Uncommon Land is an urban intervention project led by Eilis Murphy which explores how public space is used and controlled and in particular, how pseudo-public space is regulated. Ownership and control of public spaces and public services are gradually being transferred to private corporations. Often this transfer of power alters how the public perceives and uses the city, especially these privately owned ‘public’ areas.

This project seeks to question the subdivisions that exist within cities, highlighting the invisible borders between public and private streets. It is intended to be an intervention into the politics of these spaces, a polite confrontation with the highly controlled and privately-policed nature of these zones.

Through flash mob events, online mapping and video documentation, Uncommon Land aims to explore the growing trend of pseudo-public spaces governed by their own set of rules and regulations. The project invites members of the public to participate in acts that are normally unremarkable, but that are locally contested because of the legal status of the area in which they are carried out. The project tests the boundaries of what is arbitrarily forbidden within certain spaces in the city.

Many of the interventions focus on the act of taking a photograph. This apparently simple act is often forbidden in these pseudo-public areas. These events poke fun at the space’s sterile, controlled environment, momentarily interrupting its flow. It also briefly reverses the power dynamic of a space in which members of the public are filmed on CCTV while being restricted from certain activities.

Uncommon Land locates itself on the intersection between the virtual and physical worlds. Among the problems it seeks to address is a duality or contradiction between the physical (streets that appear to be public) and the virtual (invisible boundaries imposed on the urban landscape that render those streets private). This duality is mirrored by the form and presentation of this artistic intervention. The installations explore the interplay between these virtual and physical worlds: the virtual map created by the participants’ geo-tagged photographs and video footage is transferred back into the physical realm through the creation of a pencil-drawn map, walks around invisible borders in an area are mapped virtually using GPS systems.

There is also a temporal duality at work: the intervention into the urban space lasts only a few minutes, but the use of technology to upload and tag the photo and video material creates a long-term presence on the internet. The laborious and repetitive process of recording this information online, playfully subverts the hyper-efficiency of these online tools.

View: Tallaght Cross flash mob video or Tallaght Cross online map

Please see http://uncommonland.wordpress.com for more information.

Focusing on neglected, forgotten or contentious spaces, I reassess local idiosyncrasies – ones that may seem trivial to many, but still have a resonance in the subconscious of a community, subtly affecting one’s interaction with a space.

As a multidisciplinary artist, I use a variety of old and new media such as print, video, photography, online technology, book art and collage. My work is often site-specific resulting from a lengthy period of research in which I gather information through drawing, photography, audio and visual recordings, online and library archives and on-site visits.

2012 Arts, Development and Participation HETAC Level 8 – Cork Institute of Technology and Mayfield Art Centre, Cork City

2004 First class honours in a B.A. in Fine Art Print – National College of Art and Design, Dublin 8

Solo Exhibitions

2007 New Work, Custom House Gallery, Westport, Mayo; Work of the Devil, Galway Arts Centre, Galway

2006 Devil in the Dancehall, Charlestown Town Hall Arts Centre, Mayo; Kaeru 1 frog 2, The Return, Goethe Institute, Dublin

2005 CAP Foundation Exhibition, CAP Studios, Dublin

Group Exhibitions

2012 Hack The City, Science Gallery, Dublin; Shoot the Tiger, PrettyvacanT, Dublin

2011 Dublin Art Book Fair, Temple Bar Gallery, Temple Bar, Dublin; Where we’re at, The Big Picture, Tallaght, Dublin; Upstart, various outdoor venues, Dublin

2010 Visual Arts Open, Enniskillen, Fermanagh; Impressions 2010, Galway Arts Centre, Galway; Home, Draiocht Art Centre, Dublin; Guck-in-der-Luft, 48h Neukölln, Berlin; Anniversary Exhibition, Farmleigh House, Dublin; Gold, Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin

2009 ZOOart, Cuneo, Italy; Raumlandschaften, 48h Neukölln, Berlin; Graduate Award Exhibition, Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin; Drawing Eire, 411 Galleries, various venues, China

2008 Winter Exhibition, Kozo Gallery, Thomastown, Kilkenny; Little Christmas, Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin; Go West Exhibition, Kennys Gallery, Galway; Summer Exhibition, Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin

2007 Treat 07, Talbot Gallery, Dublin; X Equals, NUIG Gallery, Galway

2006 Impressions 2006, Galway Arts Centre, Galway; Annual Group Exhibition, Custom House Gallery, Westport, Mayo

2005 Spailini, Airfield House, Dundrum, Dublin

2004 Impressions 2004, Galway Arts Centre, Galway; Wexford Travelling Book Exhibition, various venues, Ireland; NCAD Degree Show, Dublin

2003 RDS Student Travelling Exhibition, various venues, Ireland; 3P, Cross Gallery, Dublin; Green, The Project, Dublin

Residencies & Awards

2013 Artist Residency: Studio 468 – Common Ground, Rialto, Dublin - Upcoming residency working in a community context

2011 Collaborative Art Residency: Creative Campus, South Dublin County Council, Dublin - Three-week collaborative project working with artists to produce digital artworks

2009 Materials Assistance Award:  Mayo County Council Arts Office, Mayo

2005 Artist Residency:  Custom House Gallery and Studios, Westport, Mayo - Three-month residency in print studio and visiting artist’s studio

2004 Artist Residency:  CAP Foundation Award, Dublin - One-year residency: bursary of studio space, exhibition and publication

2003 Artist Internship:  The Centre for Book Arts, New York - Three-month internship specializing in book making and letterpress printing

Collaborative Art Projects

2011

National Council for the Blind, Dublin – Mask making project with adults

St Margaret’s Travellers Association Women’s Group, Ballymun, Dublin – Craft-based workshops with women

Young Urban Arts, Dublin – Mask making with young adults

2008

Breaking Ground, Per Cent for Art Scheme, Ballymun, Dublin – Sculpture and photography youth project with exhibition Dark Horses in Axis Centre

2006 – 2008

Artist in School Project – Dun Laoghaire / Rathdown County Council, Dublin

Collaborative Art projects specializing in print, collage and book making with national schools such as Dalkey Educate Together; Oliver Plunkett’s N.S; St. Colmcille’s N.S, Ballybrack; and Our Lady’s N.S. Rathfarnham.

2002

School Street Community Group and Create, Dublin – collaborative art children’s project involving sculpture, print and painting

Art Administration

2010 Berlin Biennale, Contemporary Art exhibition, Berlin - Invigilation: minding artworks and answering visitor’s questions

2007 – 2008 Breaking Ground, Per Cent for Art Scheme, Ballymun, Dublin - Projects worked on include: Hotel Ballymun; Art in the Life World Conference and Exhibition; Supporting commissioned artists

These collages are based around the architecture of capitalism and the nature of public arenas such as the news media and advertising.  In response to the worldwide economic recession, the series was an exploration of architectural structures as icons of economic orthodoxies. The free markct was suddenly thrown into a state of fragility; resulting in a stage of hypertension that saturated society, politics and the media.

I used snippets from newspapers, magazines, prevalent forms of mass-produced, disposable advertising material, juxtaposing them with iconic images of industrial, military and technological triumph.

I have been researching disused cinemas throughout Ireland. These once-lavish buildings form part of many main streets around the country, serving as relics of a different age.

I am drawn to these very particular architectural forms, which evoke abandoned film sets, standing alone, like wooden cut-out props. These buildings constitute a certain paradox: on the one hand, they are incongruous in that they are iconic monoliths, whose classic grandeur is out of step with the rest of the main street. On the other hand, they are oddly generic: they are remarkably similar to each other, both in their formal design and in their current state of decay; it is as though you could pick one up and put it down in another town, like a miniature model.

With their single large screen and cavernous auditorium, they provided the setting for a collective community experience that was replicated in a nationwide cultural pattern. In exploring this theme, I created a series of screen-printed drawings/collages on thick gesso boards.

This book contains an alphabetical list of Ghost Estates in Ireland, based on figures from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government’s Unfinished Housing Estate Survey October 2010 and the All-Island Research Observatory Housing map analysis toolkit.

The definition of a ghost estate I have used is a housing development containing a minimum of 10 separate units (including apartments) and where a minimum of 50% of the units are either unoccupied or incomplete. This list ranges from units with only foundations to fully completed units. It does not include developments whose name was unknown.

This book was designed, printed and hand bound by me. Book information: ‘Roll call’, 2011, 35 signed editions, 140 pages, inkjet printing on Cromatico 100gsm paper with plywood covers.