Dr. Áine Phillips
In Ireland she has exhibited and performed at The Lab, Irish Film Centre, The Project, Arthouse, Golden Thread Gallery Belfast, EV+A Limerick, Galway Arts Centre, Hugh Lane Gallery Dublin and Killkenny Arts Festival. She has been involved in curating major live art and performance events in Ireland such as Tulca Live 2005-2007 and Future Histories Kilmainham Gaol part of The Ireland 2016 Arts Council programme. She recently published “Performance Art in Ireland: A History” (Live Art Development Agency and Intellect Books UK 2015), the first survey to chart the development of live art and performance in Ireland since the 1970s.
Museum exhibitions and screenings (selected):
La Criée centre d’art contemporain
France and Kunsthaus Rhenania, Cologne 2019, TATE Britain 2016, Kyoto Art Centre 2010, Wolfsberg Castle Austria 2006, Tanzquartier Vienna 2007, MOCA USA 2003.
Major international gallery exhibition and screenings (selected):
Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris 2022 Talbot Rice Gallery Edinburgh 2018, Visual Culture Research Center Kiev 2014, Gallery Bunkier Sztuki Krakow 2013 Stanley Picker Gallery & Performance Space London 2010, Mozovia Art Centre Warsaw Poland 2007. Judith Wright Centre for Art Brisbane Australia 2008, Moving Image Gallery and The Kitchen New York 1999.
Visual Arts Festivals and Biennales:
EVA Limerick 2002 and 2018 Kilkenny Arts Festival 2012, TROUBLE Les Halles Brussels 2012, City of Women Ljubljana 2011, NON Festival Bergen 2011, National Review of Live Art Glasgow 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2009
Exhibitions and performances in Ireland:
The Lab 2011
The Project 2015, Hugh Lane Gallery 2006, Arthouse 2001, Irish Film Centre 2000. Limerick City Gallery (solo show) 2004. Visualise Carlow 2014, Galway Arts Centre (solo show) in 2013. Northern Ireland at The Void Derry 2012 and Golden Thread Belfast 2010.
Screenings at Juried Film Festivals:
In 2022 at Indie Cork art(ist) Festival, New Wave Munich, 2021 at Roma Italy and Toronto Multicultural FF. Alchemy Scottish Borders 2020, DUMBO New York and Cucalorus NC USA 2019. Galway Film Fleadh and Dingle FF 2018, BF Artists Film Festival London 2018. Dak’art, Senegal and Corrientes Centro Cultural, Argentina and Mobius Boston in 2017. Panorama Festival Rio de Janeiro 2011.
Curation of performance events in Ireland and the UK:
Performance Ecologies, Interface Inagh Valley, Connemara 2022 National Review of Live Art in the UK at Glasgow’s Arches and Tramway 2007 – 2009. Tulca Live, Galway from 2005 – 2007 and Live@8 performance and screenings until 2013 Arts Council National 1916 Programme ART:2016 she co-curated Future Histories with Niamh Murphy.
Writings on visual art and performance: published by Intellect Books, Palgrave, Taylor&Frances Group London, Methuen Bloomsbury and academic journals and art magazines including Performance Art Journal NYC and Scene Magazine UK
In Ireland she is a regular contributor to the VAI News Sheet and online magazines including Circa. In 2015 she authored and edited “Performance Art in Ireland: A History” (Live Art Development Agency and Intellect Books UK) the first survey to chart the development of live art and performance in Ireland since the 1970s. Her work has been reviewed and featured in The Guardian, Art Newspaper, Frieze Magazine, Performance Research, A-N Magazine, Aesthetica, Circa and the VAI News Sheet.
Awards and grants: Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland, local Authority and European Commission Art Awards. Her films have won screening awards at international film festivals including 3rd Jury Prize at Hamburg Shorts Film Festival Klapp-Auf! in 2018.
Teaching Experience: Alongside her full time position as Head of Sculpture at BCA, Áine Phillips has taught as visiting lecturer at NCAD and TUD Dublin, LSAD Technological University of the Shannon, CCAD Munster Technological University where she is currently Honorary Adjunct Faculty PhD programme Supervisor. She has also taught 2015 – 2019 an MA module on Applied Theatre at the O’Donoghue Centre for Theatre, Drama and Performance at the University of Galway.
Research Interests
Performance art history; autobiography in performance art and visual art; socially engaged visual art; video and film art; installation and site specific sculpture; activist art; curation; artists-led initiatives; art criticism; collaboration in art.
Teaching Philosophy
My aim in teaching is to enable the expression and cultivation of individuality, creative activity and the acquisition of skills as a means to deliver concrete and vital end projects – art works that communicate ideas. Art is a way of thinking through images, objects, actions and I call on my students to situate their visual art practice, sculpture and performance art in the world of culture, politics, the environment and centrally, in the life experience of the individual. Relating the personal to the political was a core concept of the feminist movement in the 1960’s that I espouse and I encourage my students to find ways to universalize their individual knowledge, background and insight. I believe art has the potential to influence and enable positive change to happen in the world and as artists we can aim to generate a better world through an engaged art practice that produces the culture around us. Culture in turn produces the society we live in, so we have a responsibility (and a joyful task) to make the world a better, more artistic and wonderful place!