Martina O'Brien
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Rising from the Hill: Local Systems in Global Contexts
Autumn Residency programme at Cow House Studios
2017


Participating Artists: Angela Jerardi, Charlotte Lagro, Martina O’Brien and Rowan Lear

Residency Curators: Kelley O’Brien & Dr Francis Halsall


With the generous support of Wexford County Council & The National College of Art & Design, Cow House Studios presented Rising from the Hill: Local Systems in Global Contexts, a 6-week residency that explored and developed methods of giving aesthetic forms to real-life situations. In particular, participants responded to the local environment of Cow House Studios, in the rural Irish countryside of Wexford. Participants were encouraged to use ideas, strategies, and metaphors of “systems” to consider the complex relationships between this local context and larger global systems such as economics, telecommunications, meteorology and so on.

This residency was conceived in the spirit of meaningful exchange between practice and theory and as an outcome of ongoing collaborative projects between Francis Halsall and Kelley O’Brien investigating social relations through the lens of systems. 
Through structured conversations, readings, and site explorations residents articulated different methods of aesthetically “mapping” the historical and contemporary context of Irish relations with global and social systems of power. Residency participants developed projects presented as both visual records of research and development through a collaborative exhibition at the gallery at National College of Art & Design, Dublin and a published catalogue documenting the processes of the participants, visiting artists, academics and organisers.

The 6-week studio residency was accompanied by a series of discussions and dinners led by Francis and Kelley as well as many visiting artists, curators, and academics.
  • Martina O'Brien
  • Projects
  • Texts, Reviews, Publications
  • CV
  • these hollow-earth fantasies
  • Legacy Plots
  • of ephemeral measure