Simultaneously my MA in Contemporary Art Theory has been helping me to deconstruct a number of unhelpful, and frankly judgemental, positions that I have backed myself into. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing I see now, as I work the kinks of these unhelpful contortions out of my system.
And so I find myself in the most open and affirmative frame of mind that I can ever remember being in. Which is good, since I am also flooded with ideas for writing and projects, overwhelmed with creative drive and a need to make.
The conference left me captured by the troublesome idea of 'Irishness' and more precisely the burden of those seeking to capture or represent it. I want to talk to them, to 'trouble' the idea of Irishness and to start a discussion around the violence that this concept is doing to the collective self-worth of the island. (Thank you www.troublingireland.com bringing the concept of 'troubling into my life! It has fundamentally changed my practice.)
It is unhelpfully easy to communicate Irishness, to make it translate across cultures, with the creators and users of stereotype having much to answer for. For me even thinking about it presents a problem, with the crushing self-doubt of the impostor seeking to block my every advance into the subject. I must continually remind myself that this is a part of the modern discussion of Irishness, the conflicted emotions of an outsider within and an insider without.
So I want to use this blog as a pinboard where I can feel my way through these questions of Irishness, where I can discuss, collect and form ideas that will influence my practice. It will perform as a creative journal, charting my way through the Transcultural Memory module of my MA and hopefully helping me to knit my research and my practice.
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