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Hi Everyone!

Welcome to the IMMA Solidarity Exercises Workshop!

Click on the red circle (lower rt), Title your post with your name, and tell us a little bit about your hopes for the workshop for you and your work/practice!!!
Feel free to upload any images, recorded files, links etc that you'd like to share (easiest to upload by adding comments below)

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Hello!

Very excited to be here :)

My name is Abdelrahman ElGendy, people call me Gendy (shorter and easier to pronounce), I am from Cairo, Egypt.

I was a political prisoner in Egypt for 6 years and 3 months, between October 2013 and January 2020, left prison only to be contained once again instantly by Covid (:

I write; I am an essayist, and am working on a book project right now, documenting my experience in prison from different aspects.

I will leave my writer's profile on Mada Masr (a known independent opposition media platform in Egypt) if you want to have a better idea about my writing.

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Hi Everyone!
I am also very excited to be collaborating with you all in Exercises in Solidarity!  I am a visual artist living in Sligo, Ireland.  In my practice I use photography, performance, text and sound.  I am currently a post graduate student at NCAD studying Art in the Contemporary World part time.
www.BriancooneyPhotography.net
@bcooneyphotography

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hello everyone!

Im really looking forward to this session and the whole summer school....the idea of 'Containment' is really key to the work I have been doing over the past few years as I have been examining Irelands incarceration of women and children in Magdalen Laundries, Industrial Schools and Mother and Baby Homes to name but a few...
I currently have an exhibition ongoing at The National Museum of Ireland:

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Alison Lowry is a rather unique artist in the European context in her commentary through the medium of glass on such discomforting topics as child abuse and domestic violence.

We are delighted to announce that Alison Lowry: (A)Dressing Our Hidden Truths is a recipient of an "Honourable Mention" from the Annual Global Fine Arts Awards 2019.

This exhibition was also nominated for the Annual Global Fine Arts Awards 2019: Global Humanity category in addition to a nomination for the Annual Global Fine Arts Awards 2019: "Youniversal" and "You-2" people's choice awards.

There are parallels in this regard with other media primarily that of painting by way of theme, but there is no artist working in glass who so pointedly and effectively comments on the political, social and emotional fallout from such events as Alison Lowry.

This exhibition of Lowry's work is divided into four distinct areas - installation of suspended sand-cast pâte de verre christening robes, sculptural works responding to the theme of the Magdalene Laundries, a video piece made with performance artist Jayne Cherry and a suit of armour using glass and leather created with the internationally renowned designer Úna Burke.

Amongst the exhibition's highlights is an installation of nine christening robes in pâte de verre (glass paste) spread across two rooms - a profound piece of commentary on the Tuam Mother and Baby Home revelations. Other elements of the exhibition include audio testimony by way of poetry and song from those who experienced the industrial school system and Magdalene Laundries.
View a photo-essay of the exhibition

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Alison Lowry: (A)Dressing Our Hidden Truths | Decorative Arts & History | National Museum of Ireland

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We are delighted to announce that Alison Lowry: (A)Dressing Our Hidden Truths is a recipient of an "Honourable Mention" from the Annual Global Fine Arts Awards 2019. This exhibition was also nominated for the Annual Global Fine Arts Awards 2019: Global Humanity category in addition to a nomination for the Annual Global Fine Arts Awards 2019: "Youniversal" and "You-2" people's choice awards.

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Hello! I'm also really excited to connect with you all.

I'm a video/photo artist based in Wappinger / Lenape homeland (aka upstate New York, USA), and I'm currently working on an Irish Studies Master's dissertation looking at Irish assimilation in Chicago (America) and the ramifications of that process. (My great grandparents emigrated from West Mayo, Ireland to Chicago in the early 20th century)

I'm hoping this workshop will help process some of the body and emotional stuff that comes along with research that feels 'heavy'. Also hoping to have some fun with it all! :)

Some recent projects:
https://white-vinegar.com; https://innrspce.com;                          Strange Heavy (Music Video): https://youtu.be/pa1_dY4mDOU

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Hi everyone! I'm very excited to take part in the summer school with you all.

I recently graduated my masters of architecture from Dublin School of Architecture, TU Dublin. I am from Kildare, and have a great love for art and photography.  I'm interested in the idea of 'containment' in hospital building design, and the impact it can have on an individual.

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/cmphelandesign/
Thesis Website:
https://symbolicrathcroghan.weebly.com/

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Hi Everyone!

I am very much looking forward to meeting you all too!

I am an artist from Dublin using photography and moving image.  I am beginning a new piece of work looking at the hidden nature of spatial injustices that produce urban dwellings that are a kind of trap, such as the living conditions of migrant workers, Direct Provision, homeless shelters, emergency accommodation and the “hidden homeless,” adults and families forced to move back in with their parents due to exorbitant rents (my own situation).

I have recently been very inspired by the work of Leilani Farha:

https://www.make-the-shift.org/the-team/

I am hoping this workshop will help me to understand different experiences of confinement, always with hopes for the future :)

Here is some information about previous work:

http://susangogan.com/wp/index.php/video/potsdamer-platz/

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Hi everyone!
I'm so excited to take part in this summer school and in this workshop.

I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts this year. Now I'm trying to work and live as an artist. I'm Chinese but I've been living in Italy for seven years.

I work with different materials. I like connecting myself with them and exploring their particular characteristics. Sometimes I call myself a researcher.
For me, the idea of containment is closely related to Art.

I'm so glad to be able to exchange my ideas and thoughts with all of you.

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Hello everyone, as others have said, I'm very excited and grateful to be here with you all.

My name is Abby (she/her) and I'm a visual artist with a personal emphasis on community engaging artwork, specifically with the Native American community that I am a part of here in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, the ancestral homeland of the Dakota people. I am currently a student at Normandale Community College, with plans to start graduate studies in Studio Art next year.

Currently a lot of my work for future projects has revolved around the idea of "Containment" in relation to our own identities and how we relate to them.  I look forward to the different perspectives and ideas we'll hear and share over the course of this workshop.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abby_sunde/

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Hi everyone, it was great, to meet you all today, and I can't wait to work with you!

I recently graduated with a Masters in Architecture from TU Dublin, with a focus on an 'Architecture of Care'. This focused on adapting existing social housing to suit the care needs of residents. As such, the idea of containment and the limitations of the domestic realm were key themes in my work.

My thesis work can be found here: https://architectureofcare.weebly.com/

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Hi All, I am Sinéad and I live and work in Belfast.  I graduated in MFA Fine Art from Ulster in June 2020.
I am interested in the possibility of sound as a method of resistance.  Broad themes that inspire me - truth, justice, knowledge and how access to the justice system is impacted by identity, gender, race and class and the structures and language that uphold these systems.

I am working on a few ongoing projects that connect these themes, one with the families of those killed in the McGurk's Bar Bombing in 1971 and another exploring witchcraft trials in Ireland - specifically the first and last trials.
At the beginning of 2021, I participated in the Making the Future programme and I began considering the violent impact of growing up in north Belfast and the effects of living in a segregated community

My website is www.sineadonart.com instagram - @sineadonart
vimeo.com/sineadonart

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My name is Wiola Ujazdowska and I live and work in Iceland mostly in remote East Fjords but at the time of summer school I am at La Cité internationale des arts art residency in Paris.
I am an art worker and my medium is mostly visual art ( installation, painting, video) and performance( dance, happenings, participatory actions) but also I work often as set designer for theaters and curator. My practice is focus on the figure of other and processes of othering from different perspectives ( anthropological, post-humanistic etc.) I like to maintain research in local context to reveal the global dependencies.
So i worked with a community of housekeepers in Reykjavik when they intiatied protests in 2019, migrant families in Iceland, migrant young women from post-soviet countries, retired female painters from a porcelain factory from small town of Włocławek in Poland.
Currently I am researching a community of migrant workers of aluminum smelter in Reyðarfjorður and on a project that is focused on food and identity and how food is a part of interaction in the communities especially from a position of newcomer.

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Hello!
I am a visual artist, curator and writer based in Beirut, Lebanon and Dubai, UAE. I am currently a PhD candidate in the Artistic Research Programme at the University of applied Arts, Vienna.
My artistic practice primarily focuses on video and textiles, especially consisting of complex and layered hand-embroidered compositions

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Black (Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

2012-2013
Embroidery on canvas
25 x 35 cm each

set of 30
Black is a series of works inspired by the idea of blindness and the extent that it has in our world. Using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a draft paper, I have translated the 30 articles of the declaration in braille, embroidering the text in a black thread on 30 black canvases.
Humankind is blind in front of the violations of Human rights, or it pretends to be.
But there is also a sort of blindness to which we do willingly succumb, a comfort zone that allows us to see what we want to see and to ignore anything else which wouldn't fit in the frame.

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2012-2013 Embroidery on canvas 25 x 35 cm each set of 30 Black is a series of works inspired by the idea of blindness and the extent that it has in our world. Using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a draft paper, I have translated the 30 articles of the declaration in braille, embroidering the text in a black thread on 30 black canvases.

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Hi,  as everyone has said, I am very excited to be involved in this IMMA Summer School 2021 Workshop. And collaborting with you all in this exercise of Solidarity. As part of my NCAD Exhibition our group project - exhibition was called We are Solidarity.
I live in Kilkenny went straight from a BA (Hons) in Visual Art WIT to a MFA in NCAD. I have applied for a
PhD through fine art practice @ NCAD which requires the production of a major body of work within a critically reflective frame of enquiry shaped by the student.
My work is  inspired by the association between visual art and observing the viewer’s connection with the artwork. Kirwan’s transition from Sculpture to Video during #Lockdown pushes the limits of the human body’s ability to endurance. Holding her breath underwater. The sole emphasis on Breathing, something we all have in common and a requirement for our very existence.
My project for our end of year NCAD work involved a
CUBE: Rejecting sleekness for a natural, scrappy, and uncertain appearance, articulated by organic lines and odd wobbles. Featureless objects, unidentifiable aside from their actions—the interplay between the material and the reactive environment. Extending the vision of a body into an unforgiving shape, wrapped into a power struggle I cannot overcome — Formatted around the activity that our senses — in this action, the understanding of sight, touch and sound. An interaction piece where the viewer becomes the optical instrument. The experience of various retinal effects, sounds of slow breathing fill the location. A portable model cube 180 cm sq. Covered in black and grey stretchable material—Transparent and opaque. I am interested in how low-fi objects can make a skin sheath between dream and reality, awareness and behaviour through inquiry. As the membrane is there when we are born, part of existence and being created. Materialise touch into sound with the revolutionary Touch-me by Plantronics Translate material objects and the human body into interactive audio. Touch-me MIDI-Controller, 2 x alligator clips and USB cable.

https://www.instagram.com/annieart1965ncad_student/
https://wordpress.com/home/annieartblog.wordpress.com

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Hi everyone.

I live and work in Belfast.  I am currently going into the second year of the ARC masters at IADT.  I am currently using my practice to investigate the idea of contained or 'secret' memories/stories.  How factors such as gender, social status, class etc might impact on how and when we can have a voice.  I am using the process of knitting to examine how these stories might be released through movement.

My instagram is  https://www.instagram.com/cscullionart/