Spotlight with Michael Hill
Michael Hill, Programme Curator, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, Ireland.
Could you tell us a little more about your background and how you got into curating?
When studying visual art in university, my friends and I would stage exhibitions in our shared accommodation and in the halls and classrooms of our ersatz art college. Everything from the exhibition titles, posters and flyers, and the integration of artworks into unconventional spaces were given great attention and provided a lot of excitement. I was also constantly visiting galleries, museums, historic sites, visitor attractions, and any place related to display and contextualisation of objects and stories. At this point I realised that I wanted to work with artists on realising their own exhibitions in different places and this has continued professionally for over 15 years.
Since then I have been working in contemporary art organisations in Ireland, and occasionally elsewhere, including a university gallery, an artist-run space, a private gallery, art fairs, and for the past handful of years in publicly funded Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin. In 2022, I co-curated the Irish Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia with Clíodhna Shaffrey, showing the work of Niamh O’Malley.
Who/what has influenced your curatorial practice?
The artists I work with continuously influence me and my curatorial practice. Their needs, requirements and working methodologies give me a greater perspective and understanding of ways to see and experience the world.
Artists (and curators) in Ireland are almost all affected at some stage by the housing/studio/property crisis, and the rapidly increasing cost of living. In a small and geographically isolated country like Ireland this has significant impact on the how arts workers have to sustain their practices. There are ways for individuals and collectives to initiate substantial change in legislation, but facing dead ends and having to leave the country is also a situation that has played out for many reasons over hundreds of years. In response to this lived experience, a broad thread or subtext of ‘movement’ has been present in the exhibitions I have curated recently. This can be bodily through performance (relating to landscape, magic and folklore, language), to interconnectivity in the cityscape (communities, displacement, networks, and logistics), and migration (storytelling, imagination, dreaming).
Fundamentally, what I respond to as a curator is that an artist’s practice is often the most important part of their lives. In order to facilitate their vision I must align my own perspective with theirs. It can be demanding, but I enjoy remembering a sequence of exhibitions a couple of years ago where I became engrossed in varied array of research areas–from viking artefacts and cryogenics to modernist social architecture–to try and keep up to date with the artists I was working with.
The role of the curator is continuously changing. Could you describe what it means to be a curator today?
To be a curator is a privilege. The role affords the opportunity to spotlight or champion the work of others. There is a great responsibility in holding this type of position, which can be misused through the act of gatekeeping and discrimination. It is important to remain conscious of how and why decisions are made about who is invited to do what, and whose work should be seen or valued in place of others. A programme allows a multitude of voices to add perspectives on a shared area of interest.
Working in the public sector there is further social responsibility of how artworks are presented and contextualised, so that they are accessible and open to be experienced by all of society. Galleries can be intimidating for some people and I find that working in off-site contexts allows a viewer’s curiosity to transcend their expectations of what an art gallery can offer, and what form an exhibition can take.
Tell us about the latest exhibition / project that you curated.
As I write this, it is approximately half way through the run of two large-scale off-site exhibitions in the industrial zone of Dublin Port, a large active port that connects the River Liffey to the Irish Sea. It is the location of much of the country’s physical import and export of goods and, historically, people.
dream sequence by Yuri Pattison is a profoundly mutable artwork that is housed in a disused pump house. At the centre of the exhibition is a monumental-scale screen that is installed among the original hoists, gears, pipes, and turbines of the building. The screen displays a digitally animated film that follows the journey of a river from mountain stream through a post-industrial wasteland, and into a harbour mouth of a port metropolis. The film’s score comes from a self-playing Disklavier that resounds through the haunting vacant space. Yuri’s work draws data collected from the air within the building and from a water source elsewhere in the Port, as well as local weather, time, and location data, which affect the atmospheric conditions shown in the video and the composition of its soundtrack in real time. It is a phenomenal and complex work, with accompanying sculpture and moving image housed seamlessly in a melancholic, yet light-filled industrial cavern.
The second exhibition, Beep Beep, by Liliane Puthod is an elegy to the artist’s late father and the decline in hand-fabricated goods and labour in the pre-digital era. Liliane restored her father’s rundown 1962 Renault 4 from its resting place in a countryside shed (or how she views it–an Aladdin’s cave) filled with decades of collected junk. She journeyed with the car from the Rhône-Alpes region of France to Ireland by road and ferry. The newly reanimated time-machine is shown alongside objects from the shed and newly made cast sculptures and drawings brought to life in neon. These artefacts, which relate to memory, making, loss, recovery, and the affects of labour on the body, are housed in a shipping container installation that merges sites of renewal and repair: a passage tomb, mechanics garage, the artist’s studio, and her father’s shed.
These have been two of my most rewarding projects to date. I have found it challenging to work with two artists at once on their significant exhibitions and this is a part of my own practice that I am keen to develop.
What are you reading, watching, or listening to now, that is helping you to stay relaxed and positive?
I listen to a lot of music and in quite repetitive cycles. For a few years I have been enjoying atmospheric ‘slowed and reverb’ mixes of popular songs made by YouTubers. The general effect is that a familiar upbeat song is distorted to a timeless, dreamlike version of itself that captures a sensation that the original song itself was never attached to. I can relate this to exhibition making, where the viewer is transported to another place outside of something that is easy to categorise, and the sensory experience of what happens there is heightened. I was fortunate to work with artist Lisa Freeman this year who used a ‘slowed and bass-boosted’ remix of Kelis feat. Andre 3000’s, ‘Millionaire’ in her amazing film, Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss. The refrain of the remix through the film conveyed a sleepy, disoriented sensibility that projected a yearning for something intangible but within reach.
I am reading books by Steve Moore in preparation for an exhibition by painter Fergus Feehily, which will relate to ‘threshold experiences’/points of connection between worlds or psychological/spiritual portals. It is also in some way broaching the territory between intangibility and materiality.
I am watching my backlog of artist moving image links received in emails and part of proposals and online programmes. I received an email today from a fantastic Irish artist, Sarah Browne, with a link to her recent film work, Buttercup. I missed the chance to see this exhibition in person, but I am delighted to now be able to view the film in my own time.
How long have you been part of IKT and how do you feel that it has benefited your curatorial practice?
I have been an IKT member for a year and was so happy to experience the congress in Switzerland in April, meeting people from many parts of the world and initiating correspondences, that are continuing. Something quite obvious, which I was slow to realise, is that other members have known each other for several years and their connections and dialogues are ongoing. This makes my membership feel like it will be more vital in the years ahead and the connections and network can grow year on year and with new colleagues joining the community each year.
Thank you Michael!
Spotlight
Spotlight is a new series of short interviews, aiming to showcase the diverse expertise and innovative approaches of our IKT members. Whether you're seeking inspiration or searching for potential partners, join us on this captivating journey as we uncover the stories, ideas, and creative visions of our members.
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