CULTURSTRUCTION is a collaborative practice of Jo Anne Butler and Tara Kennedy. Positioned at the intersection of art and architecture their work addresses the embedded social, spatial and economic infra¬structure of the public realm. Based in Ireland, Culturstruction is driven by an ambition to provide a platform for the critique of the culture of ‘Architecture’, architectural education and the industry that creates our built environment. They believe that the way that decisions are made is intrinsic to the outcome. Underpinning their creative process is an urgency and desire to prise open accepted boundaries of practice, for ideas to be made accessible and for an expanded dialogue to begin.
This collaborative practice has been evolving since 2008. Having both graduated from NCAD (National College of Art and Design, Dublin) and worked across a variety of public art disciplines, Jo Anne and Tara both began studying Architecture at UCD (University College Dublin) in 2007. This route from art, towards architecture then became the shared starting point for Culturstruction. Coming from a background of self-initiated art practices, they began to examine the ways in which the systems and structures of the art world could be used to create much-needed critical debate in the field of architecture. Why was architectural discourse so lacking in critique and radical exchange? What were the obstacles to the evolvement and expansion of ‘architectural practice’? What role could artists play in this?
The name Culturstruction is a critique of the impossibility of the task of ‘constructing culture’ – something too easily forgotten amidst the large scale building and elaborate marketing campaigns of boom-era Ireland. Culturstruction wish to challenge accepted processes of conceiving, making and managing our built environs. In what is increasingly described as a ‘post-critical age’ the need to do so is urgent.