Event Details
Date
15/09/2023
Time
7pm to 9pm
Duration
2 hours
Location
Nuns Island Theatre
Ticketing
No booking required, but places are limited.
Event Type
Residency, Talk, Event, Screening,
As part of the Museum of Everyone (MOE) Communal – The Art of Coexistence Residency at Galway Arts Centre, the Communal will be hosting an evening of film screenings at Galway Arts Centre – Nuns Island Theatre on 15 September, 7-9pm.
Following the screening Filmmakers Alan and Pradeep will discuss their practice, methodologies and approaches in developing their films. Ranging from how they navigate cultures and histories differently as queer artists to dealing with contemporary and historical preconceptions about homosexuality and subverting them through counterfactual approaches this conversation will also orbit the idea of centring the body through dance as a mechanism to explore both queer histories and racial bias in contemporary queer culture.
THE FILMS
Skin To Skin Talks a film by Pradeep Mahadeshwar
Duration 12 mins
Title: Skin To Skin Talks
Gay Men of Color and The Racial Politics of Exclusion
About the film
“The dark skin alien landed in the unknown, unfamiliar and unique landscape from the infinite darkness…” Completed as part of the artist’s MOE – Communal residency at IMMA, Skin To Skin Talks explores themes of alienation, otherness, sexual racism and outsiderness using abstract imagery, prose and sensation-invoking techniques to reflect on the intersections of race and sexuality.
‘Skin To Skin Talks’ was shot in various exciting locations around Dublin Mountain, Dodder River near Milltown, the film director’s home and the iconic LGBTQ+ party venue in Dublin, Mother Club.
Folly and Diction a film by Alan Phelan
Duration 15 minutes
Title: Folly and Diction
About the film
This film is about John Joly, inventor of the Joly screen colour photography process, narrativised via elements of a story by Samuel Beckett and a poem by Jean Genet; sung by The Late David Turpin and Jrdn (Xona) with music composed by James Kelly and Ian McInerney; and performed by father and son Peter and Luke.
The piece is structured like a music video, yet based on literary sources, with Joly singing a story of unrequited history, of a forgotten moment in the invention of colour photography, poetically recanting loss and abandonment as a way of telling his story.
The video brings the analogue stripes of the Joly screen into the digital age with audio-responsive animations which overlay a troubled biographical narrative about John Joly and his collaborator Henry Dixon.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
Pradeep Mahadeshwar
Pradeep Mahadeshwar (he/they) is originally from India and is now an Irish citizen. He graduated from Buckinghamshire New University MA in Printmaking in 2011. They are a visual artist and an LGBTQ+ activist; writing, illustrations, performance and moving images are among their mediums.
Their work explores identities by collecting written and spoken words, moving images and illustrations based on surreal-looking satires of sexual racism and absurd meditative images to fantasise alternative emotional landscapes with infinite new possibilities for sexual expression and gender identity. Through art practice, he is researching the effects of sexual racism on the mental and sexual health of Queer People Of Colour living in Ireland.
Their recent work, “Skin To Skin Talks”, was screened at the 31st GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival, 2023. This film project also got selected for FRINGE! Queer Film & Arts Fest, London and Queer Lisboa – International Queer Film Festival, Lisbon.
Pradeep is a Museum of Everyone Associate Artist and is currently an artist in residence at IMMA and Galway Art Centre as part of the Museum of Everyone – Communal project.
Alan Phelan works in sculpture, film, museum interventions, public art and collaborations with other artists, writers and curators. Born Dublin, 1968, Phelan received BA, Dublin City University, 1989 and MFA, Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, 1994.
Selected exhibitions include: The Molesworth Gallery, Dublin; Void, Derry; Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris; RHA, Dublin; The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon; The Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery, Irish Museum of Modern Art, The LAB, Dublin; TBG+S, Dublin; LCGA, EVA International, Limerick; Solstice, Navan; Chapter, Cardiff; Bonn Kunstmuseum; Detroit Stockholm; Treignac Projet, France; Bozar, Brussels: ŠKUC, Ljubljana; SKC Gallery, Belgrade; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Public works include Kevin Street Library; Fr Collins Park, IMMA formal gardens and Void Offsites, Derry. His most recent public work is for DCC/Sculpture Dublin, the O’Connell Plinth Commission, a temporary sculpture outside City Hall, Dublin. Alan is a Museum of Everyone Associate Artist.
This event is supported by the Creative Communities Award, Creative Ireland Programme 2023, Galway City Council, Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
