NOTHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO BUT THE PAST

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts’ UnSelfing Programme
Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture
ONLINE via Abridged and printed publication
1 December 2020 - 25 March 2021

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture and Verbal Arts Centre present:

NOTHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO BUT THE PAST
Curated by Gregory McCartney
ONLINE via Abridged and printed publication
1 December 2020 - 25 March 2021

ARTISTS
Nadège Mériau
Stuart Cairnes
Daniel Seiffert
Tara Wray

WRITERS
Professor Lorna Piatti-Farnell
Peter Knight
Dr Dara Downey
Anna Walsh
Gail McConnell
Sharon Young

”There’s a coldness in the air. There’s a revolt against science, medicine, ecology and somewhat ridiculously even the environment. As if society driven by unscrupulous populists and big business have decided to turn back time to when there were no rules and therefore no consequence and lots of money to be made through the gnashing, slashing and trashing of the world.”

Excerpt from The Dark Ecology of the Far Side: The Work of Gary Larson www.humag.co

In Nothing To Look Forward To But The Past curator Gregory McCartney continues with the Abridged themes that lay behind Tulca 2012 exploring concepts of ‘journey’ and ‘journeying’ in an evolutionary/environmental context that considers both its micro and macro contextualities. And asks the question: Is there really anywhere to go to? Working with Stuart Cairns, a Belfast-based artist who works with natural materials and found objects picked up on his ‘wanderings’ plus Nadege Meriau, a French, London based artist whose experimental practice is principally photographic, but encompasses sculptural installations and video work. Best known for her use of organic matter - bread, chicken carcasses, honeycomb - her visceral and sensuous imagery both seduces and disorientates. Spaces are ambiguous and scale is distorted. For each piece, Mériau exercises both control and restraint, manipulating and coaxing her materials into certain behaviors or forms, whilst simultaneously allowing nature to take its course. Focusing on the microscopic and animal/mineral/food world the exhibition examines change and how it defines us and alters us. Cairns shows us the natural ‘journey’ in a new light with objects sometimes though originating in nature made terrifying through contact with human evolution. Articulating the ‘alien’ and seemingly strange expands the notion of the uncanny into a Dark Ecology territory where we are not separate to nature and we can not tame it as we try and fail to tame ourselves. The exhibition explores through abstraction and metaphor the fragility of our times, our society and indeed ourselves. We are not separate from nature. We cannot theme-park it and hope it behaves itself. We cannot make it human. The wolves are always at the door. The Earth isn’t a mother. Or a she. It doesn’t care. If we aren’t careful it will devour us. (Ibid) We are the only species that has the capability for self-destruction. We are the only species that would build a Doomsday Clock. We are the only species that would want to. As the social, economic and actual environment is in the process of being destroyed we are carried on a journey to God know where and yet we turn to those that would deny the existence of any sort of crises to save us, or if not to save us, to offer us the opportunity for one long last scream.

Stuart Cairns works as a silversmith combining natural materials and found objects alongside precious metals to create artifacts in the tradition of tableware and domestic objects. He graduated with a Bachelor's Degree In Silversmithing and Jewellery from the University of Ulster in 2000, returning to complete a Masters degree in 2006. He is a member of the British Designer Silversmiths and a part-time lecturer in the University of Ulster.

Cairns has exhibited widely; selected exhibitions include, Setting The Scene, the Craft Study Centre, Farnham 2013, Collect, The Saatchi Gallery 2012, Fit For Purpose, The V&A, London (2012), The Linen Diaspora, 4th Biennale Internationale du Lin de Portneuf, Quebec (2011) and Side x Side, Hämeenlinna, Finland (2009). His work has been purchased for both public and private collections including the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, University of Ulster and The Ulster Museum.

Nadège Mériau's experimental practice is principally photographic, combining camera-less, analogue and digital processes, but also encompassing sculptural installations and video work. Best known for her use of organic matter - bread, chicken carcasses, honeycomb - her visceral and sensuous imagery both seduces and disorientates. Spaces are ambiguous and scale is distorted. For each piece, Mériau exercises both control and restraint, manipulating and coaxing her materials into certain behaviors or forms, whilst simultaneously allowing nature to take its course.

Nadège Mériau is a French artist based in London. She completed an MA in Photography at the Royal College of Art in 2011 and was shortlisted for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries and the Conran Award in 2011, nominated for the Arts Foundation Fellowship and the Arles Discovery Award in 2012 and the Prix Pictet 2014. Recent exhibitions include Fire: Flashes to Ashes in British Art 1692-2019, RWA Bristol, Auto//Fiction, Exhibition and Symposium, Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art, London and 209 Women at Portcullis House, Houses of Parliament and Impressions Gallery, Bradford.

Images: Stuart Cairns, Tara Wray (L-R)