Kira O’Reilly Untitled (Bodies)
I am delighted to have been invited to return to Gothenburg to speak at the International Science Festival. It'll be a bit about my work and abit about our new pilot masters programme in Ecology and Contemporary Performance at the Theatre Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, and hopefully alot about the activities and ideas that we are excited and inspired by in the programme.
I am really delighted to be part of this exhibition and project with Melissa Grant, Oliver De Peyer, Paul Shepherd, Anna Dumitriu, Alex May. The others have done the lions share but have been incredibly generous in allowing my enthusiasm for their work to form a contribution which will be in the form of an autopsy of the crumpled HAB (HIgh Altitude Bioprospecting ) device which was a research project initiated by biochemist Dr Melissa Grant from the School of Dentistry at the University of Birmingham, lab robotics researcher Oliver de Preyer and mathematician Paul Shepherd, they have searched for microorganisms adapted to life in space in order to consider their novel uses in biotechnology. Artists Anna Dumitriu and Alex May have been collaborating to produce a series of artworks that re-live the excitement of the original rocket launch in the Nevada Desert, the horror of a failed parachute and the despair of a crushed robot.
The exhibition also incorporates video-mapped archive films and sculpturally altered relics of the original launch, such as weather balloons, environmental samples from the black rock desert and extremophile bacteria.
Preview at BOM onThursday 31 March 18:00 – 20:00pm
Revisiting Genesis is an artist web series written and directed by Oreet Ashery. It features a nurse who creates biographical slideshows for those actively preparing for death, and Genesis, an artist who is dying symbolically and otherwise. Revisiting Genesis responds to a diverse range of influences including feminist art practices and reincarnations, outsider politics, the loss of meaningful social structures under neoliberalism, the need for collective forms of self-organisation in caring for others, and the development of post death digital art legacies. Revisiting Genesis investigates the philosophical, political, practical and emotional implications of the processes surrounding death.
And I was fortunate enough to be one of the cast as Friend 4. Probably my most pivotal art making experiences come from either being in other peoples art works or from some kind of collaborative relationship and this was no different. I haven't seen the series yet, but the process of acting in it and being part of the community that Oreet created was catalytic to an entire cascade of creative thoughts in regard to my own practice that I've now musing on very happily. Plus I am now devotee of consciencious colour blocking.
The opening event will be Stanley Picker Gallery, Wednesday 13 April, 6pm-8.30pm
Commissioned by the Stanley Picker Fellowships at Kingston University and supported by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award, public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Tyneside Cinema, Goldsmiths University of London, and waterside contemporary.
Today the University of the Arts Helsinki made the announcment that I am to lead the new pilot MA in Ecology and Contermporary Performance (MEACP). I am delighted to accept the position and to contribute towards realising the vision of the programme along with colleagues, collaborators and most importantly the programmes students.
'MAECP attempts to respond to the questions and needs raised by the current ecological situation that implicates all species, as well as the current shifts taking place in the field of performing arts, from the perspective of relations and dependencies. MAECP investigates and develops the methodologies, practices and theoretical bases of contemporary performance while developing new forms of collaboration, interaction and knowledge production in between the art, the research and the sciences and within a posthumanist framework. It encourages the students to review and reformulate existing practices, to experiment with and invent new forms of performance making and to maintain openness not only towards various forms of art but also towards different fields and discourses.'
Further information about the programme can be found here.
I will have a small work, ‘I came to the sea and I was scared. My heart is broken.' included in Love Letters to a (Post-)Europe, a curated event of short works performed in the context of a rapidly changing Europe and in a city whose country is currently bearing the brunt of austerity.
Το Love Letters to a (Post-)Europe είναι ένα ζωντανό γεγονός που θα πραγματοποιηθεί με τη συμμετοχή πολλών καλλιτεχνών και εκτυλίσσεται, στο πλαίσιο των δραματικών αλλαγών που συμβαίνουν στην Ευρώπη, στην πρωτεύουσα της χώρας που αυτή τη στιγμή βιώνει τη σφοδρότητα τη λιτότητας.
Participating artists:
Kate Adams (UK)
Demosthenes Agrafiotis (GR)
Brian Catling (UK)
cris cheek (UK)
Robin Deacon (UK/USA)
Vassiliki Dimou (GR)
Tim Etchells (UK)
Alec Finlay (UK)
Matthew Goulish (USA)
Guy Harries (UK)
Steven C Harvey (UK)
Catherine Hoffmann (UK)
Wendy Houstoun (UK)
Mikhail Karikis (GR/UK)
Brian Lobel (USA/UK)
Claire MacDonald (UK)
Georgios Makkas (GR)
Ivana Müller (HR/FR)
Mariela Nestora (GR)
Kira O’Reilly (IE/UK)
Florence Peake (UK)
Erica Scourti (UK/GR)
Maria Sideri (UK/GR)
Anna Sherbany (UK)
Jungmin Song (KR)
Yoko Tawada (JP/DE)
Nikki Tomlinson (UK)
Artists were invited to respond to the provocation below with a work no longer than 15 minutes in length - in any format - to be presented live.
Artists’ participation is an expression of solidarity with Greece. Everyone involved is covering his/her own expenses and Athens-based artists are hosting visiting artists.
Provocation:
In the Greek language there are more than four words for Love. Five years ago Europe entered a deep crisis indicating something that ran a lot deeper still, ‘a crisis of social imagination’ in which economic dogma had ‘taken hold of public discourse’ according to Berardi. This also marked the start of Europe’s uprising by its people: the encampments in Madrid, Athens, Rome, London and beyond. The body’s presence in public squares confirmed something infinite and unquantifiable to a global system. Now we seem to have come full circle and economic dogma is being used to inflict regime change. There has been a lot of debate on what has been enacted in the name of Europe over the last few months.
This event asks artists to respond with the action, idea or form of a love letter. Of now. It may also be ending it. An action approaching another, a double listening.
Levelled at this crisis of social imagination, economic dogmatism and neoliberal tyranny is imagination, empathy, sensuality, presence, being together, singular witnessing, living manifestos, stories, acts of friendship, fellowship, solidarity, refusals of order, nonsense, gifting, calls from and to the wilderness, rants, tough love, seductions, messages in brokenness, adoration, utopias and post-utopias, songs from the margins, addressing the now.
Concept and curation: Lisa Alexander
Production: Lisa Alexander & BIOS
Η συμμετοχή στο πρότζεκτ εκφράζει την αλληλεγγύη των καλλιτεχνών προς την Ελλάδα.
Όλοι όσοι είναι μέρος αυτού, συμμετέχουν αφιλοκερδώς, θα έρθουν στην Ελλάδα με δικά τους έξοδα και θα φιλοξενηθούν από τους καλλιτέχνες που έχουν τη βάση τους στην Αθήνα.
Οι καλλιτέχνες κλήθηκαν να ανταποκριθούν στην παρακάτω πρόκληση με ένα έργο – σε οποιοδήποτε φορμάτ και με διάρκεια όχι μεγαλύτερη από 15 λεπτά.
Πρόκληση:
Στην Ελληνική γλώσσα υπάρχουν παραπάνω από τέσσερις λέξεις που περιγράφουν τις διαφορετικές μορφές της αγάπης. Σύμφωνα με τον Ιταλό θεωρητικό Franco “Bifo” Berardi, πριν πέντε χρόνια η Ευρώπη μπήκε σε μία βαθιά κρίση που υποδηλώνει ότι συμβαίνει κάτι ακόμη βαθύτερο, μία κρίση κοινωνικής φαντασίας, όπου το οικονομικό δόγμα έχει καταλάβει τον δημόσιο διάλογο. Αυτό το φαινόμενο σηματοδότησε και την εξέγερση των λαών της Ευρώπης: οι καταλήψεις σε πλατείες της Μαδρίτης, της Αθήνας, της Ρώμης κλπ. Η φυσική παρουσία σε δημόσιους χώρους επιβεβαιώνει κάτι απεριόριστο και μη μετρήσιμο στο παγκόσμιο σύστημα.
Αυτή τη στιγμή τα πράγματα έχουν κάνει τον κύκλο τους και διαφαίνεται ότι το οικονομικό δόγμα χρησιμοποιείται για να επιβάλλει καθεστωτική αλλαγή. Τους τελευταίους μήνες, ο δημόσιος διάλογος σχετικά με το τι έχει θεσπιστεί στο όνομα της Ευρώπης έχει φουντώσει.
Το ζωντανό αυτό γεγονός ζητά από τους καλλιτέχνες να ανταποκριθούν με την πράξη, την ιδέα ή τη μορφή μιας ερωτικής επιστολής. Του τώρα. Μπορεί η δράση αυτή να τερματίζει τον διάλογο εντελώς. Μπορεί να είναι μία πράξη που προσεγγίζει μία άλλη, μία διπλή ανάγνωση.
Στο αντίβαρο της κρίσης της κοινωνικής φαντασίας, του οικονομικού δογματισμού και της νεοφιλελεύθερης τυραννίας είναι η φαντασία, η ενσυναίσθηση, ο αισθησιασμός, η παρουσία, το να είμαστε μαζί, η εμπειρία του να βλέπεις κάτι με τα ίδια σου τα μάτια, τα ζωντανά μανιφέστο, οι ιστορίες, οι φιλικές κινήσεις, η συνεργασία, η αλληλεγγύη, η ανυπακοή, οι σαχλαμάρες, το να κάνεις δώρα, τηλεφωνήματα από και προς το πουθενά, το παραλήρημα, η σκληρή αγάπη, οι αποπλανήσεις, μηνύματα στο κενό, λατρεία, ουτοπίες, μετα -ουτοπίες, τραγούδια από το περιθώριο, ο ορισμός του τώρα.
Ιδέα και επιμέλεια: Lisa Alexander
Συμπαραγωγή: Lisa Alexander & BIOS
Noxious Sector presnted work by jennifer Willet and I from our Untitled (Lab Shoot series) in their window gallery. They now include our work among others in their new publication A Formalized Forum for Informal Inquiry.
I have the pleasure of presenting in dialogue with Vincent Lam at the Association for Medical Humanities Conference 2015 at Dartington Hall.
Following the successful group show Just 40 at Cultivamos Cultura, in July I will return as a visiting artist for the annual summer school at Cultivamos Cultura holds.
'The intersection of Art, Biology and the Environment offer unique opportunities to visual artists. This innovative summer course will allow non-specialists to acquire theoretical and practical skills in biological and environmental sciences in connection to the visual arts.' The faculty are Marta De Menezes, Marie-Pier Boucher and Luis Graca. Visiting arists are Adam Zaretsky, Andrew Carnie and myself.
Email: info@cultivamoscultura.org for details.
I am currently preparing art works for “Just 40” in late May early June at Cultivamos Cultura in the Alentejo region of south west Portugal. This group exhibition, curated by Marta de Menezes. The exhibition is primarily focused on new media in art, with a focus on experimentation and research.
The London launch of Performance Art in Ireland: A History edited by Áine Phillips will be on 17th March at 7pm at Live Art Development Agency. See here for more details. The new, vital and immensely valuable publication includes some images and discussion of my work and I have been invited to contribute to a discussion at the launch.
Details of this launch and others can be found here.
The book can be purchased here
Prologue is a 2 week artists' lab, hosted by PanicLab in association with Artsadmin. 3 pairings of performance artists have been invited to explore and develop new ideas: Joseph Mercier/Jordan Lennie & Mark Ravenhill, Jamila Johnson Small & Peggy Shaw and Kira O'Reilly & Flora Wellesley Wesley.
Prologue hopes to foster a unique intergenerational and interdisciplinary exchange, giving way to the potential for new artistic projects and collaborations.
It will take place March 2015 at Toynbee Studios. Updates will be posted on Artsadmin's blog for updates from the artists.
Funded by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, and supported by Artsadmin.
