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Grúpat

Installation work involving music, sound poetry, fashion, photography, objects and performance

‘Grúpat’ is a project which seeks to investigate notions of identity, authorship and authenticity through the use of alter egos to create real and speculative works of art. ‘Grúpat’ builds on and extends the tradition of artists’ alter egos – from Marcel Duchamp (R Mutt) to Brian Nolan (Flann O’Brien) and Fernando Pessoa – through the creation of multiple alter egos, all members of a collective, Grúpat, who work in many media and styles, extending beyond composition into visual art, film, fashion, installation and text. There has been little use of alter egos in contemporary music and Walshe’s project is the most extensive to date. The alter egos of Grúpat range from 19th century folk musicians to twenty-something film-makers, drag queens, outsider artists and the Irish or “Guinness” Dadaists.

The project began in 2007 as a public art commission from South Dublin County Council (SDCC) to create a large scale work of public art over two years in that area. The SDCC covers some of the most deprived parts of Dublin and with ‘Grúpat’ Walshe implemented a musical "many worlds" practice as a means of cultural regeneration, inventing a vibrant speculative fiction which re-imagines South Dublin as the birthplace for the most radical avant-garde music and sound art of the early twentieth century. Tallaght, for example, is recast as an artistic hot-bed where former world-class pianists create compositions for every piano pupil in an estate to play simultaneously and where graffiti artists make Fluxus scores in moss on the walls of shopping centres. Community engagement was achieved through exhibitions in local libraries, film installations in shopping centres, and workshops on Dadaist sound poetry with schoolchildren.

The ‘Grúpat’ project is documented in books and CDs. There have been many subsequent performances, exhibitions and broadcasts.