Bik Van der Pol
Liesbeth Bik and Jos Van der Pol live and work in Rotterdam. Working collectively since 1995 as Bik Van der Pol they aim to articulate and understand how art can produce a public sphere and space for imagination, and how publics are formed and come together. Their mode of working consists of setting up the conditions for encounter to develop a process that allows for continuous reconfigurations of places, histories and publics. Their practice is site-specific and collaborative with dialogue as a mode of transfer; a “passing through”, understood in its etymological meaning of “a speech across or between two or more people, out of which may emerge new understandings”. In fact, they consider “passing through” as vital. It is temporal, and implies action and the development of new forms of discourse. Their practice is both instigator and result of this method. For more details see here

Emily Jacir
Emily Jacir lives in the Mediterranean and is an artist and filmmaker who is primarily concerned with transformation, translation, resistance and silenced historical narratives. Jacir has built a complex and compelling oeuvre through a diverse range of media and methodologies that include unearthing historical material, performative gestures, and in-depth research. Jacir is the recipient of several awards, including a Golden Lion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund in The Hague (2007); the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum (2008); the Alpert Award (2011) from the Herb Alpert Foundation; and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (2015). Select solo exhibitions include the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2016-17); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2015); Darat il Funun, Amman (2014-2015); Beirut Art Center (2010); Guggenheim Museum, New York (2009).

Jacir has been actively involved in education in Palestine since 2000 and deeply invested in creating alternative spaces of knowledge production internationally. She is co-founder and Executive Director of Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem.and was recently the curator of the Young Artist of the Year Award 2018 at the A. M. Qattan Foundation in Ramallah which she called “We Shall Be Monsters”. See more details on www.instagram.com/emilyjacir and on www.facebook.com/emilyjacir

Sarah Pierce
Sarah Pierce is an artist based in Dublin and Lecturer in the School of Visual Culture at NCAD, where she is co-leader of the MA/MFA Art in the Contemporary World. Since 2003, Sarah Pierce has used the term The Metropolitan Complex to describe her project, characterised by forms of gathering, both historical examples and those she initiates. The processes of research and presentation that she undertakes demonstrate a broad understanding of cultural work and a continual renegotiation of the terms for making art, the potential for dissent, and self-determination. Pierce holds a PhD from Goldsmiths College at London University and an MFA from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, and is a past participant of the Whitney Museum ISP in New York.

Lisa Godson
Lisa Godson is a historian of design, architecture and material culture and Programme Leader of the MA in Design History and Material Culture at NCAD. An aspect of her research involves collaborations with creative practitioners – her concept and research on Irish modernist architecture in Africa was the basis of the award-winning feature-length documentary Build Something Modern (Still Films: 2011) and she was research collaborator for Sarah Browne and Jesse Jones on the major Arts Council of Ireland/Artangel project In the Shadow of the State. Her books include Uniform: Clothing and Discipline in the Modern World (2019); Modern Religious Architecture in Germany, Ireland and Beyond (2019); Making 1916: Visual and Material Culture of the Easter Rising (2015); The Secret Lives of Objects (2016). She is curator of the 2021 Dublin Art Books Fair.

The Creative Futures Academy (CFA) aims to support the development of sustainable careers for early and mid-career cultural and creative professionals through a mix of upskilling and reskilling. Through a range of flexible course offerings, the CFA will equip learners with the attributes that they require to thrive and to shape the future of Ireland’s cultural and creative sector.

CFA Creative Futures Academy is an initiative of The National College of Art & Design (NCAD); University College Dublin (UCD) and the Institute of Art, Design & Technology, (IADT).

CFA 2021: Time Travel: Re-materialising the Past in Place
Is an immersive module that is a unique advanced study opportunity that traverses the fields of visual art and material culture. Convenors Sarah Pierce and Lisa Godson (National College of Art and Design, Dublin). This immersive module takes place over one week in Dublin. It is convened between the National College of Art and Design and the Irish Museum of Modern Art and features Bik Van der Pol, Emily Jacir and The Otolith Group: international guest artists and researchers whose methodologies overlap with the module’s interests in archive-based practices.

The intensive will involve seminars and creative field work engaged with researching, analysing and encountering the past through specific material forms. On completion, students will have a critical understanding of different forms of material archives and how different engagements with the past inform contemporary practice. During the weeks leading up to the module, participants will begin independent research and following the week-long intensive they will continue to work remotely on an output that will be presented and distributed at the Dublin Art Book Fair (November 2021). See more information here