In the final episode of this inaugural podcast, The Model’s artistic director, Emer McGarry and writer, Tara Bergin continue their conversation on the practice of ekphrasis – discussing the element of rivalry between different modes of representation. Tara interrogates this idea further, by reasoning that a sense of rivalry infuses power into the newly generated artwork - antagonising form into being. Tara also observes that different terminologies from other artforms assist the artist in inhabiting new modes of expression, facilitating the creation of autonomous new works of art. Finally Tara, reads her ekphrastic poem, This Rain - a pared back work inspired by the large austere canvases of the minimalist artist, Agnes Martin.
Two new works are presented in episode five. Rosie O’Reilly’s reinterpretation of Clodagh Emoe’s work, We Are and Are Not, and a reading by Jessica Traynor of her new poem, Milk Teeth, a work inspired by Dorothy Cross’s sculpture, Stiletto II. In her piece, Rosie O’Reilly constructs a pertinent conversation with Professor Fred Cummins, where Rosie plays the artwork and Fred, a professor in computer science, takes on the role of the virus.
In the fourth episode of The Model podcast, Suzanne Walsh performs Our Always is Here - a piece inspired by the works of George William Russell. Russell was a Theosophist, adopting the pseudonym Ӕon (Ӕ), a gnostic term for the earliest created beings, a later printer’s error truncated the word into the initials AE. Inspired by the artist’s visionary works, Suzanne’s audio contains layerings of voices - mingling, fading and re-emerging - as if oscillating between different realms, and intuiting the paranormal. In this experiential auditory work, Suzanne Walsh draws the listener irrevocably into the uncanny, leading us into the sensory field of The Body Electric.
In episode three, Tara Bergin continues her meditation on the practice of ekphrastic writing - interrogating connections with the human condition. Claire-Louise Bennett and Alice Lyons present new poems inspired by artworks in the Niland Collection, both of which explore the tension between artist and sitter. Alice reads Battenberg Hat, a poem inspired by John Butler Yeats’ Portrait of Elizabeth Pollexfen – which depicts the artist’s mother-in-law. The podcast closes with Claire-Louise Bennett reading Lobe - a work inspired by the portrait sketches of George William Russell, otherwise known as Ӕ.
In the second episode of The Model podcast, Emer McGarry and Tara Bergin continue their conversation on the literary technique of ekphrasis, with a discussion ranging from mid-twentieth century American poets, Frank O’Hara, Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath to contemporary songwriters and modern interpreters of traditional music, such as Bob Dylan, The White Stripes and White Raven. Also in this podcast, multi-disciplinary artist Suzanne Walsh reads her poem Between the Lights, a piece inspired by the esoteric works of the poet, painter, politician and mystic, George William Russell (Ӕ).
In this episode, Emer McGarry and Tara Bergin begin a conversation about the practice of ekphrasis - a rhetorical device and form of writing originating from the Greek word for ‘description.’ Bergin and McGarry discuss the ancient and modern usages of this technique and its generative power to transform existing visual artworks into a striking new literary works. Tara reads her ekphrastic poem Object Theory - a literary deconstruction of Marie Foley’s sculpture, Portrait - itself, an assemblage of found objects: metal, porcelain and wood.
Curator and artistic director of The Model, Emer McGarry introduces The Model podcast. This podcast comprises of six episodes and complements the current exhibition The Body Electric (available to view online at www.themodel.ie). Eight writers were invited to respond to artworks in the Niland Collection: Tara Bergin, Claire-Louise Bennett, Leontia Flynn, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Alice Lyons, Rosie O’Reilly, Jessica Traynor and Suzanne Walsh and showcasing some of Ireland’s leading contemporary practitioners in performance, literature and the visual arts, while in turn transporting the listener into the deeper sensory field of The Body Electric.