Forum #10 - Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh with Marion Coutts

20 Nov 2019

Artist and PhD researcher Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh (Goldsmiths) will present some excerpts of a new text plus selected images, that address issues of post-conflict/ intergenerational trauma in Ireland and carceral conditioning, together with a selected text by Ursula Le Guin - The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. Artist, writer and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art Marion Coutts (Goldsmiths) joins us in discussion.

Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh was born in Derry is an interdisciplinary visual artist, with an interest in the intersections between material and immaterial processes. He is a PhD researcher in the art department at Goldsmiths and obtained an MFA at Goldsmiths College, London, 2010-2012. His research explores complexities inherent within post conflict and intergenerational trauma in Ireland and how it manifests. As part of the research Ciarán has made a series of tools that are used throughout the project. He has an ongoing research relationship with a family of donkeys and a group of land snails, exploring interspecies relationships, labour and kinship. Ó Dochartaigh has taken part in theorem 2019 at Anglia Ruskin, Goldsmiths annual conference 2019; CIAP residency Ile de Vassivière, France, 2016. Recent selected shows include; Outpost Norwich 2019; Dobles De Proximada, Santiago Museum of Contemporary Art, 2018; Tulca international festival 2017; Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, Treignac Projet, France, 2016. Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF), Norway, August 2015, Vanishing Futures: Collective Histories of Northern Irish Art, Golden thread gallery. – ciaranodochartaigh.org

Marion Coutts is an artist and writer. She works with a range of material forms: sculpture, digital video, drawing and photography. Her practice is concerned with the physicality of the image; artwork and personal encounter; slippage and loss. Her first book, The Iceberg won the Wellcome Book Prize, 2015. She is currently a Senior Lecturer on BA Fine Art and History of Art at Goldsmiths. She has held solo exhibitions at Tintype, London; Yorkshire Sculpture Park; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Angel Row, Nottingham; Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool; The Wellcome Collection, London; Project Gallery, Dublin and Foksal Gallery, Warsaw. Other venues that have hosted her work include Helsinki Kunsthalle: RIBA, London; Whitstable Biennial; Gasworks, London and Arnolfini, Bristol. In 2011 her practice shifted to include writing. The Iceberg is an account of a family unit under assault: an investigation into time, language, belonging and the nature of embodiment. The Iceberg was published in the UK in 2014, the US in 2016 and mainland China in 2017. – marioncoutts.com