FIONA WOODS / research / 2015 - 2021

Monday 15th April, 2 - 4 pm  This session is fully booked.

Workshop with artist Mike Cleary,  the purpose of which is to question how access and utilization of public and private spaces is facilitated or restricted. Working through a collective design process, participants will generate poetic, performative objects that activate a space (or spaces) in the city. 

Tuesday 16th April, 11 - 3 pm

Discussion led by Ed Carroll. Creating the possiblity for a critical response to a set of actions framed and focused on community culture.

Wednesday 17th April, 10.30 - 4.30   Booking required.

A D.I.Y. Printmaking Workshop with Kate O’Shea and Aoife Barrett, Print Van Go on April 17th at the FabLab, Rutland Street, Limerick.  Join us for a discussion and workshop on the idea of sharing skills and knowledge around using D.I.Y. printmaking to support and empower public actions.

Taking inspiration from the incredible archive of self-designed posters from campaigns in the 70's and 80's, come and explore low-fi printmaking techniques ideal for creating hand-printed posters and material while on-the-go!   Throughout the day you will have the opportunity to use these techniques to create your very own printed material for protest, everything from posters and stickers to banners and broadside ballads.

In the afternoon we will be co-designing a kit for D.I.Y. printmaking and protest. There will be a group discussion where you can share with us your preferred materials, tools and techniques and what you would like to see in a D.I.Y. print kit.  We will also be joined by Ger Ryan from St. Mary’s Men’s Shed for a lunch time talk about the ideas behind the Men’s Shed.

Wednesday 18th April, 5 - 6pm

Against the backdrop of Joe Harrington's extraordinary archive of protest posters from the 1970's and 80's relating to local and international struggles, legendary activists Mary O' Donnell and Joe Harrington, who revived the Bottom Dog worker's publication in Limerick in the 1970's/80's, will discuss their involvement with various struggles over time. 

Thursday 18th April, 9.30 - 12.30

Drop-in session with Bernardine Carroll and Ciaran Nash to map alternative economies in Limerick city. Linked to the Limerick Soviet Shilling Project

Thursday 18th April,10 am - Friday 18=9th April, 10am

To coincide with The Laboratory of Common Interest, artist Baerbel Schlueter is carrying out an independent action in public space. Titled 'Wandern 1', this action takes the form of a

durational walk in Limerick where she will explore and experiment within the public space of the City. She aims to make a subtle spectacle of herself which aims to invite a public response. The project investigates the notion of 'hypersolitude', a concept described by feminist geographer Hille Koskella as 'the idea that a woman can be radically solitary in public space - not dismissing her vulnerability, but embracing it and making it a source of power.' The work will be guided by specific but flexible rules which she has developed through her long term walking based practice 'artwalz' where she embarks on durational walks engaging with the public. Her aim is to locate art and art making outside of the confines of an institution creating a social sculpture by interrupting people's day.

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Baerbel's action will conclude with her arrival into The Laboratory of Common Interest at 10am on Friday 19th April. She will occupy the Laboratory in the days that follow, unfolding the results of the Wandern1 action.

Friday 19th April, 10.30 - 1 pm  This session is fully booked. 

Maeve Collins and Julie Griffiths  will bring their travelling participatory workshop which takes breadmaking as a trope for the traditional work of women, utilizing it as both metaphor and methodology in an expanding exploration of culture, identity, time and labour. They will be joined by sociologist Pauline Conroy, who will will speak about the possible meanings of Commonwealth referring to the early and idealistic attempt at a cooperative at Ralahine in County Clare. Care work can be carried out individually or in common a them addressed by Alexandra Kollontai in the early Soviet Union. Today care work is part of an international ‘chain’ of care workers world-wide.

Friday 19th April, 2 - 3pm

The Circle of Friends, Moyross women's group will perform a play which they have written about the story of Irish women and their bodies since the election of the first woman to parliament. They will do this against the backdrop of a banner that they have been making over the last number of months, A Political Herstory of our Bodies.

Friday 19th April, 3 - 4pm

Pavithra Kannan will host this Tea Talk where hot Indian Chai will be served and conversations around Tea labour and Labour of Women in the production of Tea will be discussed and intends to create a space for participants to share their own stories revolving around Tea.

Saturday 20th April, all day

Drop-in session, opportunity to get and to give feedback on work or ideas in progress. 

Sunday 21st April, all day

Face off between Class Struggle, the classic board game from the 1970's, designed to teach students about Marxism and Co-opoly, a game where everyone wins or everyone loses. 

Jazz at lunchtime. 

Monday 22nd April, Lenin's Birthday

All day: "Revolutions and Sex. What happened next" Installation exploring the brief period of sexual liberation that followed the Bolshevik revolution, by trans* artist Nat Schastnev(a).
 

1 -2.30 pm; ‘'The Wings of Eros': Soviet Sexual Revolution at the Beginning of the Bolshevik Rule
Presentation by Alexander Kondakov.
 

3- 4.30pm; The first enemies of young Soviet State or birth of Soviet Concentration Camp.
Presentation by Evgeny Shtorn, a civil society activist, organiser and LGBT researcher from Russia.

Tuesday 23rd April, 10 - 1 This session is fully booked.

Chaired by Dr. Anne Mulhall from UCD, the purpose of this session is  to consider the contested position of Akademia as sanctuary, in light of the non-recognition of the educational background of people seeking international protection. Activists and academics will be joined (via skype) by the founder of Silent University, Ahmet Öğüt. 

Wednesday 24th April, 10.30 - 4 pm Booking required.

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This activist workshop, led by Dr. Conor McCabe, author of Money (2018), will introduce participants to the arguments and ideas of writers such as Silvia Federici, Maria Mies, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Nancy Fraser, Selma James, and Feminist Fightback, and the application of those ideas to an Irish context in terms of combating the new enclosures of financialisation.

Wednesday 24th April, 6 - 9 pm

Made in response to the austerity crisis Eat Your Children examines whether Ireland today is too inactive when it comes to political protest. The film takes the form of a road-trip in which the film-makers meet activists, economists, sociologists to discuss this question. The film screening will be followed by a discussion with co-directors Treasa O Brien and Mary Jane O’ Leary, in conversation with activist Mark Garavan.

Friday April 26th, 1.30 - 4.30 pm This session is fully booked. 

Workshop with Torange Khonsari of public works and director of the MA Design for Cultural Commons and London Metropolitan University. 

Saturday 27th April, 10 - 1 pm, This session is fully booked

15th - 27th April

Ciaran Nash, Victoria Brunetta and Free*Space, in collaboration with Limerick Soviet100 and the Urban Co-op, have devised the Limerick Soviet Shilling project, an alternative system of exchange that will operate during the centenary, using specially commissioned artworks in the form of 1, 5, and 10 shilling notes. Six artists were commissioned to produce original artworks for the new notes: Kerry Guinan, Olivia Furey, Ciaran Nash, Jim Furlong, Tom Prendergast, James Kearney.  The system of exchange will function for the 12 days of the centenary, and can be used in participating businesses.   
 

15th - 27th April

CCL will act as the interlocutors of the Laboratory of Common Interest, occupying the laboratory with a movable creative station. CCL will be present on the periphery of events but also active within events, responding to what is happening/being discussed in numerous ways - by way of immediate creative response, dissemination, textual, digital, vocal etc. by formally logging the event, writing a code in response to discussion, allowing the event to influence how they move their body, etc. They will be 'part of', 'within' and 'attending' the Laboratory all at once.

15th - 27th April

Artist, activist, collaborator Kate O’ Shea will sustain the social heart of the Laboratory project, creating a platform for solidarity and dialogue on which to enact alternatives to the social relations of capital.