Pluck Projects are delighted to announce Pluck@RHA, a three year collaboration with the Royal Hibernian Academy as it approaches its 200th anniversary. Beginning with a conversation on Women, Artists and The Institution, this programme will consider the institution as a site of challenge, examining its inclusions and exclusions, how they shape what is considered to be art, and the ways in which these definitions have changed in our recent history.
For September 2020, we will be running the programme Women, Artists and The Institution
Feminist activism in the Irish art world has been a significant force since the 1980s when women artists mounted a challenge to the institutions that they felt had excluded them. Collectives such as the Women Artists’ Action Group argued that artists were not being recognized because of their gender by the museums and galleries that helped define Irish art in the popular imagination. Nearly forty years later, Abigail O’Brien, the first female president in the RHA’s almost 200 year history, reflected the ambitions of women’s artistic activism by foregrounding gender balance in her inaugural address. This echo is illustrative of the ways in which major institutions have absorbed activist demand into their own ways of thinking about themselves, leading them to instigate changes shaped by the challenges mounted against the establishment. In this series of seminars and screenings, Pluck Projects consider the legacies of the women’s movement in the Irish art world, and discuss not only the history of feminist challenge, but also how it has interacted with the interests and ambitions of artistic institutions.
The programme is as follows:
4 Sept 2020 18.00:
Pluck Projects in conversation with Aideen Barry (ARHA), Pauline Cummins and Eithne Jordan (RHA).
This discussion will consider feminist practice, women’s artistic activism and the institution from the perspective of three key contemporary practitioners.
This event is free but you must register via eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/pluck-projects-rha-gallery-tickets-118460280889?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch
7th – 13th September
Online film screening: Pauline Cummins – Becoming Beloved (1995) and selection of recent works
14th – 20th September
Online film screening: Aideen Barry – Not to be Known or Named (2015) and Enshrined (2016)
24 September, 18:00:
Dr Fionna Barber and Dr Tina Kinsella will consider a longer history of feminism in Irish art practice and the institutional landscape.
Pluck Projects 