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 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 Advisory 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.
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).