GARY A. BOYD + JOHN MCLAUGHLIN ARCHITECTS
Making Ireland Modern explores the relationship between architecture, infrastructure and technology in the building of a new nation. Constructed as an open matrix of drawings, photographs, models and other artefacts, the exhibition presents ten infrastructural episodes – Negation, Electricity, Health, Transportation, Television, Aviation, Education, Telecommunications, Motorways, Data – spanning a period of one hundred years from 1916-2016. Exploring a range of scales from the detail design of objects to entire landscapes and other territories, Making Ireland Modern describes architecture’s role in transforming the physical and cultural identity of the new state through its intercession in the everyday lives of its population. Staging this exhibition in Ireland in 2016 presents an
opportunity for a broad public to celebrate the role of architecture and infrastructure in the construction of the Irish state at a particular moment of commemoration and cultural examination of our recent past. Making Ireland Modern is a key Touring Project in ART: 2016: The Arts Council’s programme as part of Ireland 2016, and is also supported by The Government Policy on Architecture and The Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland (RIAI).
Touring Exhibition:
Galway International Arts Festival, 11 – 24 July 2016
St. Peter’s Centre, Cork, 8 Sept – 1 October
Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin, 13 Oct – 12 November
Presented in significant and central locations in Galway, Cork and Dublin the exhibition in 2016 expects high visitor numbers and broad public impact. Joint commissioners-curators Gary A. Boyd + John McLaughlin
Participants
Electricity Supply Board Ireland (ESB) + Siemens Schuckert
Grafton Architects + Roughan O’Donovan Civil Engineers
Michael Scott Architect
Noel Dowley Architect
Norman White Architect (Dept. of Health)
Office of Public Works Architects + Aer Rianta Architects
Peter + Mary Doyle Architects
Ronald Tallon (Scott Tallon Walker Architects)
Making Ireland Modern expands on the successful research and exhibition of Infra-Éireann as Ireland’s representation at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014. Involving a physical and conceptual expansion of the work, the pavilion will be reconfigured and extended, and the exhibition material will expand and shift to address a broad Irish audience. Alongside the main exhibition, discussion will be furthered through workshops, site visits, tours, events and festival partnerships including with Galway International Arts Festival, Culture Night Cork, the Glucksman Gallery and Open House Dublin. This programme of situated events will engage with other art forms, will activate significant buildings, and will provide a long term legacy through publication and new online resources.
Links and further information
Gary A. Boyd: Co-Commissioner/Curator.
Gary A. Boyd has a long established record of communicating architecture through teaching, publications and other means. Gary is Reader in architecture at Queen’s University, Belfast and Director of the Masters of Architecture (M.Arch) programme. http://bit.ly/28R1oO0
John McLaughlin: Co-Commissioner/Curator
John McLaughlin is a practicing architect whose work covers a range of scales integrating architecture with urbanism, landscape and art. He currently holds a position of Senior Lecturer in Cork Centre for Architectural Education, and he has taught in many other schools of architecture in both Ireland and the UK. johnmclaughlin.ie
Other researchers and contributors include:
Gareth Doherty (Harvard Graduate Design School), Kevin Donovan (UCD / DIT), Sarah Lappin (QUB), Denis Linehan(UCC), Roseanne Lynch (Artist), Aoibheann Ni Mhearain (UCD, Princeton), Ellen Rowley (TCD), Anna Ryan (SAUL) Una Walker (NCAD), Brian Ward (DIT).
Press contacts:
John McLaughlin and Gary A. Boyd
John McLaughlin
M: 087 7621768
E: john@johnmclaughlin.ie
Gary A. Boyd
M: 087 9119249
E: g.boyd@qub.ac.uk
www.artscouncil.ie/Art-2016/Making-Ireland-Modern/
https://stpeterscork.ie/event_exhib/making-ireland-modern/
