Dublin City / South Georgian Quarter

Olivia will read from her acclaimed debut novel, The Quiet Whispers Never Stop, and welcomes informal chats afterwards with audience members in her studio space.

Olivia Fitzsimons is a writer. Her debut novel, The Quiet Whispers Never Stop, was published by John Murray Press in April 2022. She is a current Dean Arts Studio Resident in Dublin and is the recipient of the Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris/Literature Ireland Residency 2022/23. She has been awarded grants from the Arts Council of Ireland and Northern Ireland for her writing, and her work has appeared in publications such as The Irish Times, The Stinging Fly and The Cormorant. Her short story, Un Hôtel Tranquille, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Short Works in August 2022. She is currently working on her second novel and has several screenplays in development.

Visual artist Vera Ryklova invites people to come to her studio for a playful session of photographic self-portraiture. Borrowing some of her props she worked with for her series Aesthetic Distance or bringing your own, or just being present in front of the lens, you are going to experience the creative process Vera uses in her practice. You will produce a photographic image of yourself by yourself. The spontaneous encounter with the artist and the night will be your inspiration, your body will be your medium, and Vera’s fully manual medium format film vintage camera will be your tool.

Each session will take 30 minutes allowing for max. of 3 people attending the session. This means that you book your session and are welcome to bring another person or two along who you would like to work with.

Time sessions (six sessions in total):
5.00 – 5.30pm
5.30 – 6.00pm
6.30 – 7.00pm
7.00 – 7.30pm
8.00 – 8.30pm
8.30 – 9.00pm

During this session a medium format colour photographic film will be used to create your images. The artist will take the responsibility for the postproduction, such as developing the photographic film and scanning the negatives. Each participant or the representative of the group will be emailed a contact sheet of all the shots you produced during your own session to choose the best work which will be then send to you only as a digital file (TIFF and/or JPEG). This means you are not going to see the outcome of your session on the night.

Ryklova also invites women to come to her studio for a chat about her work-in-progress project Child [working title] with the hope to establish a potential collaboration on this very project.
Drop-in basis. Between 6 – 6.30pm & 7.30 – 8pm.

Multilingual Visual Poet and Installation Artist Letizia Lopreiato, shares through this video – art piece titled “How does it make you feel?”, created specifically for Culture Night 22, the results of her two months participative observation in the everyday experience of her inclusive visual poetry installation, at this year’s Photoireland Festival 22 (July 7th – August 28th 2022), held at Dublin Castle – The Printworks.

The work being presented here is being the first of a series of “living installations”, as she Letizia describes her visual poetry art environments, devoted to promote social inclusion in the Visual Arts, by bringing photography from a mainly visual experience centered in the use of sight, to the realm of feelings by exploring the depth of all senses, particularly through touch, performance and her visual poetry soundscapes.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Letizia Lopreiato is a multilingual visual poet and installation artist, she writes and performs her poetry in English, Italian and Spanish. The artist’s work has been published and extensively exhibited internationally. Through the application of 35mm photography, Super 8 moving image, and of her multilingual poetry and spoken word soundscapes, Letizia Lopreiato’s documentary art practice, focuses on fostering engagement thanks to the creation of text, image and sound-based performative installations.
Her multimedia work is devoted to hold space for empathy, as catalyst for a change in conversation about social inclusion, thanks to the development of art environments, which are informed by the artist’s interaction with the audience in her “living installations”.

Studio Ruthless is on the first floor of the Dean Art Studios, at 4 Chatham Row. The studio will be open and welcoming guests (to sit for a portrait or view the sessions) from 5pm–7pm on Culture Night. It is a first come first served opportunity. Each sitter will be provided with a digital copy of their portrait. The portrait may be used by Ruth in a social media, gallery format.

No words may be spoken by either party. If voices are used, the equipment will end and the next sitter will be invited in. Your portrait session may take 2 minutes or 20. It might be cathartic or hilarious, awkward or comforting.

‘A portrait for me is a bond tying me to another human, formed through communication.

I listen and listen and listen. I try to work out what they’re saying with the words they speak and the ones they don’t. If I have an hour with someone, we would spend the first 40 minutes talking together before taking a single photo.

This is a new experiment, a new experience.
I would like to welcome guests into Studio Ruthless on Culture Night for a new type of portrait session.
You are free to wander in, take a seat, and I’ll begin to adjust the lights, the angles, and thebackdrop.
Neither of us will say a word.
I will pose you and direct you, only as much as is needed. You can smile or be serious.
Neither of us will say a word.
I will capture your likeness, your personality, your character.
All in silence.’

The Dean Art Studio is a new, multi-disciplinary artistic hub located on Chatham Row, in the heart of Dublin city centre. Both established and emerging practitioners across visual arts, literature, photography, sound, music, art curation, and more are in residency in what previously housed the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama. Each residency runs for one year, and it is envisaged that more than 20 artists, cultural institutions and arts organisations will benefit from the Studio, which will be wholly funded by Press Up Hospitality Group for the benefit of the artistic community. The Dean Art Studios is a celebration of creativity, striving to be an inclusive space representing the cultural, artistic, and social diversity that make up Ireland today. Stop by on Culture night to experience performances, readings and open studios from some of the artists in residence.