The Oonagh Young Gallery in collaboration with the Monto Arts Group and artists Mary Jo Gilligan and Seoidin O’Sullivan was one of the three successful projects in the first year’s Docklands Arts Fund Small Grants Scheme (2016)

Their project commenced in September 2016, and progressed in 2017.

Seoidín O’Sullivan:

For most of us the city environment is the norm and we spend much of our time indoors, protected from the natural environment outside. However, the outdoor environment is also radically changed by urbanisation and when we walk through it we experience rapid changes in wind, temperature, sunshine, air quality, rainfall and so on over very short distances. Some of these outcomes are created by design but more often than not, they are unintended.

The Drawing Day 2017 walk explored the climate in the city centre area using our senses (sight, touch, smell, hearing) and our experience of thermal (dis)comfort to interpret the urban landscape and its impact on humans. The explorations of climate and our bodily perceptions of these will be led by Gerald Mills and participants record these experiences by making drawings led by artist Seoidín O’Sullivan. This walk forms part of Seoidín O’Sullivan Art Project commission for The Docklands Arts Fund called ‘Weather Station,’ one of three successful projects in the first year’s Docklands Arts Fund Small Grants Scheme (2016). Gerald Mills is Associate Professor in Geography at UCD. His research focuses on the climates generated by urban areas and potential for planning and design to create comfortable and healthy outdoor environments. Seoidin O’Sullivan’s art projects are collaborative and focus on people joining together in action to protect or develop an aspect of their local commons. Creative out put includes drawings, video, publications, walks and pedagogical exchange. www.seoidinosullivan.com

Mary Jo Gilligan – The Makings of the Wider Docklands:

Mary-Jo Gilligan’s work responds to the specific context of the wider Dublin Docklands zone. She
is interested in creating situations that kindle new relationships with a place. Partly live research,
and partly poetic interventions, this work is exploring agency and constellations of relationships
between people and the Docklands in the context of city planning, shaping and encountering.
“I am working together with other people who have a relationship with this part of the city to dig into the question: What makes the wider Docklands?  Walks, archaeology and conversation are key modes that I am using to explore layers of both the visible and invisible materials that constitute the area. Artefacts from underground, overground and from within people, are being pulled out for close examination and conversation about what shapes and reinforces the wider Docklands. The emergent dynamic between the ideas of people who work and/or dwell in the area, the man made constructions of buildings and bridges, and the various bodies of moving water that form the local environment, is opening up new space to reconsider separate perceptions of our shared world.”

Encounters and dialogue that explores the area are ongoing. There was an open invitation to join the conversation in walks and talks between June 24th – 4th July 2017, running on Mondays from Ringsend Library, Tuesdays from Charleville Mall Library and Saturdays from Pearse Street
Library.

If you are interested in participating please do get in touch with Mary-Jo: mary.j.gilligan@gmail.com