NCAD and The Digital Hub co-hosted TURNING GROUND Talks Series 2022

The National College of Art and Design, Dublin (NCAD) and The Digital Hub present the second year of co-hosted public talks entitled NCAD | The Digital Hub Turning Ground Talks Series 2022. This year, the series creates a space and platform that brings together local and international artists, community, activists, academics and practitioners to discuss art ecology projects, research and practice, and together imagines just socio-ecological futures with a focus on the Dublin 8 area neighbourhoods.

The NCAD & The Digital Hub partnership builds on stakeholder participation at the intersection of artistic and transdisciplinary practice, research and society. The series is designed to bring together audiences from key industry figures; academics and thinkers; students and alumni; the arts sector to the wider general public.

Programme Schedule

EVENT 1
Title:  Art and Critical Ecological Practice. No event registration required.
Date & Time: Thursday 26 May 2022, 5.30PM – 7PM (UTC).
Location: NCAD, 100 Thomas St., D08 K521, Harry Clarke House Lecture Theatre. Map LINK.
Hosts: Austen Campbell (Robert Emmet CDP), Gareth Kennedy (NCAD), Seoidín O’Sullivan (The Digital Hub).

A TURNING GROUND series introductory discussion on research and work related to Art and Critical Ecological Practice, connecting the Dublin 8 area neighbourhoods. Posing questions: What is the role of contemporary art in meeting the challenge of Climate Futures? How does NCAD as an institution connect and work towards supporting and broadening this field of practice? What does this teaching practice and work look like?

EVENT 2
Title: Re-Enchantment: Environmental Law and Ruderal Ecologies. No event registration required.
Date & Time: Thursday 2 June 2022, 5.30PM – 7PM (UTC).
Location: Online Talk via YouTube LINK.
Speakers: Margaretha Haughwout (Colgate University) and Sinead Mercier (UCD Sutherland School of Law)
Moderators: Gareth Kennedy (NCAD), Seoidín O’Sullivan (The Digital Hub)

Ruderal ecologies emerge in sites of human disturbance. They emerge in rubble, ruins, in waste spaces. Ruderal ecologies make use of all possibilities for transportation that the 21-st century can offer, quickly reproducing, rapidly spreading seed, breaking up or binding together soils, offering nutrients, and playing host to insects and other outcasts of modernity. Importantly, ruderal landscapes are landscapes of the poor and working classes, of the landless proletariat; they are spaces where nature has been cheapened, and then abandoned. Witches, too, are ruderal. Like many ruderal plant and animal species, witches are cast out or devalued with ongoing enclosure movements; they are left to haunt the periphery. In this talk, I describe recent creative work that I and my collaborator Oliver Kellhammer enact under the title of Ruderal Witchcraft.

EVENT 3
Title: Radicle Lab. No event registration required.
Date & Time: Thursday 9 June 2022, 5.30PM – 7PM (UTC).
Location: Radicle Lab, The Digital Hub. iD8 Studio, The Gatelodge, The Digital Hub, Dublin,  D08 EY05.
Speaker: Dr Panagiota Kotsila of URBANA (Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability)
Moderators: Gareth Kennedy (NCAD), Seoidín O’Sullivan (The Digital Hub)

Panagiota Kotsila of URBANA lab (the Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability) examines the structural and systemic drivers of social inequalities, exclusion, oppression, and neo-colonization in cities. Building on the theory and methods from urban planning, public policy, urban and environmental sociology, urban geography and public health, we analyze the extent to which urban plans and policy decisions contribute to more just, resilient, healthy, and sustainable cities, and how community groups in distressed neighborhoods contest environmental inequities as a result of urban (re)development processes and policies. We believe in putting the needs of socially vulnerable groups at the center of sustainable urban land use practices and planning decisions, and prioritizing justice-driven responses to environmental and climate-related challenges. Our emphasis is on understanding the role that community, public, and private institutions can play in creating prosperous, welcoming and supportive cities for all.

EVENT 4 – September – October 2022. Forthcoming dates to be confirmed
Title: Permaculture / Theatre of the Oppressed – Registration will be required for this event.
Date: September – October 2022. Date TBC. Forthcoming on https://ncadinpublic.ie/
Location: NCAD, 100 Thomas St., D08 K521, Harry Clarke House Lecture Theatre. Map LINK.
Speakers: Dr Mojisola Adebayo (Queen Mary, University of London) & Dr Nicole Wolf (Goldsmiths, University of London) Workshop & Talk.
Moderators: Gareth Kennedy (NCAD), Seoidín O’Sullivan (The Digital Hub)

NCAD | The Digital Hub Turning Ground Talks Series 2022 is convened by artists, Gareth Kennedy, NCAD Fine Art lecturer in Sculpture and Expanded Practice & course leader of NCAD FIELD and Seoidín O’Sullivan, The Digital Hub Artist-In-Residence, NCAD Visual Culture guest lecturer in Art, Ecology & Critical Spatial Practice and NCAD First Year Studio Practice tutor.  More details at www.ncadinpublic.ie.