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Made Public, co-curated with Manuela Moser and Kate Murphy
an intervention in Catalyst Arts’ library resource
May ‘22
Made Public explored Catalyst Arts’ library, bringing the resource to life through a number of events, workshops and readings. The project centred around the library as a space for encounter and collective conversation, as well as a space that reflects Catalyst Arts’ yearly programme. Find the exhibition text below.
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Throughout the past few months, Catalyst Arts’ library has been displaced, moved from our previous premises at 5 College Court to 6 Joy’s Entry. This provided an opportunity to interact with the resource in a different way as books, pamphlets, zines and broadsheets were moved from shelves, and packed into boxes.
Whilst unpacking these boxes we discussed the ways in which the library could be used as a collective resource, and we decided to take this time to open up the Catalyst Arts library to the public by installing it in our main gallery and hosting a series of events. Through this we hope to explore the library as an open and inclusive resource, one that can be reflective of collective practices and bring people together through conversations.
The Catalyst Arts library is a unique entity (as all libraries are), collected almost haphazardly by past directors; it is a study in all the extraordinary thinking and research that has happened over the last 29 years, and in all of the artists who have exhibited, performed, curated and written for, Catalyst Arts. And the beautiful nature of libraries is that they contain multitudes, and we have found in this library books that reflect our own approaches and interests, from books exploring community, labour, materiality, poetry, the archive and architecture. We’ve encountered books we have read, and books we never knew existed, guided, as Ciaran Carson might have it, by the ‘library angel’.
With Made Public, we hope to expand the library, not just through adding more publications (by asking what and who is missing), but by allowing it to create new experiences and encounters. Reading as an act of transformation, interpretation and creation.
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Events as part of OFF SITE:
hand-building, ceramic workshop with Ronan Smyth
Conceived through conversations surrounding the new Catalyst site, in particular our outdoor space. During the workshop, Ronan guided participants through the making of clay pots. hand-building also invited the public to create a communal, shared resource of seeds and propagated plants to be sowed within the clay pots.
Free the Catalyst Archive, workshop with Marta Dyczkowska
Taking inspiration from the book Arkive City, in particular the essay New Model Arkive by Victoria Worsley, Marta held a workshop which mapped the beginnings of Catalyst Arts. Free the Catalyst Archive aimed to initiate discussions around how to make a living archive, and encouraged the audience to encounter and discuss the resource at Catalyst Arts.
Retreat to Stone, Stone in Retreat publication launch with Nollaig Molloy
Retreat To Stone, Stone in Retreat (2021) contains personal texts which resonated with archeological and industrial sites in Nollaig’s locality. These places are inhabited by limestone outcrops, hawthorn trees and gorse bushes; the ever-present yet changing characteristics of the land. The texts present memories of exploring ringforts as a child, digital and real-time experiences of earth works and the material economy of limestone and gorse flower. Within the publication, these materials occur in the form of screen-printed limestone ink and flocked gorse petal fibres.
slow studies, a reading group with Cecelia Graham and Grace Jackson
slow studies is a collaborative reading, listening and watching group that utilises the Catalyst Arts library as a springboard to explore alternatives to outcome oriented structures within the arts organisation. As a group, we will interrogate practices such as categorisation and hyperproductivity, and will create a collective list of resources which lay the foundation for an inclusive, accessible and honest arts space.
Supported by Arts Council Northern Ireland.