X-PO

X-PO started life in 2007 as a public art project in the former post office in Killinaboy, County Clare. It was initiated by Deirdre O’Mahony as a social, cultural and community exchange where different forms of knowledge - farming, artistic, local, place-based - could make unexpected creative connections. In the first year working with different groups and individuals the artist collaborated on a series of archival exhibitions that reflected different aspects of rural life today.

Beginning at the most local level X-PO showed how collaborative exhibition-making can give a voice to, and make visible often disregarded, tacit, local knowledge. The Mattie Rynne Archive, Rinnamona Research Group | X-PO , Killinaboy Mapping Group and the The Peter Rees Archive An Udder View all took place in the first year of the project. Subsequent exhibitions include Wise Ways Kilnaboy, Penning the Mart by Megs Morley, Senan Kileen's An Clochán and SPUD. It is tempting to include the former postmaster Mattie Rynne as a co-collaborator in this process; the archive of his belongings exhibited at the opening of X-PO signposted a way of being-together that, Janus-like, faces inwards and outwards, looking at the local and the global.

Since 2008, from September to June, X-PO has been run by participants who have further developed, funded and managed the project. There are weekly clubs in singing, mapping and Irish, regular talks on local history and archeology as well as film screenings and occasional exhibitions. 

The project provides a very visible public space in which to discuss, agree, disagree and challenge the changes underway in what are increasingly socially fragmented, rural communities. It has been a catalyst for further projects such as First Citizens Speak a film about North Clare residents who grew up as the first citizens of the Irish State and the home for weekly gatherings by the Kilnaboy Mapping group who have named the occupants of the houses of Killinaboy Parish going back to the 1830s, and traced the roads, bothereens and paths, many of which have long fallen into disuse.

Drawing from a broad constituency, X-PO lays no claim to be representative - it is rather the act of participation that is at the core of the project

One day I was showing the sea to a girl who was seeing it for the first time; she declared that she thought a field of potatoes was a far more impressive sight.

Francis Picabia

 

Deirdre O’Mahony began the SPUD project in 2009, initiating a research process that led to collaborative projects, commissioned artworks, events and installations in Ireland, Europe and the USA from 2011- 17. The Persistent Return marks the concluding phase of the project and will tour to national and international venues.

The potato is a potent image to evoke in relation to food and food security in Ireland, exposing, as it does, conscious and unconscious attitudes to land and alterity within and beyond the nation state. SPUD was initiated in order to present a more nuanced understanding of the potato’s role in Irish culture, in relation to food security and globalised food production.

SPUD research follows four strands; indicating unconscious attitudes towards rurality, the land, identity and otherness in Ireland; re-imagining the relevance and use-value of tacit agricultural knowledge to food production today; tracing the potatoes’ importance to global food security; reflecting on new seed developments, seed diversity, seed sovereignty and cultural rights. By looking back to the Irish Famine, further back to the colonial violence that brought the potato to Europe, and connecting it to migration, famine and food security today, SPUD makes use of the potato to map controversies around these threads, providing an understandable and accessible entry point for a public discourse on sustainability, food security and tacit cultivation knowledge.

Projects at X-PO demonstrated the extent and depth of traditional farming knowledge specific to the area and SPUD came about as a way of sharing potato-growing knowledge through the production of a GIY guide to making traditional ‘lazy-beds’ or potato ridges; a simple and effective way of cultivating potatoes suitable for small urban gardens. The first SPUD Pamphlet was produced in Collaboration with US artist Frances Whitehead and X-PO participants Francis Whelan, Tom Keating and Michael Malone and given away on the X-PO stall during Grizedale Arts' project for Frieze art fair in 2012, one of many  X-PO SPUD events, talks, screenings and installations that took place from 2011 - 2015. 

Further research and projects took place in Ireland between 2015 - 2016 in Donegal with the late Fr. John Silke (2014), the National Irish Famine Museum Strokestown, County Roscommon (2015), at Callan Workhouse as part of the Callan Workhouse Union project (2015) and A Village Plot at the Irish Museum of Modern Art as part of the IMMA/Grizedale Arts A Fair Land residency.

Projects also took place beyond Ireland during a residency hosted by Jiwar Barcelona, and as part of the Anna Lindh Foundation networking events in Tarroudent, Morocco. 

 

The Perishable Picnic | Resort Residency 

The Perishable Picnic was the outcome of Deirdre O’Mahony’s residency in Lynders’ Mobile Home Park, Portrane County Dublin, part of Fingal Arts Office’s Resort Residency programme.  The picnic celebrated the history of fruit growing in North County Dublin. A giant ceramic, strawberry jam pot made by Glasgow-based artist Garnet McCulloch was the centrepiece for a feast of strawberry foods, drinks, and conversation.

Roger Lamb (Lamb’s Fruit), Ray McLoughlin who recently completed significant research into the Lamb Farming History at Trinity College Dublin, Gerry Clabby, Heritage Officer for Fingal and Deirdre O’Mahony discussed the history of fruit farming focusing on the impact of Quaker Farming practices, ethics and investment in the area through an industry that once played an important role in the local economy and community. A screening of archival film footage from the Lamb Family collection and a reading by local author Peig McManus on her experience of strawberry picking in the area as a child put the feast into context and accompanied the day’s discussions. The food was devised with local chef Wayne Hand from locally sourced ingredients.

Galway International Arts Festival

 

O'Donaghue Theatre, NUIG, Galway, 16–29 July

11am–6pm Late opening to 8pm Thursday–Saturday

 

Speculative Optimism was produced while on the Welcome Foundation Livestock residency in 2017 at the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL), University of Reading. The project began with the proposition, is ‘carbon-neutral’ beef possible? Research at the university into the effect of different kinds of forage on animal and soil health is currently underway. Sainfoin, a variety of forage once used extensively in the south of England, is being investigated for its beneficial effect as it grows in near drought conditions, is highly beneficial to bees, and fixes nitrogen in the soil. However it takes time to establish and for that reason, is considered less economically efficient than the rye grass used extensively in livestock and dairy production today. Sainfoin fell out of use with the modernisation of agriculture but is now under investigation for its potential use-value given climate change, a global shortage of nitrogen and the collapse of bee colonies. The residency provided access to the MERL archives to investigate references to historical forages like Sainfoin and review some of the extensive collection of historical documentary films produced to teach increased efficiency in agriculture. 

Speculative Optimism is the poetic essayistic film produced from this research. Shot in the museum archives, at the University of Reading’s Hall Farm and a Cotswold Seed’s Honeydale Farm and factory, the film points to the history of changing agricultural policies that now requires farmers to be economically efficient, practice environmental sustainability and maintain the visual premium and heritage value of landscapes. Some might argue this is an impossible task. Refusing a singular position or narrative, the film relies on unconscious visual associations inspired by the imagery to provide unexpected insights into the complexities of global food production today.

  Speculative Optimism Farm film still Photograph Tom Flanagan

 

Produced and Directed by Deirdre O’Mahony

Editor:  Connie Farrell

Camera: Tom Flanagan

Additional Camera: Deirdre O’Mahony

Design:  Kaye Tolland

 

Particular thanks to:  

The Staff at the Museum of English Rural Life.

Cotswold Seeds Ltd., Honeydale Farm.

Dr. David Humphries, Dr. Anna Thompson CEDAR, University of Reading Hall Farm.

Alex Lasater, The Dale Lasater Ranch, Matheson, Colorado, USA.

Dr. Irene Muller-Harvey and the LegumePlus Project, University of Reading.

 

The Persistent Return VISUAL Carlow until September 9th Natuurmuseum Fryslan, Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 12 October 2018 - 6 January 2019 The Persistent Return is a film project that represents the culmination of almost a decade of research for O’Mahony’s research-led project SPUD . The artwork is a partnership production between cultural producers, Workhouse Union and VISUAL Carlow and supported by an Arts Council Project Award with residency support from the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The moving-image installation follows the migration of potato from the Andes to Europe, the role it played in consolidating and concentrating power in the northern hemisphere and the human cost of privileging scientific and political rationalism at the expense of place-based knowledge. Filmed at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Irish Architecture Archive, the former Workhouse in Callan, County Kilkenny and at agricultural research centres in Ireland, it reflects on technologies that helped alleviate famine but also enabled the establishment of empires, leading to a disastrous dependency on monoculture in Ireland. Vocal improvisations by Branwen and Julie Kavanagh have an electronic counterpoint in Alexandru Trendler’s electronic score, highlighting tensions between the imperialism of the enlightenment project and tacit cultivation knowledge. Poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill drew upon material from the National Folklore Collection for a voice over in Irish that accompanies Irish Loy (foot-plough) expert Gerry Mullins as he makes a perfectly straight potato ridge. Scientific technicians at the National Irish Potato Collection in Donegal, precisely remove the growing tips of a potato micro-plant, ‘cleaning’ the heritage variety of disease. These are reminders that skills of both head and hand that are needed if we are to actively respond to the challenges presented by climate change, food security and the environmental effects of industrial food production. Potatoes are potent images that reveal conscious and unconscious attitudes to land and otherness, both in Ireland and beyond. The film presents a poetic understanding of the potatoes' cultural and economic role in our histories, a reminder that real sustainability lies in our capacity to provide for ourselves. (Duration: 12:21) Co-produced by Workhouse Union and VISUAL Carlow Writer/Director: Deirdre O’Mahony Camera: Tom Flanagan Editing and visual Post Production: Connie Farrell Irish Script: Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill Vocals: Branwen Kavanagh and Julie Kavanagh, Twin Headed Wolf Electronic Score: Alexandru Trendler Voiceover: Deirdre O’Mahony, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill Sound: John Brennan Audio Post Production: Brendan Rehill, Outer Limits Post Production Special thanks to: Desmond Byrne, Silversmith Kilkenny Design Centre Gerry Mullins, The Irish Loy Association, Ennistymon, County Clare Eamon Tobin, Basket Maker, Tullogher, Co Kilkenny Additional thanks to: Camphill Ballytobin, Gerry Doherty of Tops Potato Centre Donegal, Pat Fitzgerald, Janice Haugh and the IMMA Residency Programme, Irish Architectural Archives, Catherine Marshall, Ewen Mullins Teagasc Oak Park, Dr Áine Macken Walsh Teagasc Athenry. Dutch Script Translation: Nynke Spottiswood Funded through an Arts Council Visual Arts Project Award, commissioned by Workhouse Union as part of Workhouse Guild with additional support from VISUAL Carlow and the residency programme of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The Persistent Return exhibition at the Natuurmuseum Fryslan is supported by Culture Ireland