EVA International is delighted to announce details of the Phase 1 programme of the 39th EVA International, featuring 12 venue-based and offsite presentations by Irish and International artists and collaborating curators, across venues in Limerick and online.
Phase 1 of the 39th EVA International will open on Friday, 18th September and continue until 15th November 2020.
Marking the launch of the 39th EVA International will be the release of an exclusive video of spoken word performance by MuRli, God Knows and Hazey Haze. The video will be broadcast on EVA’s Facebook page at 7pm on Friday 18th September as part of Limerick’s Culture Night.
The 39th EVA International : Phase 1
Taking its reference from the “Golden Vein’, a 19th-century descriptor for the agricultural bounty of the Limerick region, the 39th EVA International programme seeks to address ideas of land and its contested values in the context of Ireland today; extending to broader questions of how we relate to the land in terms of ideology, identity, and resource.
Featuring venue and non venue-based presentations, Phase 1 will include elements of the Guest Programme, Little did they know, curated by Merve Elveren, alongside artists commissions developed through EVA’s Platform Commissions and Partnership Project Initiatives, full details of which are outlined below.
39th EVA International Guest Programme / Little did they know
Phase 1 of the Guest Programme, curated by Merve Elveren and titled Little did they know, features Melanie Jackson and Esther Leslie’s collaborative project The Inextinguishable (2020), which explores the politicization of milk as the primal liquid of life. Michele Horrigan’s research project, Stigma Damages (2011 – ongoing) focuses on another substance, namely bauxite – aluminium’s primary constituent, investigating the Aughinish Alumina Refinery in Co.Limerick and its ecological impact. Driant Zeneli’s video installation from the trilogy Beneath a surface there is just another surface, 2015–2019 confronts Albania’s contentious history of chrome extraction under the leadership of Enver Hoxha. The installations of both Yane Calovski Personal Object (2017 -ongoing) and Eirene Efstathiou A Jagged Line Through Space (2017 – 2019) centre on the intertwining of personal and social narratives.
Phase 1 of the Guest Programme also highlights Women Artists Action Group (WAAG), through Pauline Cummins’ personal archive. WAAG’s ambitious 1987 Slide Exhibition, which featured 91 women artists working in Ireland, is revisited for the first time in a public display. It’s not for you we did it, is a project led by curator Sara Greavu in collaboration with artist Ciara Phillips and will be presented as a series of online dossiers that explore the historical and political context of Derry in the 1980s and 90s.
The exhibition presentation of Little did they know will be accompanied by a dedicated website: eva.ie/littledidtheyknow, which will be launched on the 18th September. The website will feature additional content by participating artists in addition to further contextual information about their works.
Platform Commissions / Partnership Projects
Phase 1 of the 39th EVA International includes new commissions as part of EVA’s Platform Commissions initiative. Áine McBride’s and/or land, sculptural works are subtle interventions into the Sailor’s Home building. Emily McFarland’s Curraghinalt is a video series that makes visible and bears witness to the changing ecology of a particular landscape in West Tyrone, in the North of Ireland. Eimear Walshe’s The Land Question and How much no thanks, address the artist’s ongoing questioning of the relationship between housing, sexuality and sex in contemporary Ireland. Laura Fitzgerald’s Fantasy Farming presents an installation developing from the artist’s ongoing exploration into the personal and political tensions that exist between rural Irish life and cultural internationalism. Phase 1 of the 39th EVA International will also present the first commission under its Partnership Project initiative, developed through EVA’s participation in the Magic Carpets network. Bora Baboci’s Predictions, is a site specific audio installation offering a fantasy forecast of Limerick’s River Shannon.
Alongside the exhibition programme will be a number of events and public programme activities, including a collaboration with students at Limerick School of Art and Design (Park Life: Ecologies of the People’s Park) and Dhá Theanga, a commission of audio tours for minority language communities developed by local participants.
Venues and Visitor Information
The 39th EVA International (Phase 1) venues are Limerick City Gallery of Art, The Hunt Museum, The Sailor’s Home, Enable Ireland, EVA Offices and Archive, and outdoor locations. All indoor venues are subject to capacity restrictions and public health protocols.