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The tangent touches the circle at only one point

In 2010 I was awarded a solo exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin as part of one of eight annual Research & Development residencies. Selection from 460 applicants was by written proposal judged by a panel chaired by IMMA Director Enrique Juncosa. IMMA’s three-month residencies were open to international artists wishing to explore innovative practice in response to the 2010 theme ‘the integration of performance and sculpture.’

My research considered the relationship between sculpture and play, combining imaginative and physical play with my experience of the work of Franz West and Jana Sterbak. I developed two large outdoor interactive sculptures and a solo exhibition for IMMA’s Process Room. Both demonstrated an imaginative scope that kick-started a new series of works for the Kiosk Gallery (Herford, Germany, 2011) and led to me being invited to present workshops and papers on the theme of participatory play at the Post-graduate conference Kaleidoscope (University of Warwick, 2011) and Research in Art and Design at The Bauhaus University (Weimar, 2011).

The IMMA research gave me time to instigate a series of workshops with local Sixth Formers to consider new forms of expression through three-dimensional collage and performance. I was also given time to reflect back upon the process with the students and their teachers and we concluded that access to this type of non-curriculum artistic practice was highly beneficial in relation to abstract thinking.

The Process Room installation The tangent touches the circle at only one point was a composition of objects imbued with the youths’ imaginative playful spirit. For Elise consisted of two patterned interactive discs installed in the Museum’s Garden. The young people were invited to ‘perform’ on the discs, encouraging them to experience a deeper understanding of the role of art and participation in a public context.