The Centre for Philosophy and the Visual Arts (CPVA) is a major multidisciplinary initiative based in the Department of Philosophy at King’s. Its aim is to bring together academics, artists, curators and gallerists to explore the connections between philosophy, theory and the visual arts.
The first King's artists at the CPVA in 2017 are Hester Reeve and Dr Siobhán Tattan. The small-scale residencies provide opportunities for the artists to develop their practice based on a particular lecture or lecture series. The Centre provides the artists with the time and space to develop their own point of view and facilitates the creation of new work and research through encouraging open, ongoing conversation between artists and academics. Artists are selected by the Centre on the basis of whose work will most benefit from the subject matter or methods in play within the Department, whereby the residency work and research can offer new perspectives on issues for students and academics involved.
For more details on recent events and projects, please see the CPVA main webpage.
In her work, Siobhán is interested in the romantic, not as the pursuer of sexual conquest, but rather as the pursuer of those lost fleeting moments of mystery and remoteness from everyday life. Her installations take the form of absent performances, which, through their absence of the work’s character’s bodily presence, explore how gestures in staging, sound, tone, and film can uphold its character’s wealth and subtlety of emotions.
The methodology Siobhán employs in her work is enriched by research into historical and literary sources, including W. B. Yeats’ early plays, and the work of Flann O’Brien. Experiments with presentations of staging, language, sound, tone, and film are deployed to test how they can uphold moments of drama. Such experiments are carried out after research into the history of manufactured spectacles, such as the origins of the tableau vivant by Emma Hart, mistress of Lord Nelson, or the first staging of Sean O’Casey’s new play The Plough and the Stars. Through use of these gestures in her practice, Siobhán aims to provide insight and explore the subtleties of the relationships that may occur within such moments that reveal the fragility and uncertainty of her character’s affinity with life.
Siobhán will follow Dr Christopher Hamilton’s lectures on The Search for Meaning in the Department of Theology & Religious Studies. She is particularly interested in Christopher's methodology, which investigates philosophical ideas about the nature of existence through a series of literary texts. From the outset there is a clear affinity between this approach and Siobhán's practice, but it differs both in the type of literary sources used and in the way in which they are disseminated through the lens of analytic rigour. Intending to develop new work based specifically on the content of the lectures, Siobhán hopes this analytic approach will provide new artistic strategies for the portrayal of her characters' fragile states of uncertainty, and the way in which these states refer to and depend upon the outside world.
The residency is taking place during the spring term at King's (January – April 2017) and will be followed later in the year by a six week residency at the CPVA's partner institute Kunsthuis SYB, Beetsterzwaag, The Netherlands (mid-September until end of October 2017). At the end of the stay at Kunsthuis SYB there will be a presentation of work in progress by both artists that will take place in Beetsterzwaag.
The CPVA also plans to host two artists salons during the spring term as part of the residency and at the end of the total residency (late 2017 or early 2018; venue TBA) there will be a presentation of work by the artists as well as informal talks with the artists and participating academics. More information about these events will be announced on the CPVA website.
Regarding the residency projects, Dr Sacha Golob, Co-Director of the CPVA, commented: 'One of CPVA's core aims is to explore the points at which philosophical research and artistic practice overlap, intersect or diverge. This residency brings together artists and philosophers working on some of the central metaphysical and existential issues of the modern period – it is going to be fascinating to watch that interaction develop over the next year, culminating in the final exhibition.'
Harald den Breejen, Co-Director of the CPVA, noted: 'Being situated in the university presents us with the unique opportunity to allow artists to develop their practice. Because our programming is tailor-made to the participants, the meetings between our academics and artists can become mutually surprising and enlightening. This type of engagement provides much needed conversation between worlds which in practice can be very divided.'
The cultural partners involved in the residencies are: the Centre for Philosophy and Visual Arts (CPVA), Kunsthuis SYB, King's Department of Philosophy, King's Department of Theology & Religious Studies, The Cultural Capital Exchange.
Dr Siobhán Tattan currently lives and works in London. She completed her BA Fine Art at Crawford College of Art and Design, Ireland, and MA Fine Art at Central St Martins College of Art and Design, London. She then went on to earn her PhD in Fine Art at Middlesex University and was artist in residence at the prestigious De Ateliers in Amsterdam (2008-2010).
She has exhibited widely, including a solo show at Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, and selected group shows at (among others): UCLA's New Wight Gallery, Los Angeles; Smart Project Space, Amsterdam; Monster Truck Gallery, Dublin; TULCA Visual Arts Festival, Galway and Future Film: Celluloid, Camden Arts Centre, London. She has received awards from various funding bodies such as the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Irish Arts Council and Culture Ireland.