5th – 8th October, Studio 12, Backwater Artists Group, Wandesford Quay.

As part of this pioneering new project, writers and artists from the MA in Creative Writing, UCC, and MA Art & Process, MTU Crawford College of Art and Design, partnered up to make and present new collaborative work. The beauty of collaboration lies in the between-space, where artists from different disciplines meet imaginatively, interact, spark. It is a risky, beautiful thing. As such, this risk-taking project combines text and materials in thrilling new ways, and its exhibition from October 5th –8th at Studio 12, Backwater Artists Group, is the public moment for innovative new work.

Lucy Holme & Ava Hayes Collaboration

Collaboration challenges us to interrogate how we regard and authentically inhabit the artist’s process. Do we interrupt each other’s practice or deepen it? What can we teach each other? What might we learn about ourselves during the project, about our limitations, blind spots and unique strengths?

Indian sitarist, poet, and spiritual guru Ravi Shankar once said of artistic collaboration, “In many fundamental ways, collaboration is the quintessential modern artistic practice.” The juxtaposition of visual art and creative writing has always existed to provoke and entice us and to encourage us to reach beyond the ‘apparent’. Now, more than ever, the concept of joining forces and sharing ideas feels vital, energising, and necessary. From a surface appreciation for art placed on the blank gallery wall to the pen marks or printed words upon the page, each partnership in this exhibition builds its own fresh lexicon. Each jointly curated work adds something new to the ongoing creative conversation.

Featured work from Stephen O’Shea & Kiriko Hashimoto, Petrina Shortt & Kieran Murphy, Naoise McGuiness  Shane Vaughan, and Lucy Holme & Ava Hayes.