The Model reveals new artistic programme for 2020

FOLLOWING a successful 2019, The Model has announced an eclectic, colourful and diverse artistic programme for 2020. Dynamic and vibrant exhibitions, events, residencies and public engagements will bring acclaimed Irish and international practitioners to Sligo and its communities throughout the year. This exciting programme kicks off with an exhibition of new work by locally-based artist, Emma Stroude which opens with a breakfast reception at 10.30 on Wednesday 5 February.

The Sea Around Us, an ambitious, large-scale group exhibition opening on Saturday 29 th February will explore our complex relationship with the ocean through installation, film, participation and sound. John Akomfrah’s epic 2015 film Vertigo Sea and Forensic Oceanography’s Liquid Violence (2017) bookend a conversation on humankind’s interactions with the sea; while Susanne Winterling’s Gravitational Currents (2018) creates an immersive and intimate moment to explore the relationship between marine ecology, climate change in the current moment.

Sound artist and composer Karen Power will be musician-in-residence throughout the period as she develops an aural response to the themes of the exhibition, which will be presented as both a gallery installation and two dynamic live performances, to mark both the opening and closing of The Sea Around Us exhibition. The show is accompanied by a specially commissioned essay by artist Rosie O’Reilly (IE), and is supported by Hazelwood Demesne, the Goethe Institut Irland, and the Arts Council Music Project Award. The Sea Around Us will run at The Model until 31 May.

Two ambitious new commissions which will see internationally acclaimed artists’ take up residential opportunities to work with Sligo communities throughout the year have been announced. Turner-Prize nominated Irish/Canadian artist, Ciara Phillips will explore the possibilities of communal and solo print-making both at The Model and in local communities; while Michael McLoughlin (IE) will respond to Sligo/Leitrim’s unique music ecology, with a focus on the Showband Era, as part of his project to our Friends and Patrons in Autumn 2020. McLoughlin will be in residence at The Model throughout May, as he works with Showband audiences, fans and performers to map the history of this musical age. As part of this project, a very special Tea Dance will take place at The Model at 3pm on Sunday 24 May.

A second major new commission engages artist Ciara Phillips to create the first Irish iteration of her ongoing, collaborative, Turner-Prize nominated project Workshop. This multi-pronged project supported by the Arts Council Visual Art Project Awards deals directly with the power of creative engagement for the individual within a collaborative environment. The project will culminate in a large-scale exhibition of both solo work and collaboratively made prints opening in November.

The finest works by Jack Butler Yeats from The Niland Collection will be included in the summer show, Jack B Yeats, Painted Universe, ranging from early pen & ink illustrations and watercolours to his late period masterworks in oil. See these remarkable paintings in Yeats’ home town before they depart on loan to the Netherlands as part of the exhibition Irish Expressionists. Jack B. Yeats and Nick Miller at the Museum De Buitenplaats, Groningen from October 2020 until early 2021.

Building on three-years of successful partnership with the Cairde Sligo Arts Festival, The Model will again present the vibrant and popular Cairde Visual submission exhibition. Opening on Thursday 2 July, Cairde Visual creates greater opportunities for local and regionally based artists to exhibit work and engage in discursive events.

Further in-depth work with local communities continues into 2020, with Sligo Global Kitchen and The Model’s long-term schools’ programme Pop-Up Niland Collection 1x1. Alongside this, Andy Parsons has been appointed as The Model’s Artist-in-Residence in Sligo University Hospital, where he will engage with patients, families and staff over the coming months. The residency is supported by Sligo County Council’s Creative Ireland

Programme and the Arts Council. This initiative is part of a broader collaborative arts partnership between The Model and Sligo University Hospital, which also sees paintings from The Niland Collection displayed in private care areas of the hospital so that patients and families can encounter them quietly there.

Mary Ruth Walsh’s Skin Deep is a newly commissioned body of work, toured by Wexford Arts Centre and will launch nationally at The Model in June 2020. Through collage, film and sculptural installation, the artist will extend her interest in architecture and explore skin as a substance and a metaphor.

A newly-made film installation by the internationally-acclaimed Brazilian/Irish collective Wagner/DeBurca, explores ideas of Irishness, belonging and exile as expressed through our relationships with Traditional and Irish Country Music. Opening at The Model on Saturday 29 August, this will be presented alongside Michael McLoughlin’s To Our Friends and Patrons, and points of connection and divergence will be drawn out through discussion, events and workshops.

PUNC 1x1 (Pop-Up Niland Collection 1x1) now in its fourth year, will continue to bring works from The Niland Collection to participating Co. Sligo primary schools in a carousel exhibition. This magical project supported by the Community Foundation for Ireland focuses on a slow-seeing immersive engagement with the artworks in the school environment and is accompanied by classroom vests by an artist.

Sligo Global Kitchen, an Art and Food partnership between The Model and Sligo’s New Communities, especially former refugees and those living in the Direct Provision system uses hospitality as a tool to engage and create connection with and between new and established communities. Events supported by the Community Foundation for Ireland include off-site catering, regular Saturday events at The Model and a new Sligo Global Kitchen Supper Club initiative.