Monday – Friday
June 9th – 13th
CREATIVE PROGRAMME, ASSOCIATE PROGRAMME AND EXHIBITION
Creative Brain Week connects across disciplines, contexts, and cultures. It values richness and abundance in the diverse ways people understand and engage with the world.
Its curatorial approach to Exhibitions and its Associate Programme reflects this. To the phrases “nothing about us without us” and “each one teach one” we added “no tell without a show” to remind us that words, the traditional transactional language of exchange of Universities, have to be matched by sense-based learning, experiential encounter, movement and playfulness.
Associate Programme: Monday 9th June 10.30am - 3.30pm
SoloSIRENs How Do We Care? Symposium
SoloSIRENs third symposium created a space to explore the nature of care in theatre, arts participation and society. It continued SoloSIRENs ongoing inquiry into feminist aesthetics and the roles of care and collaboration in our models of theatre making and community engagement.
The event featured reflections from artists in our How Do We Care? festival at the Civic, Tallaght; a ‘Careground’ installation created by students from Sacred Heart SNS, Killinarden; and an academic response from festival researcher Dr. Yingjun Wei. We also heard from guest speakers working to create a more caring society within and beyond theatre and the arts.
The day facilitated attendees’ participation through conversation, storysharing, playful engagement and of course, care!
The symposium was free and open to all: artists, audiences, students, academics, community workers, anyone interested in how we are caring and how we can care more.
Contributors
Jenny Macdonald is a theatremaker and facilitator whose practice encompasses writing / performing and directing / facilitating. Her most recent production, ‘The Tightrope Walker’ was presented at Smock Alley Theatre as part of First Fortnight Festival 2025. It has also been presented at the Civic, The Samuel Beckett Theatre, and Beaumont and Tallaght University Hospitals.
Her previous solo show, ‘Enthroned’ was programmed by the Civic, glor, Town Hall (Galway), First Fortnight and the New York International Fringe Festival. She was Writer in Residence at the Irish Hospice Foundation, 2022-2023.
In 2019, she founded SoloSIRENs, an intercultural collective of female-identifying artists in residence at the Civic, Tallaght. With SoloSIRENS, she aims to amplify female-identifying voices and to create more just, sustainable, and caring models of making and presenting theatre. For SoloSIRENs she has devised and directed “Careground” (Civic 2023), “Cessair” (Civic, 2021), “Dear Ireland III” (Abbey Theatre, 2020), and “Falling” (Civic, 2019). She has also curated two SoloSIRENs festivals and two symposia including ‘How Do We Care?’ Festival at the Civic, 2023 and ‘Today When I Listen, This Is What I Hear’ Symposium as part of Dublin Theatre Festival, 2022.
She is an Associate Artist with South Dublin Participatory Arts (TCA) and with the Abbey Theatre. She is a lecturer in Socially Engaged Theatre at Trinity College, Dublin and New York University. She is an alumnus of Dublin Theatre Festival’s ‘The Next Stage’ and a mentor to many emerging artists and companies.
Website:
Social:
Facebook: @solosirens
X: @solosirens
Instagram: @macdjenny/ and @solosirens
Jennifer is a producer and project coordinator. She has worked as an Associate Artist with Tallaght Community Arts for over twelve years and has been producer of SoloSIRENs since 2019. From 2021 to date she has been coordinator of Creative Places MacUíllíam. She conceived and directs ACT UP! Festival of theatre directed/performed by young people. Her work as producer/coordinator includes As If By Chance, Cessair, SoloSIRENs Festival, Where in this World, The Great Rope of Tallaght, Gaza Monologues, Aeridheacht -Taking the Air, and Creative Campus. She has also produced international exchanges for young people from Dublin Dublin with Masters School, New York and OTeatrao, Portugal. For the Arts Council, she produced Shukuma Mzansi, a visit of South African participatory theatre makers to Ireland in 2018. In 2019, she was a delegate on Voices of Culture: Gender Equality with the European Commission. She is a theatre artist with Doors to Elsewhere, a theatre ensemble for adults with a disability.
https://www.facebook.com/solosirens
https://www.instagram.com/solosirens/
SoloSIRENs is a theatremaking and producing collective based in Tallaght and in residence at the Civic. Its core team is director Jenny Macdonald, producer Jennifer Webster and theatre artist Martha Knight. SoloSIRENs amplifies female identifying voices onstage and beyond. They work to address gender inequality and intersecting inequalities through their practice and productions. They collaborate with other theatre artists and with a local, intercultural and intergenerational community collective. They also collaborate with local arts organisations including Rua Red – South Dublin Arts Centre and TCA-South Dublin Participatory Arts. In 2024 they launched a mentorship cofacilitated with the Abbey to upskill diverse facilitators from South Dublin County and a schools programme (funded by South Dublin County Council) to explore key themes and approaches in their work with children in the county. They have created and produced two festivals at the Civic in 2019 and 2023; two symposia-one online in 2019 and one presented by Dublin Theatre Festival at Trinity College, Dublin Long Room Hub in 2022. Other collaborations and productions include ‘Dear Ireland III’ with the Abbey Theatre (2020), Cessair with the Civic/TCA (2021), and The Compassionate Culture Network with Irish Hospice Foundation (2022).
https://www.facebook.com/solosirens
https://www.instagram.com/solosirens/
Arts and health - an Irish timeline
During Creative Brain Week 2024 Emma Eager of ArtsandHealth.ie, the team at Réalta the national resource organisation for arts and health in Ireland, and Dominic Campbell of Creative Brain Week curated the display “Less Visible Threads” reflecting rich arts and health case studies across decades from Ireland.
This inspired much discussion about the origins of arts and health in Ireland, its state, status, future and critically its ability to connect with the health care services of the HSE. A rich seam of mature practice exists in Ireland connected to an expanding international movement promoting art as a health positive activity. Ireland has leadership status in this area, but can it sustain it? What patterns emerge over time? What can this teach a wider audience?
For Creative Brain Week 2025 we invited speakers, sector agencies, and audiences to add their contributions to a Timeline of arts and health in Ireland.
The timeline was a backdrop to share understanding, and reflect on the future direction of this practice between transformative artists intervention and transactional health care or therapeutic delivery.
The timeline was added to each day following a discussion led by Réalta. It was on display throughout the exhibition and was free to view.
Contributors
Emma Eager has been active in the field of arts and health in the Republic of Ireland for 14 years. She works with Réalta, the national resource organisation for arts and health, managing the national website (artsandhealth.ie) and co-ordinating the Expanding Arts in Healthcare programme, an inter-agency partnership between the HSE, the Department of Health (Healthy Ireland Programme), the Arts Council and the Creative Ireland Programme. Emma is a guest lecturer on the NCAD / CFA Professional Diploma in Art and Health.
Arts and Health Facebook @artsandhealth.ie
Realta Facebook @realtaartshealth
Arts and Health Instagram @artsandhealth.ie
Realta Instagram @realtaartshealth
Realta LinkedIn https://ie.linkedin.com/company/r%C3%A9alta-arts-health
Justine Foster spent several years working as a visual artist in a public and community context in the UK and Ireland. She is currently Programme Manager at Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre (WCAC), where she has worked for 25 years to create an inclusive, vibrant space for public and artists. For Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, she has developed numerous collaborative projects with an emphasis on forging local, regional, and national partnerships. In 2002, she initiated an Arts for Health Partnership Programme with the HSE, Cork Education & Training Board and Cork County Council which she continues to manage. In 2015, she initiated a Contemporary Dance Programme at Uillinn and began producing Uillinn Dance Season in 2018. Justine is member of Arts and Health Coordinators Ireland (AHCI, Chairperson 2020 – 2022) and is currently engaging in a masters research at MTU Crawford College Cork.
Website:
https://www.
https://www.instagram.com/
Claire Meaney, together with the Réalta team, has developed significant partnerships with national and international stakeholders to support the advancement of arts and health practice in Ireland. A passionate advocate for the sector, Claire has extensive experience of managing and delivering arts and health programmes in acute hospitals and community healthcare settings. She has been Director of Waterford Healing Arts Trust since 2017, prior to which she had been Assistant Director since 2007. Claire also project managed the national resource website artsandhealth.ie from its inception in 2011 until 2016. Her background is in Fine Art and she holds a Master’s Degree in Arts & Heritage Management.
Réalta is the new national resource organisation for arts and health in Ireland, founded on decades of pioneering arts and health practice as Waterford Healing Arts Trust and the encyclopaedic knowledge/insight gathered under artsandhealth.ie. Réalta’s vision is for the arts to be embedded into the provision of healthcare in Ireland. Our mission is to lead the development of the arts and health sector in Ireland through support, promotion and advancement, and the demonstration of excellence in artistic delivery.
Wednesday at 3pm
Film Programme - The Rest I Make Up
Documentary Film + Creative Collaboration as Care, Transforming Dementia Narratives through Participatory Filmmaking.
Brain Health is impacted by culture. Culture is changed by narrative, and narratives in popular culture are often changed by film.
Michelle Memran shared films and facilitate discussion about creative collaboration, representation, narrative health, bearing witness, and truth-telling.
There was a live discussion between Michelle Memran and Natasha Duffy after the film.
The Rest I Make Up
When renowned playwright María Irene Fornés stops writing due to Alzheimer’s, her friendship with a young filmmaker sparks a new artistic practice. Made over a decade, The Rest I Make Up, directed by Memran, is an intimate and collaborative documentary about a visionary artist who lived and wrote outside convention, and a tender story about memory, presence, queer intergenerational friendship, and creative connection.
The film premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and continues to screen worldwide. It was named one of “The Best Films of 2018” by Richard Brody in The New Yorker, who wrote:
“Above all, the movie embodies Fornés’s inherently and irrepressibly creative presence. The text alone, transcribed, would be a primer in live-wire poetic lucidity.”
Contributors
Natasha Duffy is a creative producer and director working across theatre, film, and large-scale live events. As Creative Director of Sofft Productions, she leads a multidisciplinary arts and production company dedicated to contemporary Irish work, overseeing theatre and film development alongside high-end event production.
Natasha produced the critically acclaimed play An Old Song, Half Forgotten, and is currently directing a documentary of the same name, exploring the creative process behind the work and its themes of memory, loss, and care. She is also the creator of Home is Where the Hearth Is, a celebrated documentary series capturing traditional Irish music sessions in rural pubs. The series has screened at festivals worldwide and earned her Best Director at the Berlin Indie Film Awards.
With over 20 years of experience in the arts, Natasha brings a uniquely holistic and collaborative approach to producing, combining dramaturgical insight with bold creative vision. She holds a BA in Film and Theatre from Trinity College Dublin and continues to champion innovative, meaningful projects that connect artists and audiences in powerful ways.
https://www.sofftproductions.com/
https://www.instagram.com/natasha_catriona/
Currently an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, Michelle Memran is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and visual artist working in dementia awareness and creative aging advocacy. Through co-creation and participatory filmmaking, she’s committed to changing society’s stigmatized view of dementia by amplifying the voices of individuals living with these conditions.
Her debut documentary film, The Rest I Make Up, chronicled a decade-long creative collaboration and friendship with visionary Cuban-American playwright María Irene Fornés after she stopped writing due to Alzheimer’s. Together, they discovered a camera could continue Fornés’s creative process and begin a vital new artistic process for them both. Their film premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in 2018, received numerous festival awards, and continues to screen worldwide. It was named one of “The Best Films of 2018” by Richard Brody in The New Yorker, who wrote: “the text alone, transcribed, would be a primer in live-wire poetic lucidity.”
Michelle spent two decades as a reporter and researcher for various magazines, including Newsweek, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times Magazine.
She is now working on various independent documentary projects and a media awareness campaign co-created with advocates navigating neurocognitive change.
https://www.michellememran.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-memran-a22260131/
Thursday at 3pm
Film Programme - First Cousin Once Removed
Documentary Film + Creative Collaboration as Care, Transforming Dementia Narratives through Participatory Filmmaking.
Brain Health is impacted by culture. Culture is changed by narrative, and narratives in popular culture are often changed by film.
Michelle Memran shared films and facilitate discussion about creative collaboration, representation, narrative health, bearing witness, and truth-telling.
Director Alan Berliner was not there in person for this event, but there was a recorded Q&A with Michelle Memran shared after the film along with a live discussion with Natasha Duffy.
First Cousin Once Removed
Shot over the course of five years, First Cousin Once Removed is Alan Berliner’s intimate portrait of his cousin, friend, and former mentor—the poet, translator, and teacher Edwin Honig—and his journey through Alzheimer’s disease. It is an unflinching and beautiful essay on the fragility of being human, hailed by The New York Times as Berliner’s “strongest work.”
“Some docs are journalism. Some are history. Some are entertainment. Very few aspire to poetry — First Cousin Once Removed by Alan Berliner being a notable exception.” – John Anderson, Indiewire
Contributors
Alan Berliner’s uncanny ability to combine experimental cinema, artistic purpose, and popular appeal in compelling film essays has made him one of America’s most acclaimed independent filmmakers.
The New York Times has described Berliner’s work as “powerful, compelling and bittersweet… full of juicy conflict and contradiction, innovative in their cinematic technique, unpredictable in their structures… Alan Berliner illustrates the power of fine art to transform life.”
Berliner’s experimental documentary films, LETTER TO THE EDITOR (2019), FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED (2013), WIDE AWAKE (2006), THE SWEETEST SOUND (2001), NOBODY’S BUSINESS (1996), INTIMATE STRANGER (1991), and THE FAMILY ALBUM (1986), have been broadcast all over the world, and received awards, prizes, and retrospectives at many major international film festivals. Over the years, his films have become part of the core curriculum for documentary filmmaking and film history classes at universities worldwide. All of his films are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
In 2006, the International Documentary Association honored Berliner with an International Trailblazer Award “for creativity, innovation, originality, and breakthrough in the field of documentary cinema.” Berliner is a recipient of Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and Jerome Foundation Fellowships and multiple grants from the NEA, NYSCA, and NYFA. He’s won three Emmy Awards and received seven Emmy nominations.
Website: http://www.alanberliner.com/
Natasha Duffy is a creative producer and director working across theatre, film, and large-scale live events. As Creative Director of Sofft Productions, she leads a multidisciplinary arts and production company dedicated to contemporary Irish work, overseeing theatre and film development alongside high-end event production.
Natasha produced the critically acclaimed play An Old Song, Half Forgotten, and is currently directing a documentary of the same name, exploring the creative process behind the work and its themes of memory, loss, and care. She is also the creator of Home is Where the Hearth Is, a celebrated documentary series capturing traditional Irish music sessions in rural pubs. The series has screened at festivals worldwide and earned her Best Director at the Berlin Indie Film Awards.
With over 20 years of experience in the arts, Natasha brings a uniquely holistic and collaborative approach to producing, combining dramaturgical insight with bold creative vision. She holds a BA in Film and Theatre from Trinity College Dublin and continues to champion innovative, meaningful projects that connect artists and audiences in powerful ways.
https://www.sofftproductions.com/
https://www.instagram.com/natasha_catriona/
Currently an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, Michelle Memran is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and visual artist working in dementia awareness and creative aging advocacy. Through co-creation and participatory filmmaking, she’s committed to changing society’s stigmatized view of dementia by amplifying the voices of individuals living with these conditions.
Her debut documentary film, The Rest I Make Up, chronicled a decade-long creative collaboration and friendship with visionary Cuban-American playwright María Irene Fornés after she stopped writing due to Alzheimer’s. Together, they discovered a camera could continue Fornés’s creative process and begin a vital new artistic process for them both. Their film premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in 2018, received numerous festival awards, and continues to screen worldwide. It was named one of “The Best Films of 2018” by Richard Brody in The New Yorker, who wrote: “the text alone, transcribed, would be a primer in live-wire poetic lucidity.”
Michelle spent two decades as a reporter and researcher for various magazines, including Newsweek, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times Magazine.
She is now working on various independent documentary projects and a media awareness campaign co-created with advocates navigating neurocognitive change.
https://www.michellememran.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-memran-a22260131/
EXHIBITION
RE-FRAMING - Mandala by Rachel Fitzpatrick
With thanks to Brain Injury Matters NI and Acquired Brain Injury Ireland, especially Ciara O’Malley, Gráinne McGettrick and Aoife Lucy.
The installation Re-Framing, was a collaboration between Rachel and participants connected with Brain Injury Matters NI and Acquired Brain Injury Ireland. Re-Framing is a visual representation of a cyclical journey of change and transformation after acquired brain injury. Previous versions developed in Belfast and Philadelphia. This was a first all Island creative response to brain injury.
About the Installation
Over several months of workshops, Rachel and participants worked to develop a way to create origami ‘brains’. The installation is created in loops or ripples of origami brains, representing a cyclical journey of re-framing life after acquired brain injury.
Colour was discussed at length during the sessions. Bright colours dominate the final piece, representing positive memories and experiences. Black is omitted as it was thought to be a negative colour, there is no room for negatively when reframing life – only moving forward. White is absent as the group believed this colour represents the immediate period of time post trauma, when you make peace with your deficits and commit to reframing your life.
This installation consists of over 3,000 pieces of paper shapes, all formed by people with acquired brain injury who had differing physical impairments associated with their brain injury. As new confidence grew with the techniques over weeks of making, different shapes evolved. https://www.rachelfitzpatrickdesign.com/rachelfitzpatrickartist
Contributors
Rachel Fitzpatrick graduated from the School of Art & Design in Belfast in 2005 with a degree in Fine and Applied Art specialising in textiles. Since then she has worked with a variety of creative clients across the globe with noteable appearances in the United States, France, Germany, Japan and the Venice Biennale, Italy. In Ireland her work as been collected by private clients and can be viewed in Michelin star restaurants in Dublin.
In recent years Rachel has developed a more socially engaged strand to her practice working closely with galleries, schools and councils in Northern Ireland to create workshops aimed to develop creative skills and confidence. During the 2020-2021 Covid lockdowns Rachel developed a series of children’s online workshops in partnership with the FE McWilliam Gallery & Studio to stimulate creativity and playfulness at home. She currently works closely with the MAC in Belfast as one of their social engaged practitioners supporting their children’s programs and workshops.
Fitzpatrick is committed to supporting the strategic development of the arts sector in Northern Ireland sitting on the boards of both Craft NI and Thrive. She is particularly interested in championing the importance of collaboration across the arts and cultural sectors, cultivating business opportunities and developing international partnerships. Rachel is a member of Design Nation and a coordinator of the Scotland & Northern Ireland Cluster Hub.
www.rachelfitzpatrickdesign.
Aoife has more than a decade’s experience working in the areas of strategic and internal communications, stakeholder relations, marketing and publicity in the community and cultural sectors. Most recently she held the role of Communications and Marketing Manager at Ireland’s national music education programme, Music Generation, and previously worked with leading national and international cultural organisations including Dublin Theatre Festival, the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Canadian Stage and the Abbey Theatre.
A graduate of Trinity College with a degree in Drama Studies and English Literature, Aoife has since completed a Certificate in Management Practice with the University of Ulster and a Certificate in Community Education and Equality Studies at Maynooth University. In her free time, she enjoys running, reading, swimming in the sea and spending time with family.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoifelucey
Grainne is the Director of Policy and Research with Acquired Brain Injury Ireland where she leads the strategic development of the organisation’s policy and research agenda. With a background at the intersection of policy, research, and advocacy in the Irish NGO sector, Gráinne is dedicated to addressing health inequalities and championing the human rights of those facing exclusion due to ageing, dementia and disability. She has played a key role in leading successful national policy advocacy campaigns, forming alliances and coalitions, engaging stakeholders, and fostering collaborations at national, European and international levels. Gráinne is a Global Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Centre for Policy and Health Management, TCD.
Websites:
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/grainne-mcgettrick
Social Media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gráinne-mcgettrick-77129121/
X; @ABIIreland and @GBHI_Fellows
Instagram: @braininjury_ire
Ciara joined the Brain Injury Matters team in November 2019. Ciara has a BA (Hons) Fine Art, (Sheffield Hallam University), P.G.C.E in Visual Arts with subsidiary in Craft, Design Technology, (Leeds University) and an MA (Dist) Art in Public, (University of Ulster).
Over the last 20 years, Ciara has worked as an artist, artist-in residence, arts facilitator, lead artist, arts coordinator and arts manager initiating, developing and managing a wide range of arts projects with people of ages, abilities and disabilities throughout England, Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, Berlin, Australia, Iceland and in her home, Northern Ireland.
https://braininjurymatters.org.uk/
https://www.vaultartiststudios.com/ciara-omalley
Exhibition
A time otherwhere - John Kelly and Christina Todesco-Kelly
In 2018 after a year of confusing and debilitating symptoms including fatigue, ‘brain fog’, anxiety, severe headaches, tremors, personality change and transient ischaemic attacks (TIA) visual artist John Kelly was admitted to Cork University Hospital, eventually spending months on the Neurology Ward.
“A 53-year-old gentleman with no known medical history was admitted emergently with new-onset status epilepticus. GCS on arrival was 3/15, requiring immediate intubation, transfer to ITU and treatment with IV midazolam, phenytoin and levetiracetam. A fever of 38.5oc was documented and CSF demonstrating a lymphocytic pleocytosis (WCC 18/mm3) and raised protein (1640 mg/l), prompting empiric treatment for infectious meningoencephalitis”1
Initially this was a strange and bewildering time of hallucinations, confusion, and brain biopsies. Over time it led to a diagnosis of primary central nervous system (CNS) vasculitis, and the precarious road to balanced recovery, via powerful drugs and therapies.
“Primary CNS Vasculitis (PCNSV) is a rare and poorly understood condition characterised by inflammation of the blood vessels of the brain and spinal cord. Estimated prevalence is 2.4/1,000,000 person-years in North America1, 2. Clinical symptoms are variable and nonspecific. It may present acutely/subacutely but is more commonly an insidious presentation with a chronically progressive or fluctuating clinical course that may hinder diagnosis, as it did in our patient” 2
John continued to draw when possible through his immersion into this surreal world of brain health in hospitals, or what he now thinks of as his illness imposed “artist’s residency”. Since returning home he’s continued to navigate his experience of being “otherwhere’d” in his pictorial and sculptural works.
At the same time Christina Todesco-Kelly artist, and John’s wife, had a fast track entry to a care givers experience. As a constant presence she saw John struggle with her reality early on, then bore witness to his blossoming recovery. She drew throughout.
In 2023 John’s neurologists and health care team collaborated on a paper, noting,
“Medicine is a specialty increasingly drawn to objectifying the subjective, attributing signs and symptoms to the manifestations of illness, quantifying the severity of illness through laboratory tests and imaging, and trying to scale the functional outcomes. The experience of illness, however, for individual patients is not quantifiable nor standard, and sometimes in the push to objectify, we can lose sight of this and the humanity of an individual situation.
“John’s ability to communicate and portray visually his tribulations so viscerally was something we noted post his illness at Cork University Hospital and in the outpatient clinic. As such, we encouraged John to write this piece as we felt other healthcare professionals could also learn and be inspired by his story.
“John’s journey to a diagnosis of primary CNS vasculitis shows the impact diagnostic uncertainty can have on someone between inappropriate investigations, referrals and treatments, all the while, being taxed with the human cost of an illness, with the condition affecting his personal and work life and interfering with his sense of self. His otherworldly experience in hospital meanwhile is a direct insight into the experience of impaired consciousness and encephalopathy, something we may find easy to diagnose but difficult to explain to patients and families. Finally, while John’s story of recovery is inspiring alone, his works that illustrate the piece add another dimension and allow us to visualise recovery in the arts, something we unfortunately do not get the opportunity to see often.”
This exhibition reflects an individual’s journey through Brain illness, in the visual language of two artists. Art as creative research practice. As a knowledge making process.
- From Hard to diagnose and even harder to treat: a case of treatment-resistant Primary CNS Vasculitis.
- Wrigley, M. O’Donnell, N. Bermingham, M. Jansen, N. Fanning, O.W. Tobin, R. Brown, A. Merwick, S. Lefter
- From “I Told You I Was Ill” originally published in Neurological Miscellany 30 January 2023. Authors John Kelly, Martin Maurice O’Donnell, Sarah Wrigley,Áine Merwick, Stela Lefter
Website:
Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=708134342
Contributors
John Kelly was born in 1965. His father was from County Cork and mother from Bristol, the family immigrated to Australia the same year. Due to his birth, heritage and circumstance John now holds three passports and therefore is an Englishman, an Australian and an Irishman and identifies as both a Joke and an Irish boomerang. Kelly has lived in all three countries and for the past two decades has resided in west Cork, Ireland.
In 1985 Kelly obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts Painting) from RMIT University, Melbourne, where he also completed his Masters of Arts in 1995. As a winner of the 1995 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, he travelled to London to study as an Affiliate Student at the Slade School of Art from 1996 to 1997. In the UK he exhibited regularly with the prestigious Piccadilly Galleries in Cork Street, London, then Agnew, the Redfern Gallery, and is now represented by Smith and Singer (formerly Sothebys Australia)
His monumental sculptures have been exhibited on the Champs-Elysee in Paris (1999), Melbourne’ Docklands 2001 to the present, Monte Carlo (2002) London 2005, Glastonbury Festival 2005 & 2007, Nice, France; MAMAC museum 2007, Cork City 2012, West Cork 2007 to the present, Sunshine, Melbourne Australia 2016 to the present.
His work has been collected into the Yale Center for British Art, the National Gallery of Australia, the Crawford Gallery, Ireland and the Guangdong Museum in Guangzhou China, MONA, Tasmania, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales, etc.
Kelly has undertaken art residencies in Antartica (2013), The Burenn (2014), Venice (2017) & Cork University Hospital (2018/19).
As a painter, sculptor and printmaker Kelly engages across mediums and also writes, having written for Art Monthly (Australia & UK), Circa magazine (Ireland), The Jackdaw (London) and Daily review (Australia). In 2017 he was nominated for a Walkley Award for Arts Journalism. In 2023 his article, ‘I told you I was ill’ was published by the British Medical Journal.
https://johnkellyartist.com/more/
Photo credit: John Minihan 2021
I was born in 1959 and came to a love of art early in life, only to be dissuaded from it in favour of a more stable career. Hence, my early professional life was in corporate London before literally flying out of the city by taking a job at British Airways eventually as cabin crew, where it enabled me to visit every art museum and opera house I could around the world. It was my indirect art education before leaving to focus on being a full-time mother.
Finally, in 2017 at the age of 58, I undertook some life drawing classes above a Dublin art shop and was encouraged to apply to the RHA Dublin drawing programme. This progressed from being taught to being admitted into the self-directed life drawing classes. It was at this time that a quite extraordinary and life-changing event happened; I was late to my first class, and not wanting to cause a disturbance with the session about to start, I made my way to the back of the large room to reach the only available easel – an enormous heavy wooden one suitable for large canvases. The result was that my view of the model was severely restricted; armed with a pen and paper I realised the only way I was going to participate was to draw with my left hand, not my natural right – the images that ensued were utterly different and distinct from what might be rightly described as a tonal ‘academic style’.
Using my left hand countered the restrictive thought processes associated with drawing with my right and found a form of expression that created unpredictable lines of expression that were not preconceived.
When my husband was admitted to CUH a friend, Eoin McGonigal, rang me and said ‘don’t stop drawing’. It was sage advice as it served to distract me both from the serious threat of losing my life partner, and also the extreme fear and anxiety that comes with sitting beside a very sick patient for such a long period of time. John was gradually able to join me, and it became an invaluable continuum that we could share in what was for both of us ‘a time otherwhere’.
Exhibition
Keepsake Chronicles: Stories in times of dementia
Keepsake Chronicle’s is a collaboration between a poet, a photographer, a nurse and people living with dementia. They have been working together developing storytelling groups to keep people with dementia telling their stories, having fun and making some beautiful art, which led to stories, poems, a book and the pictures in this exhibition.
Their starting point is that narrative identity, practised in storytelling, is as important for people living with dementia as it is for anyone. We define, make meaning, and construct the self through storytelling. Unfortunately, social withdrawal is linked as a risk factor, and frequently a symptom, of advancing dementia. With social withdrawal, the opportunity for people living with dementia to make sense of their dementia or changes in their relationships, their own sense of identity, and even self-worth become diminished.
Keepsake Chronicles are storytelling groups with people living in the community with dementia, whom we ask to bring an object that is meaningful to them and that has been in their possession for a long time. Objects appeal because they are tangible (which can help scaffold memory and conversation) and are culturally linked. So, for example, we find distinct differences in the types of objects and stories told and clear distinctions between rural and city life. The group worked together to turn the stories into a beautiful book that the participants can keep as a record of their story and perhaps, later in the dementia, could be used to help others see something of the essence of the person.
The pictures you see are not staged but captured during the storytelling process, and their aim to capture the humanity of the accounts and stand testimony to the richness of existence both before and with dementia.
With thanks to:
- Pat Holmes and staff at Western Alzheimers
- Karen Gorman at Beaumont Hospital
- Iracema Leroi and team at St James’ Hospital Dublin
- Dublin City University staff particularly Patrick Doyle, Rita McCartan, Veronica Lambert
Contributors
Alex is a documentary photographer, specializing in intimate, human stories. He uses still photography, video and sound to capture the essence of those transitory and profoundly human moments. For Alex, stories are a way to create empathy by connecting people.
Born and raised in Lima, Alex became interested in photography during his university studies at Ohio University in the United States where he graduated with a BA in Fine Arts.
In 1998 Alex left Peru to pursue a career as a freelance photojournalist, spending two years covering the war in Kosovo before relocating to Zurich, Switzerland. In Zurich, Alex covered stories in Latin America, Africa and Switzerland for newspapers and magazines such as Du, Tages Anzeiger Magazine and Spiegel. He also photographed a project on diverse Latino groups that was exhibited in Zurich, Lima, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires.
In 2004 Alex returned to Lima and began exploring the beauty of Peru most notably “Faces of Peru,” a lyrical document of the country’s people and photographed the culture of Pisco, Peru’s famous grape brandy. Alex is one of the founders of Hidden Planet Expeditions and is a photography expert/coach on many of the trips.
Alex is an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute and is fluent in Spanish, English and Brazilian Portuguese.
Websites:
https://www.alex-kornhuber.com
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/alex-kornhuber
Social Media:
Kate is a Professor of Clinical Nursing, Dublin City University and she cares for her mother with dementia. For Kate as an academic and nurse, stories are data with a soul that help her connect to patients and relatives.
She completed her PhD in 2001 at Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. This thesis was entitled: Case studies in restraint use. Kate has a significant leadership role Irish dementia policy development and successfully led the national Dementia training initiative: Dementia Skills Elevator, aiming to develop dementia skills capacity in services and communities. Kate has led several European research consortiums in dementia prevention and approaches to care and support. Kate currently teaches the practice development module in Dementia and Ethics in Nursing on the under graduate curriculum.
Website:
https://www.dcu.ie/snpch/people/kate-irving
Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-irving-08b6a521/
X: @IrvingKate
Instagram: @kateirving24
Cathy is a writer and poet; in her workshops, she helps older people gather stories and celebrate them. For Cathy, stories are the way we communicate with each other, the way we understand what it is to be in this world. Stories shared with others in a group often spark other stories, making us feel closer to each other.
Cathy’s love of writing started when she realised that by holding a pencil, you could make letters, and that letters would eventually make stories. She went on to study languages and literature. Later in life, she wrote a PhD thesis on young people’s online diaries, which led to a renewed interest in life-writing and memoirs. She has since designed and taught several courses on memoir writing for older people, and edited several books of collected stories and memoirs.
Website:
Social:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathy-fowley-2855804/
X: @cathyfowley and @silverthread_ie