OTP 2021 Programme - Dublin
OUTing the Past Dublin 2021
Saturday 20th March at 2pm
Online Workshop
Creative Careers: Making space for your creativity with Eimear Walshe
Join Eimear Walshe, an artist working in video, writing and performance, for a workshop on making space for your creativity. Eimear will talk about how they develop their work, including researching, writing, and working in various media. They will also speak about the role that art practice has in their life, and the importance of making space for creative, critical and reflecting thinking, regardless of your career choice. Whether it’s a notebook, a suitcase, or a 2m x 3m clearing on your floor, this workshop will help identify your needs in order to be creative, and think about how to meet those needs in increasingly uncertain times. This Creative Careers event is part of our Apollo Project programme for young people aged 16 to 25. https://nationalgallery.ticketsolve.com/shows/873617034?_ga=2.164066431.1778077279.1613555567-642169859.1596546884
Monday 22nd March
Pre-recorded talk
A conversation with Kieran Rose: Patrick McDonagh interviews one of the leaders of the fight for LGBT+ rights in Ireland
'This is a great achievement for Irish society and its lesbian and gay community. Today we can be here, proud to be Irish citizens and proud to be lesbians and gays.' - Kieran Rose speaking at the 1993 Gay Pride celebrations following the decriminalisation of sexual activity between males, 28 June 1993.
For nearly fifty years Kieran Rose has been to the fore in advancing LGBT+ rights in Ireland. From his early years with the Cork Gay Collective in the 1980s, where he led the successful efforts to get the Irish Trade Union Movement to support gay rights, to his involvement with GLEN, which lobbied for the 1993 Criminal Law Amendment Act that finally decriminalised sexual activity between males in the Republic of Ireland, to his role in securing an amendment to the Unfair Dismissals Act in 1993 to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation, the introduction of the Employment Equality Act 1998, and more recently his contribution to the introduction of the Civil Partnership Act in 2010, later paving the way for Marriage Equality in 2015, Kieran Rose has helped make Ireland a more progressive, inclusive and diverse society for all to live in.
In this wide-ranging interview, Rose talks about what life was like growing up in Ireland in the 1950s/60s, Cork’s gay subculture in the 1970s, and his subsequent entry into LGBT+ rights activism in Ireland. Focusing on the years prior to decriminalisation in 1993, the interview will also cover topics such as: LGBT+ activism in Cork, in particular the first National Gay Conference held in 1981; the role of trade unions in advancing LGBT+ rights in Ireland; the Fairview Park Protest March; the gay community’s response to AIDS; and the efforts of GLEN to introduce progressive legislation to decriminalise sexual activity between males. While Kieran Rose did not single-handedly bring about the aforementioned changes, there were many more individuals involved, his story provides an opportunity to explore the rich history of LGBT+ activism in Ireland from the 1970s to early 1990s, a period when the issue of gay rights was very much on the margins of Irish society. The considerable advances Ireland has made in recent years, however, are rooted in the efforts of LGBT+ activists dating back to the 1970s.
Patrick McDonagh is an independent scholar who obtained his PhD in History from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. His research broadly focuses on Irish Queer History. He has had articles published in the Journal of the History of Sexuality and the Journal of Irish Economic and Social History. He has also contributed articles to: From Sodomy Laws to Same-Sex Marriage: International Perspectives since 1789 [eds. Sean Brady and Mark Seymour] (Bloomsbury, 2019), RTÉ Brainstorm, Gay Times, GCN, and was recently the guest editor of Studi Irlandesi: A Journal of Irish Studies. His first monograph, Gay and Lesbian Activism in the Republic of Ireland, 1973-1993, will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in November 2021.
http://kilmainhamgaolmuseum.ie/
Tuesday 23rd Marcy at 1.15pm
Pop Up Instagram Story
John Collier's Portrait of George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Dramatist
Join Aoife Convery for a two-minute Instagram video discussing George Bernard Shaw and his unique approach to romance and relationships, and how it relates to modern understandings of asexuality. https://www.instagram.com/nationalgalleryofireland/
Tuesday 23rd March at 6pm
Online Talk
Asexual Representation in Art
In this talk Aoife Convery, artist and art historian, will consider the presence of asexuality among artistic communities of the past, and what possible impact was left on the art world in Ireland and beyond. Aoife will discuss well-known artists and cultural figures and hopefully to shed light on previously obscured aspects of themselves. This online talk carefully look at the lives of historical artists and members of the artistic community and explore the possibility that these figures may have identified on the asexual spectrum if alive today. Aoife also aims to demonstrate the presence of asexual figures within both historic and contemporary queer and artistic communities, and how these people might have been shaped by their sexuality to do great things.
Wednesday, 24th March at 2pm
Live Talk via Restream
Breaking Down Barriers - including Q&A with Kris Reid
Presentation by Dan Vo of original research conducted with 50 galleries, libraries, archives, museums across the UK engaged in LGBTQ+ programming.
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/142678596523
Thursday 25th March at 6pm
Online Talk
A Reception at 24 South Frederick St: Researching the History of Ireland’s LGBTQ+ Diaspora
In May 1937, the Irish Times reported on a reception at 24 South Frederick Street hosted by ‘Miss Kathleen O’Brennan’ for ‘Mr and Mrs. Chester Arthur’. Kathleen O’Brennan had championed the Irish republican cause in the US during the Irish revolutionary period. While agitating in the western US she began a romantic relationship with the Irish-Italian radical Marie Equi. Chester Arthur, known to friends as ‘Gavin’, was the bisexual astrologer grandson of the 21st US President who traced his family ancestry to Antrim. ‘Mrs. Chester Arthur’ was Arthur’s wife Esther Murphy, an Irish-American historian who later met and fell in love with the writer Sybille Bedford in 1945. Join Dr Maurice Casey as he tells the fascinating and interweaving stories of O’Brennan, Arthur and Murphy. This talk will present new research conducted as part of EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum’s LGBTQ+ Diaspora research project.
Thursday 25th March at 7pm
Online Workshop
Drag & Draw
Run with an ethos of inclusivity and accessibility, Drag & Draw is a life drawing class with drag performers, Phil T Gorgeous & Bonnie Ann Clyde, as models. Drag & Draw provides a unique arts space of connection and creativity. These classes are informal and are very suitable for drawing beginners. They also give experienced artists the opportunity to draw not your typical life-drawing model - think more sass! There will be fast-paced drawing exercises, lip-syncs and interactive elements giving attendees the opportunity to learn more about drag culture. Drag & Draw is run by Adrian Colwell. Follow us via @draganddraw on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Friday 26th March at 2pm
Online Workshop
Queering Your Collections
As museums and galleries evolve and engage new audiences it is important to create a welcoming and inclusive environment within organisations. A huge part of this includes language and on-the-ground implementation of a greater understanding of minority communities. This is particularly relevant to the LGBTQIA+ community. The correct use of identities and pronouns can make a huge difference to a systematically marginalised group. In this workshop session, Judith Finlay (National Museum of Ireland), Kate Drinane (National Gallery of Ireland) and Brian Crowley (Kilmainham Gaol) will share their own personal and professional experiences as queer people in the cultural sector. They will explain LGBTQIA+ language and terms that can be used in a practical and supportive way with discussion, group activities and debate. This session will aim to give participants a grounding in understanding the LGBTQIA+ community which can then be used to reach out and engage with groups encouraging social change and audience participation in institutions.
Friday, 26th March at 4pm
Pre-recorded Talk
Reclaiming the Link with the Past: The Importance of the Pink with Rainer Schulze
Triangle Links the generation of gay men (and LGBTIQ people more widely) persecution under the Nazi regime (and before) through the “AIDS crisis” of the 1980s and 1990s to the present, creating an awareness of past struggles which continue to cast a long shadow on LGBTIQ lives until today.
Friday, 26th March
Instagram/Twitter CAMP project takeover
Iam is a video and sound installation that resulted from the collaboration between Darren Collins, a Traveller and LGBTQI+ activist, and visual artist and LSAD undergrad Bríd Murphy. This work aims to address the challenges that arise from identifying with multiple minority identities and the complex dynamic of identifying as LGBTQI+ and Traveller. Posts throughout the day via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Saturday 27th March at 2pm
Online Workshop
Drag Story Time
We are recruiting budding artistes of all ages for a story time adventure hosted by the National Gallery of Ireland through the magical medium of drag. Enjoy storytelling like you've never seen it before. Your personal drag guides Ben Panthera and Avoca Reaction are hard at work creating original stories and games using queer art and fun activities.
https://nationalgallery.ticketsolve.com/shows/873617053
Saturday 27th March at 4pm
Online Talk
Do Michelangelo's "Presentation Drawings" evoke modern concepts of homosexuality?
In this presentation, Cas Bradbeer will share a selection of homoerotic art made by the High renaissance artist Michelangelo for the Roman nobleman Tommaso de Cavalieri in 1530s Florence, Italy. With reference to a couple poems, love letters, and drawings such as Ganymede, Cas will be comparing and contrasting a range of scholarly interpretations with the aim of outlining a history of the marginalisation of Michelangelo’s queerness. This should lead smoothly on to what heritage practitioners today can do to correct the damage that hiding these histories has done. From critically evaluating demands for ‘evidence’ to contextualising terminology to reminding us all of histories of archival omissions (such as the masculine pronouns edited out from the artist’s love letters by his nephew), there is so much we can continue to do.
https://nationalgallery.ticketsolve.com/shows/873617086
Saturday 27th March at 6pm
Online Talk
Queering National Myths - The Case of William of Orange
The image of a heroic king bedecked in armour riding a white horse valiantly into battle is perhaps the most recognised representation of the controversial William III, better known as William of Orange. Staring out from 17th century paintings hung in Ireland's museum galleries and the gable walls of Belfast's loyalist estates; his is a well-known and oft-repeated story. Using objects and artwork from across Ireland's museums and heritage sites, Kris Reid will seek to tell a different tale and look more closely at William's relationships with two of his male favourites. By doing so, it will suggest that there is room for a queer interpretation of William's life in Ireland's museums and that the public are ready and eager to hear more.
Sunday, 28th March at 12pm
Pre –recorded Workshop
Fashion Activism
Join Taryn de Vere in this engaging workshop, which will examine how LGBTQI+ Activism demonstrates the power of fashion as an activist tool.
Sunday, 28th March at 3pm
Pre-recorded Talk
It’s What You Wear
Sarah R Phillips will examine the part the clothing has had played for the trans-community over the past 200 years, through her own personal story and an exploration of the Irish trans-archive.