MAKE SYMPOSIA were initially developed to highlight our Contemporary Applied Arts Degree, and to place our course at the forefront of a growing awareness of and heightened appreciation of the role of the hand-made in contemporary art, and in the wider culture, of Ireland and abroad. MAKE Symposia have invited eminent makers and academics in the field of making, to address sell-out audiences of students and arts professionals drawn from all over Ireland, each year.
MAKE 2017: MAKING IN ART + BIOLOGY focused on making in the overlap between art and the science of living things. Our speakers were distinguished artists and scientists who are leaders in interdisciplinary and collaborative activities between art and biology.
ANNA DUMITRIU: Bio-artist; researcher; Oxford University, UK
LIA COOK: artist, weaver; emeritus Professor, California College of the Arts, USA
ALEX MAY: digital artist; video-mapping; robotics; collaborator, UK
SIOBHAN MCGIBBON: visual artist; medical residencies, Ireland
SUSIE MACMURRAY: sculptor; installation artist; Manchester, UK
DR. MARIA MACNAMARA: Senior Lecturer: Biology, Earth, Environment, UCC
MAKING 2016: OBJECTS AND REVOLUTION honoured the 1916 Centenary by exploring the role of objects to articulate trauma and social change and featured several speakers with an impassioned activist art practice.
CATHERINE HARPER: artist; writer; editor; Dean, University of Portsmouth, UK
RITA DUFFY: artist, Belfast native; Ireland
BRIAN HAND: artist; Lecturer, IT Carlow, Ireland
EGLĖ BOGDANIENĖ: artist; curator; Vilnius Academy of Arts, Lithuania
SARAH KELLEHER: writer; curator; PHD candidate, UCC
MAKE 2015: RE-MAKING TRADITION looked at traditional skill as it is sampled, mixed, and transformed in contemporary Art & Design practice. Our speakers discussed the role of the traditional as a springboard to be re-configured, via new technologies or current conceptual concerns.
YOSI ANAYA: artist; academic; researcher; Veracruz University, Mexico
VITA GELUNIENE: artist; city-researcher; Vilnius Academy of Arts, Lithuania
MARY SCHOESSER: textile historian and author based in London
LOGAN MCLAIN: embroidery artist, IT researcher, Dublin
ALISON LOWRY: glass artist, N. Ireland
DAVID LITTLER: sonic visual artist; DJ, UK
MAKE 2014: MAKING IN ART AND TECHNOLOGY explored our relationship to objects, to making, and our awareness through touch of our world of matter with distinguished speakers from the fields of textile art, digital technology, and science.
LESLEY MILLAR: MBE, curator; educator; University for the Creative Arts, London
ALICE KETTLE: Embroidery artist; researcher, University of Winchester
INGRID MURPHY: artist, ceramicist, Cardiff School of Art and Design
TREVOR HOGAN: CIT CCAD Department of Media Communications
FRAN HEGARTY: MSc, Trinity College; Physicist, St. James Hospital, Dublin
KIERAN NOLAN: Lecturer, Dundalk Institute of Technology
