ators, HDLU, Zagreb, Croatia, 2018. In 1996 Cullen was the co-founding partner of Pallas Projects/Studios, Dublin and continues to direct and curate for this organisation.

Natalia Beylis’s work revolves somewhere between sonic story-teller, composer and multi-instrumental musician. In her recordings and performances she layers seemingly incongruous sounds atop of each other to spawn strange juxtapositions and garbled parallels. The Garden Of Paradise, her most recent release on cassette with fellow improviser Agathe Max, is described in a review by The Quietus as “an exceptional tape of instrumental incantations and explorations”.

Her releases with her band Woven Skull have garnered similar praise and, in addition to a busy touring schedule with them and as a solo performer, she also runs a record label Sofia Records and is a regular contributor to Dublin Digital Radio.

Born in Dublin, Úna Quigley graduated from Crawford College of Art Cork and Winchester School of Art, Spain and U.K. in 2001 with an MA in European Fine Art. She has since exhibited widely and internationally such as at the Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin, Kassel Film Festival, Lewis Glucksman Gallery Ireland, Crawford Gallery Ireland and Centrum, Berlin. Recently her exhibitions have included screenings at the Istanbul Experimental film festival, Traverse Rencontres Toulouse, VAFT, Turku Finland, and the Royal Scottish Academy. She is currently supported by an Artists Bursary from Galway County Council.

Leitrim, Ireland

birdsofmyweakness.blogspot.com

nataliabeylis.com

uquigley@yahoo.com

Dublin, Ireland

mark@pallasprojects.org

Katherine Sankey

Michael Fortune

Nikita Coulter

Sinéad Mercier

Combining a background in environmental science with several years experience of performing at Irish festivals, including Vantastival, Arcadian Field, Earth Fest and Body and Soul, Nikita Coulter loves bringing environmental science to life on the stage.

Coulter gives talks and runs workshops on topics such as the AllIreland Pollinator Plan; Biodiversity; Litter and Waste and Climate Change. Along with performing at festivals, Nikita is a Heritage Expert who visits schools and uses fun and interactive methods to teach children about the Earth’s history, its plants and animals, the atmosphere, and how ancient cultures understood and cared for the Earth, and how we can too, now and into the future.

Sinéad Mercier (LL.B Trinity College Dublin, PgDip Gender Globalisation and Human Rights NUI Galway; LL.M London School of Economics) is a consultant and researcher on just transition, climate change law and policy. She has previously worked with the National Economic and Social Council, the Irish Green Party, Philip Lee law firm, Irish Congress of Trade Unions and Amnesty International. She has also been involved in climate activism with the Dublin Ecofeminists, SIPTU, Not Here Not Anywhere and Young Friends of the Earth.

Katherine Sankey (b. Paris, France 1967) grew up between Sydney, Belfast and Paris; lives in Dublin. Sankey has had solo exhibitions at BWA Galleries (Krakow, Lublin & Wroclaw, Poland), Galeria Pryzmat (Krakow, Poland), Richard Demarco Gallery (Edinburgh), The Shed (Dublin) and W.I.N.D.O.W. Gallery (Sydney). She has also taken part in group shows: Crossings COLLECTIF 12 (Paris & Meningrida, NT, Australia), BWA Galleries (Wroclaw & Czestochowa, Poland), Grotowski Centre (Wroclaw), Galerie Artsenal (Paris), Knights Park Gallery (London), La Collége Irlandaise (Paris) and EMR Galleries (Sydney). Upcoming shows include PLATFORM 20 Draíocht (Dublin).

Dublin, Ireland

www.pallasprojects.org www.markcullen.org

Michael Fortune’s pioneering practice of twenty years intersects traditional and contemporary cultures, especially in the area of folklore, belief, story and song. Working predominantly in film and photography, much of his practice revolves around the collection of material – material which he generates out of the relationships he develops with people. His works comfortably occupies a variety of contexts, from a village hall in Wexford to an international film festival or academic conference. In recent years much of his work is presented on social media, while he also contributes for features for various newspapers and journals, as well as presenting on RTÉ/ BBC radio and television.

Dublin, Ireland

Instagram: katherinesankey_artist

Galway, Ireland

Dublin, Ireland

clagarnach.wordpress.com merrimercier@gmail.com

Louth / Clare, Ireland

Wexford, Ireland

www.heritageinschools.ie/heritage-expert/profile/nikita-coulter

www.michaelfortune.ie

oultenm@tcd.ie

SUBSET

micfortune@gmail.com

kmsankey@gmail.com

Michelle Doyle

Martina O’Brien Martina O’Brien is a current member of Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin and holds an MA in Visual Arts Practice from IADT. Her interdisciplinary practice stems from an underlying interest in perceptions of time, the earth sciences, futurology and divination. Selected recent exhibitions and residences include Resonances III | Datami, commission by The European Commission, EU Joint Research Centre, Italy, 2019; Artist in Residence, Monitoring Changes in Submarine Canyon Coral Habitats in association with Parity Studios & The Irish Centre for Research in Applied Geoscience, UCD, Ireland, 2019 & At Some Distance in the Direction Indicated, Butler Gallery, 2018.

Michelle Doyle’s work is informed by her background in activism, punk music and technology. She works with a diverse range of media such as sound, video, building materials and media systems that often employ DIY electronics such as pirate radio. Doyle makes live music performances and sound installations under the name Rising Damp. Her 2019 projects have included an 8 hour sleep concert on Dublin Digital Radio, a USB Data Dump zine with the Repeater Collective, junk installations at Open Ear and a site responsive performance in The Lab in Dublin. Doyle’s studio is based in Dublin social centre, Jigsaw.

Dublin, Ireland

Paul Duane Paul Duane has been making films for twenty years. In January 2014 he was included in Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch list. His most recent film ‘Best Before Death’ (2019), about the artist Bill Drummond, was called “engaging... hilarious” by The Guardian on its 2019 theatrical release. His other 2019 film, ‘What Time Is Death?’ follows the return of the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu/ The KLF after their self-imposed 23 year silence. ‘While You Live, Shine’ premiered to acclaim in 2018 & won the Spirit of Indie Cork award at the Indie Cork festival.

SUBSET (est. 2016) are a collective of artists, designers, filmmakers and curators. Their aim is to provoke thought and support dialogue regarding important social issues by transforming public space into an open-air gallery. Recent notable projects include ‘Micro Vs Macro,’ an exhibition in the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2019) and ‘Grey Area Project’, Dublin (2016-present), which was awarded the Business To Arts Community Award 2019.

Dublin, Ireland

paul@screenworks.ie

Dublin, Ireland

michelldoyle.xyz

www.martinaobrien.com martinalobrien@gmail.com

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Dublin, Ireland

info@subset.ie store.subset.ie

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2019

TACTICAL MAGIC

TULCA 2019 TEAM

TULCA Technical Team:

THANK YOU

Board of Directors

Darran McGlynn

All TACTICAL MAGIC volunteers

Mary MacPartlan & Joanne Couch (Arts in Action)

All TACTICAL MAGIC event facilitators and contributors

Simon Fennessey Corcoran (126 Artist-Run Gallery)

Noel Arrigan

Lucy Elvis, Lecturer, Discipline of Philosophy, NUI Galway

Marcel Badia

County Libraries

Timothy Acheson

Margaret Flannery, Arts Director for Saolta Arts

Cormac Staunton

Josephine Vahey, Executive Librarian for Schools at Galway

Michael Mee

Ann Lyons, Community Knowledge Initiative, NUI Galway

Gabriel Henry

Andrea Fitzpatrick, Manager of CÚRAM Art and Science

Pete Nelson - Carpenter

Paula Healy, Flirt FM, NUI Galway

TULCA Education Team:

Programme

All TACTICAL MAGIC artists Grainne Tynan

Claire Doyle (Arts Council of Ireland)

James Harrold (Galway City Council Arts Office)

Sharon O’Grady (Galway County Council Arts Office) Angus Laverty, Maurice Blake, Pat Dillane (An Post) Paul Fahy & John Crumlish (Galway International

Dee Deegan - Education Coordinator

Arts Festival)

Hilary Morley - Education Assistant

Hildegarde Naughton

Aoife Natsumi Frehan - Education Assistant

Jack Fitzgerald

Rab Fulton - Workshop Facilitator

Damien Donnellan (Galway City Museum)

David Finn

Lelia Ni Chathmhaoil - Irish Language Workshop Facilitator

Enda McDonagh (BurgerStory)

Volunteer Coordinator

Jennifer Cunningham - County Project Artist Facilitator

Caroline Phelan, Liam Blake, Jim Higgins

Pam Dolan, Artist and Art Educator Rita McMahon, Artist

Gugai MacNamara, Booker & Co-Owner of Róisín Dubh, Director of Strange Brew

TULCA TEAM: Producer

Grace Mitchell

Education Coordinator Dee Deegan

Publicist

Heather Mackey

Festival Documentation Jonathan Sammon

Education Documentation Soft Day Media

Judith Bernhardt - Education Assistant

Adam Fitzsimons (Galway International Arts Festival)

Eilis Ní Dhúill - Irish Language Education Assistant

Martina O’Flaherty (Matt O’Flaherty Chemists)

Ruby Wallis - Workshop Facilitator

David Kennedy

Aine Doherty - Workshop Facilitator

Maeve Mulrennan (Galway Arts Centre)

Noel Arrigan - County Project Artist Facilitator

Mairead Cogivan

CURO - Art and Philosophy workshops

(Galway City Council)

Gallery Intern Team

Michael Quinn (Galway Civic Trust)

Patria McWalter (Galway County Archivist)

Keonhee Kim

Gugai (Róisín Dubh)

Hugh Murphy

Eimearjean McCormack

Cara Cleary

Susan Roche

Kate McSharry

Grainne Tynan

Jennette Rodriguez

Joanna McGlynn

CATALOGUE

Edited:

Kerry Guinan

Design: Pure Designs Print:

GPS Print

Fionnuala Gallagher (NUIG Gallery)

Emma Brinton (O’Donoghue Centre, NUIG) Eilís Ní Dhúill (NUIG)

JP McMahon & Drigín Gaffey (Tartare) Kevin Kavanagh Gallery

Eoin McGrath (Electric)

Austin Ivers & Gavin Murphy (CCAM, GMIT) Maeve Mulrennan (Galway Arts Centre)

Michael Hill (Temple Bar Gallery & Studios)

Ruairi O hAodh, Geraldine Mannion, Siobhan Arkins, Joan Earley, Aoife O Kelly (Galway Public Libraries) Rodelyn Aponte (CityLink) Eimhin Killilea (Citybin)

Ann Barrett (Kinlay Hostel) Caroline Spollen

Katie Walsh & Rudd (Pálás Cinema)

Grace Mitchell (Engage Art Studios) Padraig Cunningham Pádraic E. Moore Vicky Smith

All applicants to the TACTICAL MAGIC open call.

All who contributed to the artistic, organisational, and technical development of the festival.

An Post

Pálás Cinema

O’Donoghue Centre for Drama and Performance, NUIG Arts Office, NUIG CCAM, GMIT Róisín Dubh

Galway Public Library Galway City Museum

Tuam Library & County Council Buildings Engage Art Studios A4 Sounds

126 Artist-Run Gallery Burgerstory

Hall of the Red Earl Galway Arts Centre

Contact

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts

Earlswell Court, Cross Street Lower, Galway H91 N6WK, Ireland www.tulca.ie

info@tulca.ie

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FUNDERS

S u p p o r t i n g Pa r t n e r s

E d u c a t i o n Pa r t n e r s

Ac c o m m o d a t i o n & T r av e l Pa r t n e r s

Cover Image: Etienne Léopold Trouvelot, Total Eclipse of the Sun, Chromolithograph, 40.6 × 50.8 cm, 1881–1882

TAC T I C A L M AG I C

www.tulca.ie