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The Good Hatchery is now accepting proposals for its main annual program: Celestial Salt. This years project aims to investigate the role of contemporary art outside of its comfort zones and usual supports. Artists from all disciplines are invited to propose the presentation of pre-existing work in the environment that surrounds The Good Hatchery.

Selected artists will be provided with an amount of financial and technical support along with transport, local information, workspace and accomodation as required. The outcomes of the project will be documented in a comprehensive publication and be presented at an event detailing the issues arrising from this project.

Celestial Salt will take place in November and December 09. The deadline for submissions is Friday 9th October 09.

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To see a detailed Celestial Salt brief please click here.

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Ritual Flux 51

The 41st Birr Vintage Week & Arts Festival officially opens on Friday 14 August 2009 at 7pm. All the venues are open on Saturday 15 August 12-6pm and daily until Friday 21 August at 6pm.

This year the visual arts trail opens the doors of several historic buildings throughout Birr town centre. Through the generosity of the Festival committee and local business Ritual Flux 51 is housed in 6 venues throughout Birr town centre. Venues include: Masonic Hall & Estate Office, Rosses Row, P. C. Dolan’s Bike Shop, Main Street, Birr Public Library, Johns Hall on Johns Mall and Spinners Town Hall Gallery, Castle Street.

Curated by Eilís Lavelle, Ruth Lyons and Carl Giffney, Ritual Flux 51, includes exhibitions, artist’s talks, walking tours and live events. The Festival offers a unique opportunity for artists and audiences to access these historic locations and exhibitions have been installed in such unique sites as the Masonic Hall, John’s Hall and the Georgian Estate Office.

The Masonic Hall (1767) on Rosses Row houses an exhibition by the Irish artist James Merrigan. For this solo exhibition Merrigan has conceived of a new body of work that responds to this particular location.

“The historic building has inspired a new body of work which is both site-specific and alien to the space. It has really brought about a reflection on particular histories that revolve around community, religion and conviviality. The architecture of the Masonic Hall has been a driving force behind the work, and will be reflected in the appropriated films, forms and histories that make up the work.” –James Merrigan, July 2009

Johns Hall (1833) houses a unique International group exhibition that brings together the work of the renowned Irish artist Seán Hillen, the Germany artist Ulrich Vogl and the Dublin-based, American artist Theresa Nanigian.

The group exhibition in the Estate Office on Rosses Row showcases some exciting large-scale sculptural works by two promising Limerick-based artists Patrick Keaveney and Chris Borland alongside the darkly enchanting work of artist Ann Mulrooney and new paintings by Philippa Sutherland and Kevin Mooney.

A video installation by Anne Maree Barry can be found in P. C. Dolan’s Bike Shop on Main Street and ‘The Polish Language’ an animation by Alice Lyons and Orla McHardy will be shown in Birr Public Library.

Founders of The Good Hatchery, Ruth Lyons and Carl Giffney were invited by independent curator Eilís Lavelle to collaborate in formulating this year’s visual arts programme in Birr. The curators drew on the influential work by Ivan Illich ‘Tools of Conviviality’. In it Illich outlines a proposal for the appropriation of technology by the community and the ordinary citizen. For Illich, the community only really appropriates the tool when the community itself participates in developing the tool and the tool then empowers them.

Illich focused on the original Latin root of “convivial” meaning “..to live with” as opposed to the contemporary meaning “…friendly, lively and enjoyable”. “In post-Celtic Tiger Ireland and in the context of global economic collapse we were struck by the poignancy and relevance of Illich’s seminal work. There are things, or ways of being that bring us together and there are others that drive us apart. Today, more than ever, mutual support and collaboration are crucial to survival and success. Our curatorial aim for this year’s exhibition is to open the discussion on these and related issues.” – Eilís Lavelle July 2009.

The curators will host an afternoon of artists’ talks, presentations and discussion on Saturday 15 August between 3-6pm at Johns Hall. Margaret Hogan, local historian will conduct a walking tour stopping at the various historic buildings, timed to coincide with the artists talks. Monday 17 August, The Maltings, 2:30pm.

Other live events include: A Fluxus Anthology film screening accompanied by live music by artists Russell Hart and Sven Anderson. This is a chance to see films by experimental artists Yoko Ono, John Cale and George Maciunas and others. Spinners, Town House Gallery, Castle Street, Sunday 16 August, 9pm.

We were very pleased when we noticed that  The Solution ,  Ruth Lyons’ and Carl Giffney’s collaborative work created for THIS MUST BE THE PLACE, the inaugural exhibition of IMOCA (Irish Museum of Contemporary Art), was mentioned in an article by Meave Connolly on the Dublin art scene, in the latest edition of FRIEZE Magazine. The printed version also featured an image of the Good Hatchery’s piece!

-The interest in archival modes of presentation in contemporary art over the past few years has also recently been contested by some Dublin-based artists. ‘This Must Be The Place’ (2009), curated by Paul Murnaghan and Sally Timmons, presented works by ten artists’ collectives at the inaugural exhibition of the self-styled, artist-run Irish Museum of Contemporary Art (IMOCA). Located (just like IMMA) outside the city centre, IMOCA is housed within a leaky, disused warehouse rather than a preserved historical landmark. Participants in the show were asked to respond to a specific question – How Do We Think?  – in any form other than an archive. The results were startling both in terms of scale and form. Artist collective The Good Hatchery, based in a converted hayloft in a rural area of county Offaly, built a large structure (entitled The Solution, 2009) that referenced Bernd and Hilla Becher’s canonical images of water towers and catalogued some Irish examples, while also dispensing water….

Please follow this link to the full article

Further documentation of The Solution and other projects can be found at these sites.

carlgiffney.wordpress.com

ruth.ie

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Work has begun on Ritual Flux 51, this years annual visual art exhibition in Birr’s Vintage week and Arts festival. This year Eilís Lavelle will be curating the show along with Carl Giffney and Ruth Lyons, from The Good Hatchery. Exhibiting artists include: Ulrich Vogl, Philippa Sutherland, Theresa Nanigian, Seán Hillen, Orla McHardy, Alice Lyons, Kevin Mooney, Ann Mulrooney, James Merrigan, Patrick Keavney, Chris Borland, Anne Maree Barry, Sven Anderson & economicthoughtprojects’ Russell Hart.  Ritual Fluz 51 and the 41st Birr Vintage Week & Arts Festival officially opens on Friday 14 August 2009 at 7pm.

Above Patrick Keavney is pictured beginning his installation in a Georgian Esate house, one of the many interesting sites that will be used around the town. Others include the Masonic Hall, P. C. Dolan’s Bike Shops, Birr Public Library, St. Johns Hall and Spinners Town Hall Gallery. Full details on events, artist talks, film screenings, opening times and related celebrations will be posted here in the coming days.

Ruth E. Lyons’ and Carl Giffney’s latest collaborative work; their solo show entitled     Iridescence A at Monster Truck Gallery, is the subject of a beautiful article ‘The Good Hatchery: Iridescence A and the ultra-ordinary, Monster Truck Gallery, Dublin’ by the curator and writer Claire Feeley in Circa on line. Please follow this link to read the article.

For further documentation of the work please visit

www.carlgiffney.wordpress.com

www.ruth.ie

We would like to celebrate this fantastic Summer we are having in the Good Hatchery by inviting artists to come and spend a weekend in the newly whitewashed hayloft while getting to know the beautiful surroundings. Over the weekend visitors can take in the unique environment of the sprawling black beaches and scramble around on the rare grasses of the herbaceous dunes, if you are lucky you may even catch a glimpse of the much fabled ‘Bog Dolphins’!.

Other outdoor activites include leisurely strolls along the nearby Grand Canal and hikes up the lofty Croghan Hill.

The first of these weekends entitled ‘From Daingean, with Love…’ will take place from the 3rd- 5th July. During the weekend the visitors will be asked to design a postcard in response to the local area. Over the summer months the postcards will be printed and made available in the local Daingean post office. Visitors will be asked for a small donation towards the cost of printing.

FURTHER DATES FOR THE POSTCARD PROJECT

7th-9th        August

21st-23rd    August

28th-30th  August

Interested artists may apply by emailing  Ruth Lyons  at  thegoodhatchery@gmail.com

Along with the following

-  2 jpegs (no larger than 300KB) of their favorite images (these may be images of the artists own work/ images which inspire the artist /images which represent their artistic interests or a combination )

-  A brief artist statement

The annual Pheonix Festival takes place from 17th-19th July. The highlight of the festival is a balloon launch from Lloyd town park. In a bizarre and slightly morbid sense of celebration this festival commemorates one of Tullamore’s claims to fame as the site of the first ever air disaster in the world. In 1785, during Lord Charleville’s birthday celebrations, the town’s centre was destroyed by a wayward balloon which crashed setting most of the town ablaze.

This year the artist Niamh White has organised a visual art exhibition to coincide with the festivals annual events. The exhibition entitled No Fixed Abode ,opened on July 6th and marks the first time the visual arts has featured in this annual festival. The exhibits, as the title alludes to , are sited in various shop fronts and empty retail units throughout the town, the show is curated by the Tullamore based artist Niamh White.

Over the weekend Ruth Lyons, Chris Timms and Francis Quinn set to work creating their exhibit VvvRoom ; a lifesize model of a boyracer car constructed from timber, cardboard and plastic sheeting. The immense installation harbored nearly the entire first floor of the hatchery before being dismantled, transported and installed in the empty retail unit on the Monday afternoon. The installation reflects on how a car, in certain spheres of society and stages of life, can become a site for the expression of personality and the affirmation of status comparable to the ownership of land and the decoration of a home.

our Prototype

white wash

black cat

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Iridescence A is the latest collaborative work by The Good Hatchery artists Carl Giffney and Ruth Lyons. With this new work they are continuing to develop distinct, cooperative art activity that involves both of their individual art practices. This time dealing with the industrial constructions that support our information age, Iridescence A is concerned with illumination, globalisation and the ultra-ordinary.

The exhibition will be opened on Friday 22nd May and will run for two weeks at Monster Truck Gallery, 73 Francis St. Dublin 8.

A wine reception will take place at 7pm on Friday 22nd May. We hope to see you there.

Please find a full press release below:

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For more information please see:

www.monstertruck.ie

www.carlgiffney.wordpress.com

www.ruth.ie

Residents for the experimental art program Springeri 09 are currently at the Good Hatchery.

Gearoid Muldowney, Shane Gannon, Carrol Anne Connolly and Augustine O’Donoghue are working on an eclectic array of projects that include elements of album production, map printing, video and public performance among other things. Outcomes of their developments in the area will be presented on this site next month.

The Good Hatchery is open to unsolicited proposals and requests for residencies.