THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS THE ARTISTS FROM THE FREELANDS ARTIST PROGRAMME AT PS² AND THE FREELANDS STUDIO FELLOW.
Thomas Pool: How has your participation in PS2’s Freelands Artist Programme helped you grow and evolve your practice in ways that wouldn’t have been possible without it?
Christopher Steenson: That’s a difficult question to answer. After two years being on the programme, it’s now difficult to imagine an alternative version of reality, where it wasn’t part of my life. I’ve just been trying to keep my head above water, making the work I need to make. I suppose being part of a programme like Freelands can provide a form of credibility to your practice. I’ve been given a lot of opportunities over the past two years in Ireland, the UK and further afield, and I wonder if being part of the Freelands Programme has helped in some way. I think with these types of fellowship programmes, there’s an accumulation of small moments and experiences that shape your development. Usually, it’s the ideas that emerge through studio visits and group crits. The ideas generated from those encounters simmer away subconsciously, slowly opening up new perspectives on things. They’re invaluable and life-changing; however, they’re also elusive in their exact origin, and certainly not enumerable.
Dorothy Hunter: No matter how strong the artist community is, you always feel a bit isolated. With the tight resources in Northern Ireland in particular, it can feel like you’re trying to forge a way with only so many routes through, cut off from the rest of Ireland and Britain. A lot of funding is structured to be short-term and pre-planned, where you have to deliver in a linear way. The Freeland’s Artist Programme countered this; for the first time I was trusted to use funding in a way that most benefitted me as an artist – whether that’s exploring materials, simply covering rent, or trying something out but maybe finding another, better way. For me, it meant being able to waste less time splitting my attention across multiple types of freelance work; being able to spend serious time in the studio and in research; and being able to travel to do so, when otherwise I wouldn’t have had the option. It’s also pretty unique to have such a long-term curatorial relationship in one’s practice that doesn’t have the implicit pressure of the ‘end product’. Things could just develop, and more interesting and inspiring conversations were then possible.
Susan Hughes: Here is just one example of many: in the summer of 2022, we got an email from our curator Ciara Hickey, to say that some of the practice-based PhD students at the University of Ulster had organised crits in PS2 with Sarah Brown and Alice Butler. There were a few places left and they were opening them up to the Freelands artists. I put my name down and suddenly I had a deadline. Before the crit, I started to panic; what on earth was I going to show? I frantically finished off a video experiment I’d been thinking about, but hadn’t had the impetus to actually complete. A few weeks later, Alice Butler contacted me to say that Dublin-based initiative aemi (artists’ and experimental moving image) thought my film would be suitable for their forthcoming touring programme. I was invited to add subtitles and send them a high-resolution file if I was interested in proceeding. I sure was! Thus ensued the most amazing year of touring with my film to cinemas and art venues across Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden with aemi and two other Irish filmmakers, Holly Márie Parnell and Lisa Freeman. The experiences and relationships that emerged from this opportunity have been totally invaluable.
Tara McGinn: Being part of the Freelands Artist Programme provided me with a small stipend with no specified outcomes; so, there was little pressure to produce or achieve external goals of any sort. This gave me a liberty I hadn’t had before, safe in the knowledge that I wouldn’t have my time wholly consumed in chasing freelance gigs and funding opportunities, which negatively impacts time better spent on professional development. The Freelands programme has granted me travel and networking opportunities that I could never have dreamed of accessing before. Crucially, it gave me the chance to grow, to fail, and get back up again on my own terms.
Jacqueline Holt: My acceptance to the Freelands Artist Programme at PS2 coincided with a difficult period in my personal life, when family became more of a priority. In one respect, it could be seen as bad timing; however, in reality, the consistency of support through regular meetings with the PS2 curator, Ciara Hickey, allowed me to maintain and develop my practice during this difficult time. With her practical advice and organisational support, I have been able to experiment with new ways of working through a series of experimental workshops. The discussions around these ideas, with Ciara and the other curators we were introduced to during the programme, as well as my fellow PS2 artists, were invaluable in helping to develop and articulate a methodology of practice. This has also been helpful in successfully presenting my ideas to funders for the development of this new work.
TP: How has the programme been tailored to you as an individual artist?
CS: I’ve used the Freelands Programme as way of reaching out to people for advice or mentorship at moments when I’ve needed perspective with certain projects. It’s provided avenues for conversation and dialogue that might not otherwise be as readily or formally accessible. A way of coming up for air, so to speak. I do wonder whether being on an island like Ireland might isolate artists from wider ‘artworld’ networks. A trip to London or Berlin isn’t as straightforward as it is for our artist peers in Britain or mainland Europe. We’re separated from these ‘cultural centres’ by a body of water. This makes it more difficult for us to travel to these places, and for international artists and curators to come in. That said, I think one of the most valuable aspects of the programme has been connecting with a group of peers – both locally in the north, and with the other UK artists and institutions. Each year of the programme, there’s been a symposium for all the participating artists and institutions to get together from across the UK. The first of these (for our cohort) took place in Belfast in September 2022 and was hosted by PS2. The second was in November 2023 in Edinburgh and was hosted by Talbot Rice Gallery. Those occasions have been so rewarding for meeting new people and experiencing place through a unique lens, either as a ‘host’ or as a visitor.
DH: I think it became apparent early on that we enjoyed talking about the wider conditions in which we work, how our practices form in that, and how we could expand through conduits like reading groups, group crits, and exhibition visits. We gathered a lot as a group and could learn from and be involved in one another’s work in supportive ways – something usually only possible in art school. I need to step outside my regular working conditions to get some perspective with changes of scenery and short, focused bursts. Residencies in PS2 and Digital Arts Studios and doing some practical courses as part of the programme allowed me to treat my way of working a bit differently.
SH: We have had time and space to deepen our practices, and our curator Ciara Hickey has had two years to get to know us deeply as artists. Her conversations with us are entirely tailored to who we are as individuals navigating our practices. This thorough attention to detail has heightened the value and quality of the support she can give us – when she helps us with applications, when she has conversations with us leading up to exhibitions, and when she pushes us to push ourselves. Anything we’re interested in trying out with the group, we are supported to do, whether that be organising a crit or film screening, reading a text together, or trying an experimental way of working collaboratively.
TMG: The programme isn’t so much tailored but could be described as open-ended. I was part of the final cohort of a five-year programme, which meant that we received a wealth of data and feedback that previous cohorts perhaps had not. We were paired with local curator Ciara Hickey, who selected the successful applicants with a genuine desire to work with each of us. For me, this was a far more personal and warm relationship, which formed the foundations of a lasting professional connection. Many opportunities with curators can be fleeting, temporary, and sometimes cold in the face of achieving set outcomes or deadlines. This circumstance gave me the chance to understand the role a curator can play in assisting my career choices, as well as my own expectations on my work and myself. This contributed to better working relations with other curators whom I had the opportunity to work with during the programme; I learned when to reach out and when to clearly define my own boundaries. In this sense, the tailoring came through my own initiative – I learned to articulate my own needs, allowing for a more considered approach to navigating institutional demands.
JH: I wouldn’t say it was tailored for me, but more a case of me leaning into what was on offer and finding out what was helpful. For me, the conversations were the most important part of the programme. We were given an allowance for mentoring that allowed me to engage in a series of conversations with other artists and curators that I was curious about. It also allowed me to get practical advice on the use of cameras and prime lenses. I was able to meet up individually with the curators invited by the programme as well as with the curators from the other Freelands Artist Programmes across the UK. For me, the programme was an opportunity to excavate and articulate my practice and spend time working through new processes.
TP: What can you tell us about the work you’ve created so far?
CS: I’ve been making work that deals with our relationship with time and environment, through sound, video, writing and photography in response to specific sites and archives. For example, in March last year, I worked with PS2 curators-in-residence Cecelia Graham and Grace Jackson to create the artwork Let it run all over me (2023), which responded to – and was presented within – an underwater tunnel in Belfast’s Lagan Weir. Another solo exhibition from last year, titled ‘Breath Variations’, responded to the work and concepts of artist John Latham and was presented in his former home and studio at Flat Time House, London. For the recent exhibition at the Freelands Foundation in London (16 – 23 February 2024), I developed a new artwork, titled The long grass (2022-4). The work stems from a research residency I undertook with Ormston House, Limerick, in 2022 that focused on the conservational status of the corncrake in Ireland. The artwork itself is a 35mm slide projection, which uses the corncrake as a vehicle to discuss ideas relating to contested land use, memory and (post)colonial identity. The work comprises a series of anonymised textual material presented alongside photographs I made during visits to corncrake conservation sites around Ireland. There is also a synchronised sound component to the work, which – for the Freelands exhibition – was presented outside the gallery, broadcasting the corncrake’s distinctive call out onto Regent’s Park Road. You might say it’s a freedom call of sorts.
DH: During the programme, I kicked off a project that I’ll probably be returning to for the rest of my life… I’m looking at the politics and knowability of subterranean cave networks and have spent the last two years gathering material, writing, and experiences. I started this off as ‘fully conscious movements, fully different time’ – my solo exhibition at Golden Thread Gallery (25 March – 20 May 2023) – which involved a set of fabric sculptures, drawings and films that look at naming and mapping processes for the underground, working with and thinking about how language relates to things that can’t be readily evoked, which I hope to explore further in new work.
SH: My current solo exhibition, ‘Stones from a Gentle Place’ at CCA Derry~Londonderry (20 January to 28 March), has given me an opportunity to show work from the past couple of years as well as brand new work. The presented works encompass a range of media including sculpture, video, audio installation and archives. The exhibition follows my own encounter with bioluminescence while swimming in the sea at night, and my subsequent observation of how humans throughout history have made sense of natural phenomena, the stories associated with such occurrences, and the physical and cognitive effects on the body. During my participation in the Freelands Artist Programme, I have had the time, money and mentoring to support extensive and very fun research into these connections between folklore and natural phenomena. I have travelled within Ireland and over to the Netherlands, connecting with museum archivists, storytellers, musicians and mariners to gather stories and film footage. Now with successful funding applications, I can continue my research into the next stage, when I will create a significant new film work.
TMG: I have recently become interested in the work of Eileen Gray and the queer spaces she produced as indirect rejection of the modernist architecture of the early twentieth century. In response, I created several new works including a site-specific installation in the PS2 project space in Belfast. I subverted familiar forms with new materials, blurring the line between feminine and masculine qualities, merging their similarities, and making visible what interior design generally seeks to hide in plain sight. For example, the invisible plinth, boxy and painted white, acts as an island blended into the background of the white cube. I playfully undermined this concept and constructed what appears to be a vintage coffee table out of craft materials. Titled A Resting Place (or a coffee table to be exact) (2023), it is art as plinth, plinth as art. The exhibition last June was titled ‘An Intimate Public’, a figure of speech I had read in an essay from Lauren Berlant’s Cruel Optimism (Duke University Press, 2011), which had stuck with me for almost an entire year before the exhibition even came into being.
JH: I work with various media including sculpture, print, photography and film. Over the last couple of years, I have made several films and recently finished making what turned out to be a very labour intensive wall hanging for the final Freeland’s exhibition at the Mimosa Gallery in London. Over the course of the FAP I have been developing a way of working with video that aligns more with the values of my process orientated, fine art practice and that I can scale up. Previously, my film work has used what I have to hand and what I could create by myself. Over the last year, I have attended a workshop on improvisational, performer-camera practices, led by Pete Gomes, and participated in a PHD research Constellations therapy session. I want to feed these experiences into creating larger scale work by collaborating with other artists through an intuitive process of improvisation that frees the agency of those participating. As part of this process, I have started a series of film workshops to test and develop this method of working, and am looking forward to seeing how this process plays out.
TP: As a recent graduate, what has the Freelands Studio Fellowship meant for you and your practice?
Ciarraí MacCormac (Studio Fellow): To be awarded the Freelands Studio Fellowship was incredibly exciting; it meant that I could completely focus on my art without having a side job to maintain my practice. I am fully aware that this kind of opportunity doesn’t happen out of thin air, and I felt that it came at the right time for me personally. It’s such a generous award for artists and it has provided a foothold for me to progress my work. As a graduate of Bath School of Art, I was able to apply for the Fellowship in Belfast School of Art at University of Ulster. It was very exciting to get a sense of what it might have been like to study there, and to work on the famous seventh floor alongside current students.
TP: How has having access to the university library and workshop facilities, as well as your own studio space and mentor, helped you develop the trajectory of your career?
CMC: Accessing the library was what I looked forward to most when I started – I pretty much spent all of my time there. When you leave art college, you definitely take facilities and technical support for granted. Straight away, I made plans to create additional drying trays for my paint skins, meaning that I could make more than one piece at a time. I have really enjoyed sharing my work with students, getting some teaching experience, and discussing how painting can exist in a multitude of ways. My mentor is the artist Susan Connolly – we both are massive paint nerds. Susan was the perfect fit for the mentorship, as she is a well respected painter and arts educator, and of course, we both make paint skins. This specific process involves applying layers of paint to a glass frame, which are then peeled off and attached to walls and ceilings. Once hung, the paint skin oozes, collapses and buckles, as the material creates its own form. Liberated from canvas and frame, this technique dissolves distinctions between painting and sculpture and invites the viewer to move in the space. I feel excited to share this new body of work and hopefully develop my career through the connections I’ve made this past year.
TP: What can you tell us about the solo exhibition you presented at the end of your fellowship?
CMC: My exhibition ‘After the Fact’ ran at Ulster University Art Gallery from 1 February to 1 March. This was my very first solo show and it meant a lot that it happened in Belfast. I exhibited only a fraction of the paintings I have made throughout the fellowship. My focus over the last year has been exploring the longevity of the paintings, and I have invited materials that can support these works and be more self-sufficient. This has allowed me to be more ambitious in scale and create an exhibition in which the bodies of paint control the viewers’ bodies as they navigate the space around the work.
Christopher Steenson is an artist who works across sound, writing, photography and digital media to forge ways of listening to the future.
christophersteenson.com
Dorothy Hunter is a cross-disciplinary artist, writer and researcher, living and working in
Belfast.
dorothyhunter.com
Susan Hughes is based between the North and South of Ireland and is a studio holder at Orchid Studios in Belfast.
susanhughesartist.com
Tara McGinn is an interdisciplinary artist from Enniscorthy, currently based in Belfast, where she is a member of Flax Studios.
taramcginn.com
Jacqueline Holt is a visual artist working with moving image, photography and sculpture.
jacquelineholt.org
Ciarraí MacCormac is an artist from Antrim who currently lives and works in Belfast.
ciarraimaccormac.com
