On the set of ‘Táimse Im Chodladh’
‘Táimse Im Chodladh’ written and directed by Denis Buckley and produced by Ciarán Walsh / www.curator.ie was filmed over 9 hours in the old Pretty Polly factory in Killarney on Saturday 24 August, after a week of prep and set construction. Colm Hogan, Director of Photography, got the 8 min short in 5 takes.
Winner of the ‘Físín’ short film pitch at Dingle International Film Festival 2012, ‘Táimse Im Chodladh’ will be premiered at the festival in March 2014.
Laillí Lamb de Buitléar and Mary Lamb Waugh (right of picture) at the opening of an exhibition (2 August 2013) of paintings by their father Charles Lamb (1893–1964) in Aras Éanna, Inis Oirr, the Aran Islands.
There was a big turn out for the opening of an exhibition of paintings by Charles Lamb (1893–1964) in Aras Éanna, the arts centre on Inis Oírr in the Aran Islands. Lamb was from Northern Ireland. He was born in County Armagh and attended evening classes at the Belfast School of Art before he gained a scholarship to the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin where he studied from 1917 to 21. Like so many Irish painters of the time, Lamb was attracted to the West of Ireland where he focused on studies of peasant life in Conomara. He painted on the Aran Islands in 1928 and he settled in An Ceathrú Rua (Carraroe), where he the built a house in the Breton style in the he mid-1930s.
Ag Iompar na gCurraí / Carrying a Currach by Charles Lamb (1893–1964).
The paintings are part of a private collection that is owned by Laillí Lamb de Buitléar and the exhibition was curated by the contemporary glass artist Róisín de Buitléar. It was hung by Ciarán Walsh of www.curator.ie. The exhibition is the highlight of an arts programme, devised by Maighread Ní Ghallchóir and Danny Kirrane in Aras Éanna, that is dedicated to the memory of Laillí’s husband Eamon de Buitléar – the writer, musician and film maker who died in January 2013.
Opening of Charles Lamb Exhibition in Áras Éanna on Inis Oírr, the Aran Islands.
Saturday, 23 June 2012 | Milltown, County Kerry | Ireland
The official launch of the collaboration between artist Pauline O’Connell and www.curator.ie takes place this weekend in Milltown, Co. Kerry. The project will be launched by arts minister Jimmy Deenihan T.D. in the community centre on Saturday. The event will involve a screening of the film, supporting documentation and a celebratory céilí or dance. It kicks off at 8pm.
‘Drawing the Water’ is a public art project by artist Pauline O’Connell. It was commissioned under the Per Cent for Art Scheme that is administered by the Arts Office of Kerry County Council. It was filmed by Ciarán Walsh in September, on location in Milltown and in a studio in Ballyheigue. Post production was managed by Ciarán Walsh.
‘Drawing the Water’ was inspired by ‘The Spout,’ a public water supply in the centre of the Milltown that was a focal point in the town as local people ‘drew’ fresh water on daily basis. O’Connell developed the piece over a year, collecting stories about ‘The Spout’ in schools and in the community.The film is a 5 minute short / artwork that deals with the tasks associated with collecting water. “It’s an intense reflection on the importance of water, the rhythm of the task of collecting it and the sensuous quality of washing by hand. It’s informed by all the conversations that Pauline has had with people in the town’” says Walsh who spent 3 days filming the artwork for O’Connell. The filming involved performances by Thomas O’Sullivan of Milltown and Chiara Ghia.
In 1973 Chris Rodmell arrived in Inis Meáin to make a short film. He had won a student award of £250 in response to a proposal to film life in an “enclosed community living on one of the remote islands off Ireland or Scotland.” He chose Inis Meáin. He spent three weeks on the island, filming with a 16mm Bolex and taking photographs with a medium format Mamiya on Kodak Ektachrome professional stock.
40 years on Chris has returned to Inis Meáin to present an exhibition of a selection of the photographs he took in 1973. ‘Inis Meáin 1973’ is presented by Tarlach De Blacam of Cniotáil Inis Meáin as part of a series of exhibitions by photographers who visited Inis Meáin. The series kicked off in 2009 with the acclaimed exhibition of photographs of Árann by John Millingon Synge; this exhibition was included in ‘The Moderns,’ a major survey of modernism in Irish art that was held in IMMA (Irish Museum Of Modern Art) in 2010.
‘Synge’ was curated by Ciarán Walsh of curator.ie and he resumed his partnership with De Blacam to present ‘Inis Meáin 1973’ by Chris Rodmell, establishing Cniotáil Inis Meáin as one of the more interesting venues currently presenting photographic exhibitions.
The exhibition runs until 15 August 2012.
More information: Press release for ‘Inis Meáin 1973’ by Chris Rodmell
© The Board of Trinity College Dublin
in association with
Trinity College Dublin, The Royal Irish Academy, Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir / The Blasket Centre, Mairéad Ní Ghallchóir (Áras Éanna, Inis Oírr, Árann), Jane Maxwell (TCD), Tim Keefe (TCD), Justin Carville (IADT Dún Laoghaire), Ciarán Rooney (FILMBANK Colour Management) and Séamas Mac Philib, The National Museum of Ireland – Country Life.
How did one explain the presence of a primitive (white) race living in the back yard of the United Kingdom – at the height of the British Empire? Scientists based in Trinity College Dublin attempted to do just that by documenting the physical characteristics and habits of communities in the remotest parts of Ireland. Starting in Aran in 1891, they moved along the west coast and finished up in Carna in 1900. The whole thing was recorded by Charles R. Browne and his associates on a new generation of portable cameras using plates and rolled film, the latest in photographic technology at the time. They took more than photos however, they were the Irish ‘headhunters.’
Alive or dead the head of the Irish native was at the centre of all of their research, cranial capacity (brain size) and physiognomy being regarded as the key to unlocking the mystery of the origins of the Irish race. Specimens – the skulls of dead islanders – were collected and lodged in the Museum of Comparative Anatomy in TCD. Live heads were also taken … with a camera. These anthropometric portraits were contextualised with photographs of “the occupations, modes of transport, and habitations of the people, also several of the antiquities of the district, and a set of views showing surface of land and nature of coastline, etc.”
‘Charles R. Browne The Irish Headhunter’ exhibition will present in exhibition, for the first time ever, the photographs collected by Charles R. Browne. These are held in the Research Collection and Manuscripts Library of Trinity College Dublin. They have been scanned and reproduced especially for this exhibition and it is the first time most of them will have been seen in public.
This is probably the most important photographic archive to come into the public domain. It is supported by written reports – ethnographies – that are held in the Royal Irish Academy. Browne’s archive is singular in terms of its depiction of life on the west coast of Ireland in the 1890s. The anthropological inquiry – and the headhunting – that motivated it is one of the best kept secrets in Ireland.
