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JP Morgan (formerly Lehman Brothers), Canary Wharf, London, Feb 2013 From THE MARKET, a project by Mark Curran

JP Morgan (formerly Lehman Brothers), Canary Wharf, London, Feb 2013
From THE MARKET, a project by Mark Curran

In the continuing evolutionary aftermath of the global economic collapse and in the absence of sustained practice-led research engagement with the central locus of this event, this research blog has been established as a gathering place in relation to the ethnographically framed, multi-sited transnational project, THE MARKET by artist researcher and educator, Mark Curran. 

Part of a cycle of long-term multi-media research projects, undertaken since the late 1990s, addressing the predatory context resulting from migrations and flows of global capital, this ongoing project which began in 2010, focuses on the functioning and condition of the global markets and the central role of financial capital.

Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Department of Foreign Affairs, Government of Ireland, Dublin City Council, Arts Council of Northern Ireland , NEPN (University of Sunderland/UK), Noorderlicht (Netherlands), Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT/Dublin), and partnered by Belfast Exposed Photography, Gallery of Photography, Dublin, CCA Derry-Londonderry and curated by Helen Carey, Director of Fire Station Artists’ Studios, the project was first presented as part of the visual arts programme marking the centenary of the 1913 Dublin Lockout, a pivotal moment in Irish labour history.

THE MARKET has been shown as an installation at Gallery of Photography (2013), Belfast Exposed Gallery (2013) and Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (2014). The project was also nominated by Gallery of Photography, Dublin for the international Prix Pictet and the Deutsche Börse Photography Award 2014. Most recent installations of THE MARKET include Noorderlicht, Netherlands (2015), Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto, Canada (2016), Museum of Capitalism, Oakland, USA (2017), Le Bleu du Ciel – Centre de Photographie Contemporaine, Lyon, France (2017) & Krakow Photomonth, Poland (2018).

(*note video: Acknowledging the technological evolution of the markets towards primarily non-human apparatus foreseen within a decade, generated from algorithms identifying the words market or markets from speeches given by the Irish Minister of Finance (Dublin), British Chancellor for the Exchequer (Belfast) and French Minister of Finance (Paris), the immersive soundscape of the installation represents the defining sound of the market, the sound of financial capital through the conjuit apparatus of the financialised Nation-State.)

Biographies

Mark Curran is a practice-led researcher and educator living and working in Berlin and Dublin. He completed a practice-led PhD at the Centre for Transcultural Research and Media Practice, Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) (2011), lectures and is Programme Chair on the BA (Hons) Photography programme, Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT), Dublin where he also supervises practice-led postgraduate research students. Since 2011, he is Visiting Professor on the MA in Visual and Media Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin.

Incorporating multi-media installation informed by ethnography, beginning in the late 1990s, he has undertaken a cycle of 4 long-term research projects, including THE MARKET, critically addressing the predatory context resulting from flows and migrations of global capital. His first long-term project, SOUTHERN CROSS  (1999-2001)(Gallery of Photography, Dublin 2002), was widely published and exhibited and The Breathing Factory (2002-2006)(Edition Braus/Belfast Exposed Photography/Gallery of Photography 2006), the outcome of his doctoral research has been extensively presented, including, DePaul Art Museum (DPAM), Chicago (2010), Xuhui Art Museum, Shanghai (2010) and FORMAT, Derby (2013). Continuing this cycle of projects, Ausschnitte aus EDEN/Extracts from EDEN (2003-2009)(Arts Council of Ireland, 2011), sited in a declining industrial and coalmining region of the former East Germany, was installed at Encontros da Imagem 2011, Braga, Portugal, PhotoIreland 2012 and an article with portfolio is included in the UK journal, Photographies, edited by Liz Wells & Deborah Bright.

Curran has also presented widely on his research including CAA Annual Conference, Chicago (2010), Emerging Landscapes, University of Westminster, London (2010), Photomedia-Images in Circulation, Aalto University, Helsinki (2012), Between Nature and Culture: Photography as Method and Mediation, The Photographers Gallery, London (2012), Marxism and Critical Theory and Contemporary Art, Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin (2013), MOMENTOUS TIMES, Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry-Londonderry (2013), Theatre of Memory, Abbey Theatre, Dublin (2014), SOUND VISION ACTION, McGill University, Montreal (2014), Mapping The Frontiers of High Finance, Royal Anthropological Institute, London (2015), University of Ljubljana (2015), University of Bern (2015), Boston University (2016) & College Arts Association (CAA) 105th Annual Conference, New York (2017).

A publication of THE MARKET is being planned.

Helen Carey is Director of Fire Station Artists’ Studios  in Dublin and former Director of the Limerick City Gallery of Art. Previously, Helen was the inaugural Director of Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris; Director of Galway Arts Centre, Ireland and Public Art Project Manager for the landmark Millennium Commission, Bristol, United Kingdom. Helen has worked with many national and international artists, including Michael Warren, Amanda Coogan, Sean Scully, Brian Duggan, Banksy and young British artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster. She has also worked with many emerging artists and has been involved in managing visual art residencies. As the curator of projects marking the centenary of the 1913 Lockout, Helen’s interest is in critically viewing the Lockout in Dublin, Irish labour history, nationalism and the current shifts in understandings around notions of work and protest and how such history intersects our understanding of the present and influences our ideas for the future. Her practice concerns cultural identity and commemorative exhibition, the visibility of contemporary art in Ireland today and the strategies and possibilities of collaboration across different disciplines. Helen’s background includes history and politics from University College Dublin as well as postgraduate studies in Contemporary Visual Art Practices.

THE MARKET is supported by Projects Award Funding from the Arts Council of Ireland.

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