This project is funded by Cork County Council and Creative Ireland under their Creating Connections Programme.
Katie Nolan, in partnership with Greywood Arts in Killeagh have been engaging former factory workers in East Cork to conceive and develop an artwork shaped through social production, and that speaks to the historical, social, artistic and cultural reference points of the industry that was Youghal Carpets.
Youghal’s carpet industry, dating back to the 1950s, became internationally renowned for its quality, style and durability, with noteworthy commissions such as the Palace of the Sultan of Brunei. A major employer and integral part of the local economy, its closure in 1984 had a significant impact on the socio-economic fabric of Youghal and its surrounding area.
Through ongoing socially engaged production, we propose to develop a visual narrative telling the multidimensional story of the institution, its culture, the work lives of the staff at Youghal Carpets and the socio-economic impacts of both its prosperity and demise.
This 12 month project commenced in late 2023 and is kindly funded by Cork County Council and Creative Ireland under its Creating Connections Programme.
Shortlisted for the RDS Visual Arts Awards 2022
https://www.irishartsreview.com/new-generation/katie-nolan-2/
Trespass examines our digital culture as pharmakon. Ireland is Europe’s largest Data Centre market. Dublin, known as the ‘Cloud Capital of Europe’, is host to 25% of all Data Centres in Europe. Constructed on sites that were formerly orchards, farmland, forestry, and protected habitats, these ravenous beasts consumed 144% more energy in 2020 than in 2015. It is estimated that by 2028 Data Centres will consume 31% of Ireland’s electricity, complicating our ability to respond to the climate crisis. A misconception exists where the digital is somehow separate from the real. But digital is physical and digital costs the earth. We collect. We create. We Store. And then we don’t use. While digital is critical to everyday life, up to 90% of digital data is not used. Words, music, images, films, videos, software…..they all end up in the cloud. Most data is like single use, throwaway plastic. So why does our nation facilitate 90% digital waste? And why is our land, public infrastructure and national grid devoted to multinational digital corporations to make multi-millions of dollars while they offshore their energy consumption and carbon emissions on our island? Filmed at a fruit farm in Co Waterford and at a data centre in Grange Castle Business Park Dublin, the work points to the history of an orchard that once existed where this data centre now stands. Aiming to challenge our ideas of digital location and the norms of physical invasion of space, a drone adapted to carry a micro projector, ‘trespasses’ by projecting the film onto the exterior wall of the data centre.
Longlisted for the RDS Visual Arts Award 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ljRauHNkOM
Questioning the entropic nature of our modern digital experience, my work considers the human hand as technology and the physical and cognitive skill acquired through disciplined perception and habituated forms of coordination. Neuroscience reveals an immense versatility in our haptic sensitivity and the ability of our digits to detect and process information about a wide ranging set of perturbations, providing an extended kind of sensate information. In our technology driven world, powerful new forms of automation and artificial intelligence continue to substitute activities previously performed by humans, with significant implications for future generations of workers.
Paralleling the revelations of ethnomathematician Paulus Gerdes’ rigorous research, alongside cross-cultural practical faculties, I have appropriated the hidden geometric configurations enclosed within an ancient woven button. Examination of this tiny button, which was formulated by the Makhuwa people of North Eastern Mozambique to secure the lid of a traditional basket, reveals the exact configurations of the Pythagorean Theorem. The work seeks to confront eurocentrism by highlighting the innate tactile aptitude embedded in indigenous cultures.
Engaging the fishermen of Sherkin Island in a co creative process, the final form of the work, an installation that sits at the intersection between anthropology, mathematics and artistic abstraction aims to provide a space of encounter for the viewer.
Expressing a rich mosaic of meaning, Otthava, an Emakhuwa word, describes a multisensory and kinesthetic knowledge experienced through the weaving process.
While working with a group of women, some sighted and some with varying degrees of visual impairment, I became interested in the group dynamic as they worked alongside each other learning how to weave. Their conversations revealed a variety of perceptions regarding contrast, colour - v – texture, and how memory functioned in their automaticity when performing tactile repetitive tasks. The final work interrogates the physical and cognitive skill acquired through disciplined perception, the modern day regression of our haptic sensitivity and so, considers the human hand as technology.
https://youtu.be/fbkiuVdqtHc Do You See What I Mean (snapshot)
It is estimated that one robot can do the work of 5.6 humans in the service industry. Through collaborative practice with 10 of my ex colleagues in the Financial Services Industry, all of whom are untrained performers, and references to the pangram “A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” the work endeavors to interrogate universal concerns around the future of work for mankind. Through the appropriation of the ‘QWERTY’ keyboard layout, which inhabits the memories of these women and their work lives lived, the performance explores the experiences, skills, stories and memories of the performers, thereby examining parallel themes of obsolescence. The artwork uses video installation, however the focus of the work is primarily on the aesthetic of social engagement, interaction and co authorship.
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/474128435
