VAI Award Winners 2022
Visual Artists Ireland is delighted to announce the winners of the following four awards:
- VAI Residency at CCI Paris 2022 – Cian McConn
- Experiment! Award 2022 – Holly Márie Parnell
- Experience! Award 2022 – Conan McIvor and Vivienne Dick
- Exchange! Award 2022 – Chinedum Muotto
VAI Residency at CCI Paris 2022
This year VAI is providing a two-month, research-based residency at Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. Accommodation, one return flight, and a stipend of €750 per month is included in the residency, which was open to all VAI members at all career stages, working in all visual art forms. The residency offers a great opportunity for the selected artist to tap into the resources of CCI, as well as being an important means of showcasing Ireland’s dynamic contemporary culture on an international stage.
Cian McConn (b.1980, Ireland) completed his MFA at the Royal College of Art, London, in 2012. He is a visual artist and performer whose non-hierarchical approach toward multimedia practice embraces image-making, text, performance, and collaboration with others. Thematically he works with concepts of identity, persona, and the performance of the self in relation to gender and community. Recent exhibitions and performances include ON EDGE: Living in an Age of Anxiety, Science Gallery London; I AS IN US with Vivienne Griffin (IRL), MNAC, Bucharest; Augusto with Alessandro Sciarroni (IT); and no sense left to be shared with Nicole Bachmann (CH).
Commenting on his award and forthcoming residency, Cian stated: “While undertaking the VAI/CCI residency, I will explore the mythology surrounding Paris as a site of refuge for exiled and queer artists. My initial focus will be on James Baldwin and Samuel Beckett adopting Paris as their home. This period of research and development of new work will be informed by the archetype of the exiled artist in Paris, addressing preconceived ideas about masculinity, artistic identity, and the history of Paris in relation to racial and gendered ideas of success. I intend to continue working on a series of assemblage works and will begin work on a script for monologue performance.”
Experiment! Award 2022
Experiment! provides an alternative form of residency. Based on feedback from VAI members, it is clear that it is difficult for the majority of visual artists to take time out of their lives to take advantage of residential residencies. Therefore, we have designed this residency in the form of research support, providing €3000 for the selected artist to experiment and undertake research which is designed to bring their practice to a new level.
Holly Márie Parnell is an artist filmmaker based in County Wexford. Taking a documentary approach, her work is built from personal encounters and is motivated by the subtle yet powerful truths of embodied knowledge and lived experience. She is interested in that which is not easily articulated, looking at the ways we impart meaning and value through layers of authority and language. She is a recent alumnus of the FLAMIN Fellowship, and an MFA graduate of the Slade School of Art. Recent awards include the Arts Council Film Project Award and a residency at RUPERT, Lithuania.
For the Experiment! Award, Holly Márie will explore access and the moving image through a series of workshops. She is collaborating with her brother, David Parnell – who is nonverbal and speaks using eye gaze technology – to explore themes of communication, voice, and what it means to receive the moving image.
Experience! Award 2022
Experience! provides funding of €3000 for artists working across the generational divide to come together to share knowledge and experience. The goal of the award is mutual learning, growth, and the encouragement of collaboration between different generations and levels of experience within VAI’s membership.
Vivienne Dick (2020) premiered at DIFF Dublin and has won several awards. She currently lives in Dublin.
Conan McIvor is a filmmaker, theatre maker and video artist who creates experimental films, drama shorts, documentary, video installations, immersive environments, large-scale outdoor video projections and moving image design for live performance. His work has been exhibited in site-specific venues and traditional gallery spaces, screened at international film festivals, national theatres, and off-Broadway performances, and been broadcast on national television. His practice is primarily concerned with themes of identity, masculinity, tradition, and mythology.
With the Experience! Award, Vivienne and Conan will engage in an exchange of mentorship and tuition, drawing upon their respective experiences in Super 8 filmmaking and digital video production to create a space for potential creative collaboration and experimentation across mediums.
Exchange! Award 2022
Exchange! is for VAI members to exchange and enhance understandings of different cultural contexts. The purpose of this award is to provide support and funding of €3000 to the selected artist(s) who may wish to create an opportunity for growth and better understanding across different cultural identities.
Chinedum Muotto is an inter-disciplinary artist who conjures magic through various creative means, as he takes us on journeys concertedly to places known and unknown. His current interests pertain to performances of the banal, exploring new ways of resurrecting performance within the public and private spheres of our existence. His works have been incubated within institutions such as: IMMA, CREATE, plan-B (Lagos, Nigeria), re-contemporary (Turin, Italy) & DCCCC.
Upon receiving the award, Chinedum stated: “The Exchange! Award had me thinking of cultural reservoirs that we as artists hold and embody to certain degrees. As an artist with Biafran origins, I explore how my cultural heritage manifests in my work, creating space for these lives to come forth. Son of Ngozi Akamelu – truly, I am my mother’s son. As such, I will use this award and opportunity to immerse myself in the customs and traditions of mask-making in Nigeria and parts of West Africa.”