Secondment

13 Jan 2023 (8 days)
24 March 2023 (11 days)
11 Jan 2024 (8 days)
17 March 2025 (6 days)

Focused on work package 3 ‘Urban Subjects’, I have used the two research questions to guide me in my interactions:

• How do the pedagogic strategies employed by spatial practices effect and contribute to the transformation and construction of subjectivity? 
• What forms of knowledge are produced, and what types of subjects are supported? 

I have broken the secondment into 4 visits, recognising my own subjectivities elicited in context, and shifting familiarity with the context through each trip and investment in relationships, while exploring the above questions.

The methods I have used are:

• Walking / drifting
• Meetings with a range of people from arts, education, and community projects
• Informal conversation
• Notetaking
• Writing
• Drawing
• Photographing
• Reading 
• Visiting Museums and cultural centres
• Attending events
• Working on adjudication panel for arts funding

My intention by the Nov 2025 conference is to produce a small booklet combining image and text. A limited number of these would be produced, and subsequently gifted to sites I inhabited during my trips and to key people I met. 

In terms of the conference, I would propose giving a ‘performed’ presentation that would bring this booklet alive – a combination of reading passages with projected visuals. 

24-31 January 2023
12-18 January 2024
19-24 March 2024
10-17 June 2024
22-29 October 2024

Host: Prof. Mgr. art. Dušan Zahoranský – Intermedia II – AVU

From the very first days in the city, I have been introduced by Dušan Zahoransky to Prague’s urban tissue, cultural landscape and art scene; we dedicated several meetings to sharing ideas and objectives in relation to the outcome of my secondment, to the WP2 and 4 and to the program of Intermedia II. I regularly visited major art institutions, galleries, project and independent spaces, experimental hubs, artists studios and the graduation shows at AVU, Famu and Umprum. Although initially my focus was on mapping and understanding how the cultural offer –  specifically how projects, performances, talks, round tables, panels, institutional shows and diploma exhibitions – was communicated ,  I further extended my research to the ways in which artists and art students were communicating their process, research and final work. The outcome has been a day in which I held a workshop in the form of a conversation, an active dialogue, with the students focused on two main topics of discussion and exchange: the artist studio as an archive and how to communicate it and the empathetic forms of communication of the artistic process.

In addition, previously, I had the chance to review various portfolios in October 2024 and to support as a guest critic reviewing the work of many graduates on the occasion of the diploma show at AVU in June 2024.

1^st part: 15 October – 24 October 2022 (10 days)
2^nd part: 2 May – 22 May 2024 (21 days)

I used the secondment to explore territorial zoning and control in the former Russian occupied East Berlin. The residency allowed me to research my interests in “spatial control” in a new context — out of the desert and in an urban and historical context. I explored the architecture/infrastructure of prisons and urban-scale militarised containment and surveillance of populations. Additionally, I developed a site-specific installation examining the history and spaces of imprisonment. At the end of the residency Kunstverein invited me to present a performative reading of my previous Desert observations — an exploration of militarised power and control across invisible lines in the sand. I am grateful to Dr Jaspar Joseph-Lester for nominating me as a researcher and for Susanne Prinz and Dr. Chiara Valci Mazzara for inviting me to perform a reading (Desert Diaries) at their gallery and for introducing my work to the curator, Elana Katz (of House of the End of the World) who curated me in EXIT IS NO OBJECT. 

“Hung up to dry”, March, 2023

Site-specific installation in a former KGB prison in Berlin-Karlshorst, March, 2023. All those brought to the prison in East Berlin were then transported to work camps in Russia or Crimea. The title and inspiration for the work orginates from the phrase ‘hung up to dry’. While wet clothes can be hung up to dry, when the term is applied to a person, it means they were punished or made to suffer unjustly, without recourse to support or defence. In the room, the hanging materials speak to the people and bodies whose futures were forcefully removed. The installation was only accesible for an audience via a security camera. Fans were used off-camera to move the hanging material, evoking tension, wind, invisible forces or the ghost traces of unresolved tragedies.

Part 1: 30 March – 10 April 2022 (12 days)
Part 2: 26 Nov – 3^rd Dec 2022 (8 days)
Part 3: 9 May – 21 May (11 days)

My secondment with Transparadiso was split into three. The first trip involved an introduction to the interpapillary practice of Transparadiso and a trip to Chemnitz (2025 City Culture) where I was able to develop a proposal for Barbara Holub’s flagship project WE PARAPOM. As part of the research, I was invited to join city walks, screenings, plantings and talks that Holub had curated in Chemnitz. These events and activities gave me a deeper insight into the potential for developing an art project that could address some of the issues facing Chemnitz. I developed a proposal ‘The Chemnitz Pavilion’ in the period leading up to the second trip. The proposal was accepted by Holub and received funding (production costs only) from the City of Culture. I worked with participants (residents from the city) to develop a series of co-designed location-based stickers. The Chemnitz Pavilion stands as three distinct figures: The Pavilion, The Stickerbook and The City Guide. Put simply, we can describe the Pavilion as a conceptual construct, the stickerbook as a material output and the city guide as a supplementary addition. 

It is clear to anyone that visits Chemnitz that a particular proliferation of stickers is in operation. Moreover, there is a battle between these mobile and ephemeral modes of communication. Throughout my time in Chemnitz, I encountered oppositional ideological messages played out through the constant stickering and re-stickering of shared public space. In short, the Chemnitz Pavilion aims to emancipate the sticker from the type of use that serves the ideological interests of political extremism. Through the secondment I explored the question of how the sticker has the potential to create a sense of spatial belonging for communities and individuals that inhabit the city.

July 2023, June 2024

The initial proposal for my secondment was to connect with Eindhoven’s positioning as a “smart” and “tech” hub. This positioning reflects Eindhoven’s move from an industrial centre built around electronics company Philips manufacturing to a post-industrial one based around Philips design and high-tech semiconductor manufacturing in (Philips owned) ASML. This economic positioning mirrors, in some ways, that of Dublin – which position itself also as a hub of tech companies and of Ireland as a major semiconductor manufacturing centre – however without the history of major manufacturing, large communities of migrant workers and from opposing positions in the relationship between coloniser and colonised. These similarities are also reflected in an increasingly stressed housing situation in which high-paid workers, under-regulated private rental accommodation and financialised housing development have begun to displace and inhibit rental for lower paid communities. Framed as a part of my Department of Embedded Knowledge project – the project intended to explore the “other” forms of innovation and “smartness” that exist within communities that are not captured in the narratives of The Smart City. In particular, the intention was to focus on practices of resilience, self-organisation and mutual support that allow communities under threat from capital to find ways to resist and survive the forces of global capital.
Having spent some time within the Van Abbe museum and with the curatorial team the project took an alternative direction based on the museum’s development of “constituent” practices – that sought to bring different communities into the museum as active participants in the museum programme. In particular, through work with the constituent archivist, the project began to focus on the way in which the museum’s archive would need to adapt to take on board the types of knowledge and knowledge communities that the constituent approach would involve.
In order to do this – the proposal became to work with one such constituent group to carry out a workshop to understand what knowledge would be archived and why. This work was planned for the second part of the secondment. Unfortunately, due to illness, the curator with whom I was working became unavailable for the second part of the secondment and so the workshops were not possible to achieve in the programmed time.

20.9.-23.9.2023 + 1.2.-10.2.2024 + 11.10.-18.10.2024 + 15.-22. 10. 2025 (planned)

I completed my secondment at the Van Abbemuseum in The Netherlands in 2024. This institution is shifting its focus to become a Constituent Museum where ‘museums put relationships at the centre of their operations.’(1) The museum is also in the process of developing new guidelines for the museum’s archive. The institution is asking ‘What does a constituent archive look like’ in the context of the development of a new curatorial plan for the permanent exhibition in 2025 that will embody the practices of the constituent museum.

My practice sits within the field of socially engaged participatory and collaborative practice and I am concerned with how we might preserve or archive the participatory element of the work as another medium or foundational aspect of the work. For the museum, as a commissioning body and exhibition/social I’ve spent three weeks in Amsterdam and The Hague so far, and plan to complete my secondment in February 2025. 

On my trip I visited the Stroom den Haag several times, where I had the opportunity to study and debate especially with a curator Vincent de Boer, which was very beneficial for my gallery practice. Vincent de Boer and I have continuously co-organised several events in Prague: 23-24 Sep 2024 an international conference on new landscape aesthetics and artistic research, attended by four SPACEx researchers – see here. A peer-reviewed collection of papers will be published, with SPACEx as a partner. As I’m working on a project caled Cultural and Sustainable Landscapes through Deep Mapping. Opportunities for artistic strategies in public space in urban post-industrial areas. (Case studies of several European sites.), I am very grateful for the network that working within the Spacex community provides. For next years we are planning with the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague another international conference directly on the aesthetics and artistic research of post-industrial landscapes. On November 15, 2004 we are also organizing a thematically related conference with the participation of three of SPACEx members – program here. 

I had the opportunity to have inspiring cooperation with Christa Maria Lerm Hayes (UvA) – during her visits in Prague and my visits in Amsterdam, and through her I got to know curator Megan Hotger (UvA), with whom Im intensely collaborating on a large exhibition and publication Art of Activism, which will take place at Prague City Gallery in autumn 2025. 

The Prague City Gallery had the opportunity to host quite a number of Spacex researchers from different countries – Christa Maria Lerm Hayes (UvA), Vincent de Boer (Stroom den Haag), Jasper Joseph Lester and his students Carmen Maria Mariscal and Marissa Ferreira from the RCA London, Paul Jackson from University Northampton), Charis Nika (University of Cyprus). We are also in close proffesional contact with Chiara Valci Mazzara and Susanne Prinze (Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin), Paul Rajacovicz, Barbara Holub, and others.

Martin Netocny and I also joined a conference organized by University of Cyprus in Nicosia (SPACEx member) in May 2024: AESOP Cyprus International Symposium “Constructing Peace through Public Space: What Publics? Whose Commons?”.

April 2024

I completed my secondment at the Van Abbemuseum in The Netherlands in 2024. This institution is shifting its focus to become a Constituent Museum where ‘museums put relationships at the centre of their operations.’(1) The museum is also in the process of developing new guidelines for the museum’s archive. The institution is asking ‘What does a constituent archive look like’ in the context of the development of a new curatorial plan for the permanent exhibition in 2025 that will embody the practices of the constituent museum.

My practice sits within the field of socially engaged participatory and collaborative practice and I am concerned with how we might preserve or archive the participatory element of the work as another medium or foundational aspect of the work. For the museum, as a commissioning body and exhibition/social space for the work, it is important to consider what its role is in preserving the relational aspects of the work and how this reflects on the role of the museum in society in the 21st century.  

For my research, I chose a participatory work by the Danish group Superflex to consider how I might revisit a work in the archive to flesh out its participatory aspects. Free Sol Lewitt was part of In-between Minimalisms / Free Sol LeWitt curated by Christiane Berndes, Daniel McClean and SUPERFLEX  which formed part of a larger programme Play Van Abbe – Part 2: Time Machines at the museum in 2010. Superflex presented a workshop facility within the exhibition space where copies of Untitled (Wall Structure) by Sol Lewitt (1972) were reproduced 23 times during the exhibition. The public signed up for a lottery where they could win one of these replicas. The work considered issues around authorship and usership, and public and private ownership, and the status of the art object within this nexus. 

I contacted the participants of the work and received 4 responses. I carried out interviews with the participants at the locations of the work to discuss their motivation for taking part in the project, their relationship to art and art objects before and after their involvement? The information has been collected through audio and visual means and the intention is to create an audio essay that will draw out these themes, alongside a discussion of the critical and practical concerns of the work in relation to the evolution of the museum in the 21st century.

(1) https://internationaleonline.org/publications/the-constituent-museum-constellations-of-knowledge-politics-and-mediation/ [Accessed 8 November 2024]

March 21st  April 5th  /   July 11^th – 26^th 2024

I run a novel programme called NCAD FIELD at undergraduate level and also co-organise course work there at postgraduate level. FIELD integrates theories and practices around the Urban Commons, Critical Ecologies and Rhizomatic pedagogy. Crucially it is located on a brown field site that through active and ongoing pedagogical practice is being reappraised as a Novel Ecology and a space of responsible co-creation and usership with respect to human and more than human worlds. My secondment to Stroom was focused on critically appraising the work we do in the FIELD from afar, to investigate comparable sites and practices in the Netherlands and to create a network to build future collaboration and capacities.

March 21^st – April 5^th 2024

The first visit was set around Easter. This was to make introductions and refine research interests with respect to Stroom, Den Haag and beyond. The idea of the first visit was to get to know Stroom, meet the staff, research in the Library and then branch out into broader context on the basis of these exchanges. Crucially I focused on visiting sites relatable to the FIELD that are tethered to institutional contexts and function more than being passive gardens or green spaces. These included the artist landscapes of artist Annechien Meier, the Edible Estate Permaculture garden developed by artist Nils Norman as part of a multiyear project with Stroom, and the Garden Department at the Gerrit Rietveldt in Amsterdam. Contacts and visits were also made to Utrecht and Eindhoven.

July 11^th – July 26th 2024

I returned in July with two core questions:

A. How seasonal, cyclical and environmental time does / or does not plot onto linear progressive institutional time and the practices undertaken within them (whether this be in an educational or another institutional context). The follow up question to this is how adaptations to work with seasonal time might help institutions to become more resilient, ecologically responsive and indeed happier spaces for human and More-Than-Human constituents.

B. To identify and chart a series of outdoor spaces used by institutions and the usership and practices supported by these spaces. Also, whether if these spaces are fully integrated and valued within the operations of the institution or are they considered ‘extra’, ‘volitional’, ‘temporary’ sites to the life of the institution.

Returning in Summer had the advantage of seeing outdoor sites in full bloom, but also perhaps during a lull in activity due to Summer holidays. I revisited sites from before to monitor them in high season, and also affirm relationships. This included engaging with Annechien Meier’s new project establishing a roof garden on a modernist building in Den Haag and also emergent artists who are developing a Queer Ecology space. The key outcome from this period was the FIELD being included in the nascent Art Research Gardens Network led by Anna Colin of Goldsmiths, London. Together with partners in 6 other locations we have applied for a Curiosity Award, which would facilitate movement between all partners to ‘go see’ and participate as guests and hosts in return. Having FIELD within this network which includes the Van Eyck Academy, Gerrit Rietveldt, Goldsmiths and partners in Tangiers and Limoges. I am still evaluating my research in Den Haag. I am framing this nascent network as a living archive of outdoor pedagogical sites. The ‘living’ aspects connotes their dynamism as biodiverse natureculture intersections but also their precarity as some of the spaces are under resourced, contingent on the lead of driven individuals and also subject to future ‘development’.

My first SPACEX secondment to Prague City Gallery took place in the final week of March 2023. My focus was on the history of fascism and antifascism, especially using the history of emotions approaches to study this subject matter. 

My trip was an excellent opportunity to explore a city with a complex history and consider the relationships between representation, fascism and antifascism. I was able to explore museums and galleries and reflect on a range of aspects of a developing project. 

I had opportunities to meet with members of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where I gave a talk to students on studying fascism and the history of emotions theories. On my walk to the lecture, I took a picture of an antifascist sticker at the Prague Metronome, typical of many ways antifascist cultures manifest in urban settings. I included this in my talk too. 

I also had an opportunity to work closely with my host organisation, Prague City Gallery, to discuss developing a project around Czech artists and antifascism. I met with artists who are working with themes of antifascism and activism, and developed some initial ideas for the longer project. In particular this will think about the ‘emotional regimes’ developed by fascist cultures, and how antifascist art responds to these typically antagonistic ideals. 

I now want to delve further into this aspect of antifascism and explore the ways antifascists develop emotional connections to ideals such as democracy and the defence of personal liberty, as part of their opposition to the politics of the extreme. In 2025 I am set to return to Prague, for follow-up interviews with artists, where I aim to develop my research into a new study of antifascism related to conceptualisations of affect.