The River Song of the Waterhouse - a workshop
exploring the weirdness of coexistence through art and creative writing led by artist Jack O’Fynn, writer Maria Sledmere and curator Katie O’Grady.

The River Song of the Waterhouse – a workshop exploring the weirdness of coexistence through art and creative writing led by artist Jack O’Fynn, writer Maria Sledmere and curator Katie O’Grady. 

Tuesday, March 4th, 6.30pm – 8.30pm

FREE – booking required https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/the-river-song-of-the-waterhouse-a-workshop-tickets-1259590562279?aff=oddtdtcreator

What does it mean to coexist with the weird, and for this coexistence to itself be weird? Artist Jack O’Flynn has been exploring this idea through his two month residency at Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre creating imagined and crumbling worlds through drawing, sculpture and animation. Exploring intertwined themes of enchantment, ecology, and ruination, Jack creates dream-like fables for a collapsing world, portals to another way of being. His recent body of explorative work develops from shared research and discussions with writer Maria Sledmere and curator Katie O’Grady and their collaborative project The Palace of Humming Trees – spanning ecological thought, folklore and fictioning practices. 

Through a dedicated workshop Jack, Maria and Katie invite attendees to consider what kind of narratives allow us to become weirdly entangled and how can writing and art garner a shift to these narratives. Exploring terms such as ‘ecognosis’ and the ‘melancholic weird’’ they will ask attendees to think coexistence and the implications of its weirdness to the ecological and climate crises through written and visual response. Over the two hours attendees will be guided through creative techniques using ekphrasis, montage, anthropomorphism and world-building. 

Alongside the workshop there will be a showcase of Jack’s artwork from his residency at Uillinn and a reading by Maria of selected poetry from The Palace of Humming Trees. 

Schedule of workshop:

6.30pm – Opening – presentation of Jack O’Flynn’s work and reading by Maria Sledmere

6.50pm – Introduction by Katie O’Grady and critical response

7.05pm – Generative workshop 1: ecognosis

7.20pm – Generative workshop 2: ekphrasis

7.45pm – Generative workshop 3: mapping

8.20pm – Sharing and discussion

8.30pm – End

Glossary:

Anthropomorphism – the attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to a god, animal, or object.

Ecognosis – a process of ‘becoming accustomed to something strange’ in relation to the anthropocene. A slow learning of the human implication in ecological and climate crises.

Ekphrasis – the use of detailed description of a work of visual art as a literary device.

Montage – putting together two or more things that have an unexpected connection (they wouldn’t usually belong together).

World-building – the process of constructing an imaginary world or setting, sometimes associated with a fictional universe.

Biographies:

Jack O’Flynn is an Irish artist based in Bergen, Norway. His practice is focused on combinations of sculpture, installation, drawing and animation, which he uses to create enveloping and intimate worlds of texture, form, image, and sound. Jack graduated with his BA in 2016 from the Glasgow School of Art, and received his MA from the Academy of Art, University of Bergen (KMD) in 2023.

Maria Sledmere is an artist, writer and director of SPAM Press. She is lecturer in English & Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde. In 2022 she completed a DFA in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow, working on a project of ‘hypercritique’ which responds to the anthropocene through entanglements of poetry, essay and journaling. A book-length version of this project, Midsummer Song, is out now with Tenement Press.

Katie O’Grady is a curator based in Cork City, Ireland. Katie graduated with her BA in Printmaking and Contemporary Practice from Limerick School of Art and Design in 2017 and received her MLitt in Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) jointly from the Glasgow School of Art and University of Glasgow in 2021. She is currently working as the Curator of Exhibitions + Projects at The Glucksman, University College Cork.