The Art Shelter Collective – “The Sit Down”: Exhibiting ‘Belonging’ through Poetry, Film and Music.
“I think that when you’ve moved once or multiple times to new places, you have this greater urge to rebuild community because you didn’t have it when you first came. You see new people arriving and you wish that they could have togetherness because you know how hard it can be without it. We are Social Creatures. We need each other. So why not create a community?”
-The Art Shelter Collective
With their third and latest exhibition, ‘The Sit Down’, being performed in Bewley Café Theatre on April 2nd, the Art Shelter Collective are continuing to prove themselves as one of Dublin’s most important advocates for creating space for the arts to live and breathe in Dublin without any monetary barriers. Created by three interdisciplinary artists, Svenja Michelle Behle (@s.m.behle,) Feride Gormez (@feridegormez) and Lana Zubović (@krvna_grupaaplus), it was a pleasure getting to briefly chat about the different elements of this experimental event, its interpretations of belonging, and the moments which stuck with people the most.
The artists involved will be tagged under each category, but I urge you to find out more information about them on @the.art.shelter and their own pages!
The Exhibition
Lana: “Our past events had a pop-in-pop-out gallery style; but, this time, it was a fully organised programme hosted by (Éalantóri agus Rappálaí) Blue Niall (@blue_niall_), where each art-form was given time to merge altogether, from poetry to film to music. Often video and sound pieces don’t get as much attention as they deserve in galleries: so this event gave people the opportunity to sit down and fully take them in. Our goal was to create a communal space where each medium could uplift the other, creating a bigger sense of what art could be.”
Belonging
Feri: “I loved what one of the filmmakers, Harun (@harunergiz), said during the artist talk, pointing out that home or belonging is both ‘love and hate, it’s not only what you love’. Belonging is never perfect, but rather an accepted state of inbetweenness. Harun mentioned really wanting to leave his family home, and when he moved to Dublin, he felt at home.
Living as an immigrant here still creates new struggles with many new reasons to complain; but, at the same time, Dublin is now home: he hates it and he loves it, but he feels at home.”
Svejna: “One of the most interesting parts was hearing feedback from people who visited the event. A friend of mine mentioned how when he was watching Harun’s film and the sound of cicadas played, the sound brought him right back home to the south of Spain. It really connected to him because during his new summers in Dublin, he would open the windows and play YouTube loops of cicada songs to create that feeling of home. Media (and particularly sound) brought him back, if only for a moment. I think that lends itself to the question which our exhibition was asking: is ‘belonging’ a real physical place, or just an imagination or concept of the place you create?”
Lana: “There are so many different perspectives and positions to take when it comes to ‘belonging’. It will mean something different to everybody. Art-making allows us to get into thatweird headspace, that particular experience: whether it was poetry, film or music, we got to communicate with everyone’s personal view of the world around them. For example, I was able to present my film, The Necromancer, which was a continuation of my projects from last year. The film looked at ancestral inheritance and asked how we can cope with seeing these inherited elements within ourselves; the moment of recognizing your parents or grandparents in yourself and how different or not different you may be from them. It also explored how we create our identities through space; do we lose parts of ourselves when leaving languages, cultures and backgrounds? And I just loved everyone's reaction to the overarching theme.”
Film
Svenja: “Talking to lots of filmmakers, the lack of spaces there are in Dublin to communally showcase their films was often mentioned, especially if you haven’t done a degree in filmmaking here either. So, we quickly knew that we wanted to highlight films centered around the theme of ‘Belonging’ – people moving to Ireland and from Ireland, and how different perspectives notice Ireland’s changes.”
Here are the filmmakers that were involved!
@rik.higashikawa is a multidisciplinary artist who works across experimental moving image, text and site-specific collaborative interventions and screened the film ‘without a heart fragments’ at the event!
@garethstack is a writer, filmmaker and radio producer based in Dublin and screened the film Benediction at the event!
@7ucc11 is a multidisciplinary artist working across video, installation and performance and screened No Name at the event.
@harunergiz was born and raised in Duzici, a small town in Anatolia. He studied cinema in Istanbul at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. During his education, he worked on many short films with his friends. He screened the film Not My Home Not My Choice at the event!
@choy.png is a Linbury Prizewinner who has designed across Ireland, the UK and Singapore. Ping is primarily inspired by their heritage, examining language, colonialism and queerness with innovative design. They screened Window World at the event!
@temmuzsr is a film artist, media scholar and drummer based in Dublin. Temmuz’s experimental films explore self-reflexive aesthetics as a method for audiovisualizing the conditions and constraints of filmmaking!
@kresimir_zimonic is a well-accredited visual artist and screened Čakaj Me at the event!
Finally, @belgenelif is a filmmaker who has received awards in directing, screenplay, and cinematography categories and works for major streaming services while creating independent films as well! They screened Next Year Around This Time at the event!
Poetry
Feri: “The Bewley’s Theatre Room was really the perfect space for poetry; it was a quiet space for people to just sit down and listen and really give their full attention. The selected poets were both selected by and came from applications. For us, the most important thing was performing poetry that cared about the theme of ‘Belonging’.”
Here are the poets that performed!
@mollymayinsta is an interdisciplinary performance artist who loves performing her poetry in magical space with others in live settings!
@philosphkenny is a freelance autistic advocate, poet, writer, reader, festival performer and spoken word film maker with his work being recognised by many awards!
@mariam.irl is a Nigerian-born, Drogheda-raised and Dublin-living poet & Multi-hyphenate and Pisces previously published in LAC and poems for Palestine!
Finally, interdisciplinary researcher, writer and visual artist, Leah McDonogh wrote the piece Oscillatons ii for ‘The Sit Down’ and it can be found in the link below!
https://theartshelter.substack.com/p/the-sit-down
Music
The Art Shelter: “With the music segment we wanted to bring a warm and intimate atmosphere to the room to round off the night. The harp is such a unique instrument; and Pilar's voice singing emotional songs about affairs in the world that affect us all and our sense of home, it brought the themes of the event to another sense through rhythm and vibrations. Khidyie has a Hong-Kong/Irish background, just as the filmmaker of the final film Window World: we thought this was a beautiful overlap to bring this unique perspective to the event through two artforms. Her music explores the fine line between fantasy and reality and this resonated with our questions around home as a place and imagined construct.”
@Fridamercurio is a Pilar Paradela Mateos, a harpist and composer exploring the edges of sound, blending classical roots with jazz, flamenco, and contemporary influences!
@khidlamb is an Irish-Hong Kong musician, whose music explores the finer lines between reality and fantasy!
A moment from ‘The Sit Down’ that stuck with you?
Lana: “Seeing the people; it is a sense of reassurance. When you’re planning the event, it’s all stuck in your head – and these events take a while to plan –, but then you see a hundred or more assembled and engaged, suddenly it’s real. For me, it’s just: wow.”
Feri: “The event was really beautiful, artists talking, artists sharing their thoughts, it was beautiful. Visually, a moment that stuck with me was seeing people sitting on the floor together when there were still chairs left. Seeing people outside, on window ledges, seeing the community appreciating the art and being grounded together. That was a moment I won’t forget.”
Svenja: “A moment that stuck with me was just watching the emotions on people’s faces. One of the visitors was actually crying at the end of the last film, Window World, by Ping (@choy.png). Seeing that raw emotion, and that she actually felt comfortable expressing it at our own event was truly beautiful.”
Written By: Ben Lynch, @ben_lynch__
Edited By: Kirsten Baldwin, @teddys_bookshelf
Photos by: The Art Shelter Collective, @the.art.shelter
Erlan Dzhumaliev, @stormxlr
Feride Görmez, @feridegormez @jarsandpickles.
