9.30am – 12.30pm
Mind’s Eye (2006), Simon Reilly
Running Time: 6 minutes, 24 seconds
Mind’s Eye (2006) is an engaging short film depicting a young boy and his attempts at sketching a horse. The film deals with the duality of existence, showing us what is there and what is not there. Is the horse real or is it a projection of the boy’s powerful imagination, creating an alternate world? Inner and outer realities and how the boy perceives them are manifested in the drawings as he endeavours again and again to capture the grace and elegance of the horse. This film leaves you questioning its meaning long after you’ve seen it.
An award-winning multimedia artist born in Dublin, Simon Reilly studied art at the College of Marketing and Design, Dublin and the University of Art Belfast. He has shown his work around the world, including at the Castel Dell Ovo, Naples; Gallery Analix, Geneva; Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York; DCP, San Francisco, Itami City Museum of Art, Japan; Galleria Jan Wagner, Berlin, Orchard Gallery Derry; Project Art Centre Dublin; The Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin; and at The Butler Gallery, Kilkenny.
12.30pm – 2.30pm
An Artist, The Studio, and all the rest…, (2006-2012), John Beattie
Running Time: Part 1, 13 minutes, Part 2, 8 Minutes
An Artist, The Studio, and all the rest… (2006-2012) takes the form of two film projections with sound in which Beattie explores the relationship between traditional academic ideas of the artist and their practice and contemporary approaches to art making. The first film is shot in the studio of Thomas Ryan, a past president of the RHA, in which they created a Master/Apprentice collaboration. For the second film Beattie appropriated Gustav Courbet’s The Artist’s Studio, 1854/55, and staged a recreation of the image in The Great Hall, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. For the tableaux he invited artists, and representatives of the cultural institutions in Ireland to pose for this carefully choreographed re-staging.
John Beattie is a visual artist whose practice engages with historical and cultural narratives working across a range of media – including video, film, and photography. Beattie’s work re-stages and reconstructs temporal themes both as a conceptual framework and as a process integral to the making of the work itself. His work prompts viewers to reflect on issues of history, time, and its interpretation. Beattie’s work is in public and private collections, including: The Hugh Lane Gallery Collection, The Office of Public Works, and The Arts Council of Ireland Collection.
2.30 – 6.30pm
Ghosts of Baggotonia (2023), Alan Gilsenan
Running time: 85 minutes
Ghosts of Baggotonia (2023) explores the literary and other ghosts of the bohemian quarter bordering Dublin’s Baggot Street during the mid-20th century. Baggotonia was both a permeable geographic area and a cultural movement, populated by writers, artists and other intellectuals living an anarchic life at odds with the overarching drabness and conservative mores of the time. Inspired by a rare collection of photographs from artist Nevill Johnson, the film is shot in stark Leica monotone and draws upon writings from the period, including by Patrick Kavanagh, Elizabeth Bowen, Samuel Beckett, Blanaid Salkeld, John Montague, Eavan Boland, Paul Durcan, Ethna McCarthy, Thomas Kinsella amongst many others. Sound tracked by Brian Crosby, the film is Narrated by Alan Gilsenan and Camille O’Sullivan.
Alan Gilsenan is a multi-award-winning Irish writer and film-maker. His diverse body of film-work extends across documentary, feature films and experimental work. He is also a Theatre Director, including at the Abbey, Smock Alley and London’s Barbican Centre. His adaptation of John Banville’s The Book of Evidence was staged at The Gate Theatre. In 1986, he founded Yellow Asylum Films with Martin Mahon.
