Memory Art Power
Memory - Art - Power brings together five leading cultural practitioners who are involved in the field of archiving to explore some of the fundamental questions around memory building. Why is it that some memories are actively suppressed while others are made deliberately visible? How do we deal with memories that are painful or alien to us? How can we as individuals contribute our own experiences and memories to a wider cultural memory? This symposium looks at how archiving can act as a catalyst in the creation of new forms of production; and furthermore how archive can help us give value to cultural events which have no obvious 'outputs' or which have historically been ignored in favour of more mainstream activities.
An International Symposium which examines the importance of archiving for cultural validation and development.
Thursday 19 October 2006
City Library and Archive, Pearse Street, Dublin 2
SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE
Welcome - 10.30am
Hugh Maguire, Museums and Archives Officer, The Heritage Council of Ireland
Introduction - 10.45am
Declan Gorman, Chair of CityArts Board
Keynote Speaker - 11.00am
Helen Johnston, Director, The Combat Poverty Agency, Dublin
The Combat Poverty Agency is a state advisory agency that develops and promotes evidence-based proposals and measures to combat poverty in Ireland. Helen Johnston has been centrally involved in the development, implementation and analysis of the Irish National Anti-Poverty Strategy. She has worked for the National Disability Authority and the Equality Authority in Ireland and as a social researcher in the Northern Ireland Civil Service.
Questions
Coffee - 11.45am
Keynote Speaker - 12.15pm
Claire Hackett, Co-ordinator, Duchas Living History Project, Belfast
Duchas is the Falls Road Community Council's oral history archive, which records the experience of the conflict in West Belfast. The idea for the Duchas archive took root during the mid 1990's when the organisation began discussions on the significance of history, memory and peace building. Claire Hackett is chair of the storytelling subgroup of Healing Through Remembering, a broad based organisation which focuses on dealing with the past relating to the conflict. She has been an activist in the women's movement for over twenty years.
Questions - 12.45pm
Lunch - 1.15pm
Case Studies - 2.15 to 4.00pm
Dr. Eibhlin Evans - 2.15pm
Eibhlin Evans has published reviews, essays and articles on twentieth century prose and poetry. She lectures to undergraduates in the School of English at University College Dublin and is also part of the new Creative Writing MA. In 2006 she launched the UCD Ireland Life - Writing Archive, a new initiative which aims to collect, catalogue and archive a range of unpublished writings about Irish Lives and lives lived in Ireland.
Eddie Chambers - 2.45pm
Curator, Artist and Writer, Bristol based Eddie Chambers established the African and Asian Visual Artists' Archive in 1989, a facility dedicated to documenting the history, presence and work of British based Black artists. He was awarded a Ph.D. in the History of Art from Goldsmiths College, University of London for his research on Black Visual Arts Activity in England between 1981 and 1986: Press and Public Responses. He is currently Visiting Professor in the History of Art at Emory University in Atlanta.
Nuria Verges - 3.15pm
Political Scientist Nuria Verges is involved in Social Movements in Barcelona and its artistic community. She is involved with two archiving projects; The Common Memory Project which deals with issues around the recovery and access to information on the activities of the European Social Forums; and the Antonia Oral History Archive Project which works to record the oral history of the Republic, Civil War, Dictatorship and Transition to democracy in Anoia County, Spain.
Tea - 3.45pm
Open Forum - 4.15 to 4.45pm
Close and Summary by Hugh Maguire
Supported by The Heritage Council, Dublin City Council, Interface at The University of Ulster, and Masterphoto.
