
PRAGMATA Residency April
On 18 April 2022 by Deej_Fabyc1During our residency at Milford House, we developed our ongoing project Growing Sculptures From The Land, where we investigate the landscape through performative sculpture making. Using mud, cloth, stone and sound.
We started from the writings of Schelling about the cosmological intricacies of the system of nature, art and culture, just as much as BBC documentary series Around The World In 80 Gardens, alongside the concrete ideas of borders, nations and communities in relation to mud.
Reading sections from Timothy Morton All Art Is Ecological, Thomas Nail Theory Of The Earth, and Fredric Jameson Archaeologies Of The Future, we developed thinking about co-existence, re-wilding, place and space. We saw the layers of fallen trees and undergrowth growing out of the destruction of the old, into hypercities of bugs and critters, birds and plant life. We have been particularly inspired by the idea that everything emits time, as well as the deep understanding of the existence of others. The work became involved in geological relations between the soil, human culture, and nature.
We performed the making by digging the mud material from the ditches, filtering through the cloth and hanging them on the trees; then tending the sculptures day by day until they were ripe. Plucking them from the trees and opening the cloth to reveal the mud shapes, the fire pit dried them into fragile, cracked artworks. We then transferred the sculptures into the screen so they can travel freely. Finally, we placed the remnants of the physical mud sculptures in the public space of Portumna Forest, where they will participate in the ongoing ecosystem dialogue, decomposing, feeding, being part of the ground.
Here’s our Pragmata Collective artist statement:
Pragmata Collective is engaged in art-making with people things and places that are: sometimes private but relate to public; sometimes personal but relate to social; networked, entangled, technological; performed, prescriptive, perchance; researching, learning.
Pragmata is the collaborative practice of artists Adele Lazzeri and Toby Tobias Kidd.
https://pragmatacollective.co.uk/
Adele’s research and art practice revolve around sculptural experiments as philosophical enquiries into the geological-cosmological relations between art and nature.
@adelelazzeri
Kidd’s critical and conceptual art practice is a celebration of the evolving idea through experimentation, futurity, pop-song and dialogue.
@t0bytobiaskidd










Convergence Open Call
On 18 April 2022 by Deej_Fabyc1Live Art Ireland together with Bbeyond are collaborating to create a new Performance Art event ‘Convergence’ Curated by Deej Fabyc and Sandra Corrigan Breathnach.
We are calling for proposals for six solo performances that will be taking place at Live Art Ireland’s Ealaín Bheo Centre for Art Research and Development on the 15th of July 2022.
We are looking for new works created specifically for the event that may or may not be site specific. Information re the space can be found by visiting https://www.live-art.ie/milford-house/
Selected artists will receive a 200 Euro artists fee.
Application Deadline | 6th May 2022
Application Information:
- Please send a short Bio. of no more than 200 words
- Please send a short Statement of no more than 200 words
- Please send 3 good quality performance art images of at least 300dpi
- Please send on links to an online source to view your work – reviews etc. (Websites or Facebook etc.)
- Please send an outline of your proposed performance – (Please Note This Must be a New Work) 250 Words MAX.
- Please Note – Applications are welcome in a non traditional form from artists with additional access needs. Please contact Deej at live.art.ireland@gmail.com or Sandra at bbeyond@europe.com to make arrangements.
Live Art Ireland and Bbeyond are performance art organisations that strongly believe that creativity and the arts are for all. We are committed that Convergence will be an inclusive equal opportunities event, which strives to be open to artists from every background, we welcome applications from artists of different religious beliefs and political opinion, different ethnicities, differing marital status and sexual orientation, gender and persons with disabilities and additional access needs, persons with dependents and persons without.


Our Programme for 2022
On 11 February 2022 by Deej_Fabyc1Proposed programme for 2022
In late February we will have our annual open call for residencies for 2022
In April we welcome the Pragmata artist duo to Milford house for three weeks to create performative environmental sculpture. ‘Our residency at Milford House will develop work that was born in a residency with the Bastioni Association in Florence. Using mud, plaster, metals, clay, we will build our sculptural practice of ‘growing’ sculptures from the earth. This project is a series of investigations using methods of digging and moulding in the ground and rock. ‘
In May we welcome Daniele Minns and Carol Kennedy to the house to create a collaborative residency for Bealtaine.
In July we are developing a three day festival in collaboration with Bbeyond Irish Performance art organisation
In Late July we welcome Ella DeBurca to Milford house for a residency
In August – September we Have a residency with Simona Pavoni & Alessandra Viva developing a operatic live performance work with other artists from Milan and Borrisokane
In November we present Alive & Kicking a live performance art and video festival here at Milford House

Kate Barry
On 29 December 2021 by Deej_Fabyc1Contested Site: a live art performance
by Kate Barry





Contested Site was situated in one of the old barns (circa 1700), on the lands of Milford House in Tipperary, Ireland. The first time I entered the barn, I knew I would perform there. I was struck by a series of etchings and some graffiti dug into the old, lime plaster. The hand-drawn etchings were daisy-wheels, or carpenter’s marks, and are known today as “witches marks”. These ancient symbols of protection ward off evil spirits. They’re found in the dark places of a home, or barn, such as a remote corner, under a sink, or in this case carved into the very back wall. Among the daisy-wheel etchings there was some barely legible, handwritten graffiti that read, On Ash Wednesday 1940 James McCormack and Peter Barnes lost their gallant Lives for Ireland. Gone but not forgotten. Whist lives the IRA.-P. F According to Brendan Anderson’s book, “Joe Cahill: A Life in the IRA”, 2002, James McCormack and Peter Barnes were members of the Irish Republican Army who were executed at Winson Green Prison in Birmingham on 7 February 1940 for participation in the 1939 Coventry bombing which killed five people. The men admitted to constructing the bomb but claimed not to be involved in planting it. The graffiti memorialized their lives and deaths. The etchings and graffiti were a strange juxtaposition between time and space, violence and peace, protection, and vulnerability. It was difficult to get my head around but, thankfully Live Art Ireland residency director and artist Deej Fabyc, and artist and director MJ Newell were there to walk me through it. They contextualized the etchings and graffiti by tactfully navigating my overtly romantic ideas of the site. They directed me to historical facts while addressing the overall taboo subjectivity of the place.
In Contested Site, my cis-female, queer body is explored as a site of contention in relation to the barn. As a relational, site-specific performance piece, I utilized cypress branches salvaged from the land after a Code Red winter storm and some dead bramblebush weed. I employed my body to make lip-prints, and I painted with a handmade brush made from copper piping and synthetic hair. The element of relational practice extended to the other artists on site, Day Magee, Deej Fabyc, MJ Newell and the dog, Ziggy. I performed for the spirits of the barns, and the surrounding natural life. The performance was mediated by two cameras, one camera was directed toward on the canvas, and the second camera framed the overall installation of the piece.
During the Contested Site performance I created a performance-painting in black & white with acrylic and household paint on un-stretched canvas. I started and ended the performance by holding a pitchfork and ringing a bell three times. Contested Site centered on four actions: sweeping the painting surface with branches from the cypress tree, creating lip-prints by kissing the canvas on the ground, painting circles with my homemade paintbrush, and whipping the canvas with bramble weeds. Each action was performed twenty-five times and the four performative actions totaled one hundred to mark the Republic’s centennial.
The performance took place on a chilly evening on December 14, 2021, and was broadcast over Zoom to an audience of about fifty people for the Virtually Live and Streaming exhibition that featured the work of ten local and international artists. It was produced through an artist residency with Live Art Ireland onsite at Milford House in rural Borrisbane, Tipperary.

Virtually Alive & Steaming
On 18 December 2021 by Deej_Fabyc1image: Kate Barry, V Painting, 2017-ongoing. Image credit: Alisha Weng.

Live art Ireland is excited to present a hybrid live/online event on the 14th of December at 6pm. Both Irish and International artists will present live art performance works and films designed for simultaneous online and live presentation.
Artists include: Day Magee(Ireland) Simona Pavoni (Italy) Amanda Millis (US) Kate Barry(Canada)Niamh Seana Meehan(Ireland), Mary Wycherley(Ireland)Rob Monaghan(Ireland)Andriy Helytovych (Ukrane) Ella De Burca(Ireland) Curated by Deej Fabyc & Carol Kennedy
Please see the Link to the Zoom Webinar below



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