ANY BODY
A group of nine young people from Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre’s creative learning programmes (Guerrilluinns and Draw Mind Matters) Maksym Babek, Finn Donovan, Kassi Duane, Hetty Gazzaniga, Mich Maguire, Lucija Kluzniak - Madajczak, Nori Kluzniak - Madajczak, Leo Robb, Kai Kluzniak - Madajczak, were invited to take part in the SPICE Project (Social cohesion, Participation and inclusion through Cultural engagement) at IMMA. heir creative interpretation and exploration of these visits to IMMA exhibitions will now be presented in the IMMA studios on 29 April with event opening at 2:00pm and Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre from 10 June to 15 July 2023. The exhibition includes individual mixed media artworks and a live dance performance (2mins).
The young people visited IMMA to collaborate with museum professionals and create an artwork in response to two showcase exhibitions by artists Kevin Mooney and Patricia Hurl. Selected art works were observed, discussed and responded to in a studio context using various media, igniting new thought provoking and exiting perspective on art.
Back at Uillinn, the young people met weekly over two months to further explore their experiences of the IMMA collection in a series of workshops facilitated by Tomasz Madajzcak and assisted by Sylwia Migdal. Tomasz described the process as, ‘incorporating experimental abstract drawing, painting, basis of video art, sound art and deepened spatial awareness as a base for performance and installation art. The young people are amazing to work with. Their alive imaginations and creative minds open up new areas of artistic explorations and connect the existing art with new perception of the youth….next step is to meet other young people, from different parts of Ireland who are driven by new ways of looking at art and creating new connections through art with the surrounding world.’
Event Speakers: Mich Maguire and Tomasz Madajzack
More about ‘Draw Mind Matters’ and ‘Guerrilluinns’
Draw Mind Matters is an innovative art project running since 2019 which invites young people to express their experience of life in Ireland today through drawing, painting, photography, and street art working towards a multidisciplinary collective project with artist Tomasz Madajczak and guest artists.
Guerrilluinns are Uillinn's Youth Arts Committee whose primary remit is to inform and advise on the development of Uillinn’s children and young people's programming.
The group has a strong set of values beginning with being young person-centred, recognising the rights of young people and holding central their active and voluntary participation. Inclusive, welcoming young people from diverse backgrounds, signposted with LGBTQI+ and gender neutral as default.
Ranging in age from 15 to 19 years old, they proudly represent the diversity in our community - LGBTQI+, young people living with disability and learning difficulties, and a wide range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.
More about the Artists who have facilitated the young people during the SPICE Project.
Tomasz Madajczak is a multimedia artist who has worked in art and education for 15 years, facilitating art workshops for children, teenagers and in community context. The combination of art and education plays a crucial role in developing deep interest and curiosity in young people, to enable them to explore and widen their life perspectives. Recent projects for children are Art in Action and Inside Out, both at Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, 2020; Sztuka Stuka, MOOS Municipal Art Gallery, Gorzów, Wlkp. Poland, 2019; and artists collaboration Mapping The Divide performance at Uillinn in 2019. Tomasz studied Photography at the Fine Arts Academy in Poznań 1998-2003 completing a MAFA in the Intermedia Department. Tomasz emigrated to Ireland in 2003 where he has been a practising artist since.
William Bock is an interdisciplinary artist exploring the connections between people and the environments they inhabit. He uses photography, painting, sound recording, performance and installation to delve into the experiences of living between cultures, landscapes and identities. Collaboration and responsive approaches to working with materials, particular sites and with communities are central to his process as an artist.
Sylwia Migdal is research - based artist, educator, youth project coordinator. Originally from Kraków Poland. For past seventeen years living in a small costal village called Glandore in West Cork. Experience in there knowledge of contemporary and conceptual art practices. Her current research is sound and moving images based, exposing deep water environments using hydropnonic recording devices to build an archive of non- visual evidence of micro- -changes in sea environment .
