People

Executive Director Trustee and Advisory board chair

Deej Fabyc

Deej Fabyc has been a practitioner – artist, educator, curator,  project manager and collaborator – for three decades. Their practice spans performance, installation, photography and video. They were based in London, working nationally and internationally as an artist and lecturing at London Metropolitan University. In Spring 2020, They acquired a building and lands of significant cultural, social &  environmental interest in North Tipperary. Milford House will become Ealaiín Bheo Centre for Art Research and Development, a newly constituted company limited by guarantee with charitable aims.

photo Zoe Benbow

Operations Director Board Member and Trustee

MJ Newell

Irish Artist, builder and writer MJ Newell has a cross disciplinary practice spanning performance film and theatre, writing regularly for such publications as the Tears in the Fence, and various blogs. He has an art practice that is engaged and participatory making projects such as a vineyard on a railway siding in a council estate. Working as Chair of the residents association of the estate in north London and being involved as a local artist in the Kings Cross development project. In addition he brings his years of experience as a builder and site manager to Milford House.

Photo Deej Fabyc

Trustee and Board Member

Caelan Bristow

Caelan has been involved in art and architecture for the past 30 years. Educated at the Architectural Association London and the Southern California Institute of Architecture Los Angeles, Caelan worked in a range of disciplines for architects Frank Gehry & Associates, Nasrine Seraji-Bozorgzad (France) and Peter Davidson (LAB architects Melbourne) and American artists Bill Viola, Jeff Koons, and Peter Erskine. Caelan moved to Ireland in 1999. Most recently, she completed two publicly funded projects: an energy upgrade to St John’s Church/Dance Limerick performance space and a new roof canopy & entrance complex for the Cloughjordan outdoor amphitheatre in North Tipperary. She is currently working on a variety of residential projects located throughout Ireland. Concurrent with design and project management, Caelan has created and facilitated social art works and curated exhibitions and festivals in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland since 2004.

Board Member Emma Brennan

Emma Brennan is an interdisciplinary artist who works predominantly in performative practices to include multi-media installation, moving image and collaborative processes.
Based between Belfast and Dublin she is a former Co-Director and Chairperson at Catalyst Arts Belfast and a current studio member of PS2 Studios Belfast. She was
chosen as one of the BBeyond performance collective’s new commissioned artists of 2021 and remains an active member of the collective. She has performed as part of Belfast International Festival of Performance Art (BIFPA), the Live Art Biennial, FIX21, as part of Black Kit Performance Archive in Cologne, Livestock Dublin, Dublin live art festival, on residency at Live Art Ireland and more. In December 2021, Brennan performed in collaboration with singer Meabh Muir to ring in the solstice as part of Array Collective’s Turner Prize winning exhibition The Druithaibs Ball.

Board Member Daniele Minns

Minns is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on music technology, video, live and eco-art. Their practice has evolved from being bass guitarist in bands to using wearable technology to generate soundscapes via the body’s movement. A continuing martial arts practice feeds into this work via influencing the body’s movement vocabulary. They are founder member of collective live eco art events Be-coming Tree and live art gang FBI+A. Minns has also been a complementary health practitioner for over 20 years using reflexology and energy healing, with an interest in using locally sourced herbal remedies. 

Board Member Sarah Newell
Professional background in Town Planning and Architecture. 2008: Project managed

 archival research, written/photographic records and appraisals for over 250 historic properties dating from 17th-21st centuries in County Mayo for the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage;
2010: Curated a Heritage Council funded exhibition on Irish Brutalist Architecture entitled ‘Brutal, Bold and Brilliant’;2011: Artist Participant with the Pamphlet Project with poet, Lisa Allen. Pamphlet Project is about finding creative ways to distribute new writing and artwork;
2014: Limerick City of Culture – designed and delivered ‘ The Mechanical Horse’ installation piece; 2017: Delivered an exhibition dedicated to Andy Devane, a Limerick born Modernist Architect who trained with Frank Lloyd Wright as part of the Open House Festival.

Advisory board Member

Kira O’Reilly

Hailing originally from Listowel North Kerry, Kira O’Reilly is a Helsinki based artist; her practice, both wilfully interdisciplinary and entirely undisciplined, stems from a background in visual art; it employs performance, biotechnical practices and writing with which to consider speculative reconfigurations around The Body. Her visual art practice span contexts from visual art, interfaces of art, science and technology to performance, live art and dance.  She writes, teaches, mentors and collaborates with humans of various types and technologies and  non-humans of numerous divergences including mosses, spiders, the sun, pigs, cell cultures, horses, micro-organisms, bicycles, rivers, landscapes, tundras, rocks, trees, shoes, food, books, air, moon and ravens. 

Photo Satu Herrala

Advisory Board Member

Amelia Jones

Amelia Jones is Robert A. Day Professor and Vice Dean of Academics and Research in Roski School of Art & Design, USC. Recent publications include Seeing Differently: A History and Theory of Identification and the Visual Arts (2012); Otherwise: Imagining Queer Feminist Art Histories, co-edited with Erin Silver(2016); the catalogue Queer Communion: Ron Athey (2020), which accompanies a retrospective of Athey’s work at Participant Inc. (New York) and ICA (Los Angeles), has just been listed among “Best Art Books 2020” in the New York Times. Her book entitled In Between Subjects: A Critical Genealogy of Queer Performance is published in 2021 by Routledge Press.

photo Ken Gonzalez-Day

Advisory Board Member

Roberta Mock

Roberta Mock is Professor of Performance Studies at the University of Plymouth (UK) and the Chair of the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA). Her research – which takes the form of both practice and writing – tends to focus on gender and sexuality, especially in stand-up comedy and live art contexts. She is the author or editor of five books, the latest of which (co-edited with Mary Paterson) is Joshua Sofaer: Performance I Objects I Participation (Live Art Development Agency/Intellect Books, 2020).

Advisory Board Member

Laura Leuzzi

Art historian and curator, Dr Leuzzi is currently Research Fellow and Co-Investigator on the AHRC funded project Richard Demarco: The Italian Connection (2018-2021; DJCAD, University of Dundee). Author of articles and essays in books and exhibition catalogues, her research is focused on early video art, European video art histories, art and feminism and new media.  She has curated exhibitions, events and screenings in the UK, Italy and Switzerland. She is Associate Curator at NEoN Digital Arts Festival.  She co-edited REWINDItalia. Early Video Art in Italy (John Libbey, 2015) and EWVA European Women’s Video Art in the 70s and 80s (John Libbey 2019).