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22/09/19
Anchor 1
12:00 - 14:00
Eve Olney
AoifeBarrett
Aideen O’ Donovan
COLLECTIVE DESIGN WORKSHOP
Anchor 2
Participants in this workshop are brought through an innovative approach to design and printing by architect Aideen O’Donovan and visual artist/printmaker Aoife Barrett before then framing these practices within the context of a people-led collective design process.
22/09/19
14:00 - 16:00
Darren Kirwan
OPEN KITCHEN
Darren Kirwan will run a smaller scale version of his ongoing project Open Kitchen for SPARE ROOM. Open Kitchen is a social initiative that provides a structured platform encouraging members of the community to come together in a sharing of stories, culture, ideas through food.
In its concept it exists as a not-for-profit, open plan kitchen and seating area functioning as a commercial eatery with a structured program to accommodate members of the community to cook for the rest of the community. The open kitchen operates on a self service basis as a way of breaking down industry formalities and creating a greater sense of belonging and also in a bid to reduce overhead costs to the bare minimum for the sustainability of the project.
The open kitchen project encourages people to take only their fill of food and create no further waste and encourages a sense of self-responsibility for the cleanliness of the space they occupied and the items they used, this further creates a sense of belonging and ownership of the space and the project. The open kitchen project is part of a bigger more encompassing project that encourages openness, sharing and pro-activeness in the community. Food is the igniting force that brings people together and propels them forward.
Darren Kirwan will run a smaller scale version of his ongoing project Open Kitchen for SPARE ROOM. Open Kitchen is a social initiative that provides a structured platform encouraging members of the community to come together in a sharing of stories, culture, ideas through food.
In its concept it exists as a not-for-profit, open plan kitchen and seating area functioning as a commercial eatery with a structured program to accommodate members of the community to cook for the rest of the community. The open kitchen operates on a self service basis as a way of breaking down industry formalities and creating a greater sense of belonging and also in a bid to reduce overhead costs to the bare minimum for the sustainability of the project.
The open kitchen project encourages people to take only their fill of food and create no further waste and encourages a sense of self-responsibility for the cleanliness of the space they occupied and the items they used, this further creates a sense of belonging and ownership of the space and the project. The open kitchen project is part of a bigger more encompassing project that encourages openness, sharing and pro-activeness in the community. Food is the igniting force that brings people together and propels them forward.
22/09/19
Anchor 3
16:30 - 17:30
Cassia Gaden Gilmartin
Elizabeth Murtough
Channel Presentation - Ecology and Print in Practice
Channel is a new Irish magazine born out of the climate crisis, publishing poetry and prose with an environmentalist slant. We're delighted to have the opportunity to present at Spare Room, where we'll discuss the role of narrative in fostering a healthy relationship between society and the natural world. We will also touch on why we chose independent print specifically as a medium for community building around environmentalist issues, providing examples of how we've seen that materialized in the process of putting together Issue 1. This presentation will be open to branching dialogues around print media as a means for community engagement. Copies of Channel Issue 1 will be available for purchase at Spare Room in advance of the official launch of the magazine at the Irish Writer's Centre in Dublin on the 22nd of October 2019.
Twitter @Channel_litmag
Facebook @ChannelLiteraryMagazine
Instagram @Channel_mag
Anchor 4
23/09/19
14:00 - 18:00
Eszter Némethi
HOW TO BUILD A PLAYGROUND WORKSHOP
This is a workshop for children, adults and objects interested in building a playground (a space for play, for open structures, fragile instructions, malleable and wild realities, transformations ) during Spare Room. This workshop, like any invitation to play, is one without a clear ending. We will look at how to create space for play, and who should be in charge? (the children? the adults? the objects? capitalism? a monster? something else?) And if spaces influence the rules that we make, and how we play together and what stories and worlds we come up with: How to build a playground? - a place that structures/compels our being together, and our imaginary world without fixing it to one possibility. A space for collectively exploring and building a sense of what matters 'to us'. A space for the worlds we want to make?
24/09/19
14:00 - 16:00
Anchor 5
Rachel Doolin
HOUSE
(PLAY SESSION)
House is a pop-up play session suitable for children aged 2-4 and their accompanying adults. The session was designed as part of BEAG by visual artist Rachel Doolin in response to her observations in varying childcare spaces in Cork City and County. House is a mobile and adaptable pop-up environment that supports and encourages opportunities for imaginative and spontaneous play in the early years of a child’s life.
BEAG is a series of sensory-based artistic play experiences developed for 0-3 years, led by artists from varied arts disciplines. BEAG is an initiative of the Local Authority Arts Offices of Cork City and County Councils and the Health Services Executive Southern Region (HSE South) Arts and Health programme, realised through Graffiti Theatre Company.This interactive play session is not particularly messy although children may get chalk dust on their clothes, which can be easily wiped off with a damp cloth.Booking essential (Max: 10 children with their accompanying adults)
Anchor 6
24/09/19
18:30 - 19:30
WHAT IS A LIBRARY
Open Discussion with:
Declan Synott+ Durty Books+ Maggie O'Sullivan+Eve Olney+Rob Ireson+Siobhán Clancy+ Rachel Doolin+Tomas Penc+Dobz O’Brien
The panel who have temporarily donated work to the Bank Vault Library will explore the future of radical libraries, book stores and self-publishing in relation to the work they have chosen to include in this collection.
Anchor 7
26/09/19
14:30 - 15:30
Eve Olney
Spyros TsiknAs
food by NUMIDIA
CREATE NETWORKING DAY
Eve Olney of Art, Architecture and Activism will host NonViolent Communication within Social Collaborative Projects with Spyros Tsiknas. This workshop employs real-life situations through the medium of theatre.
27/09/19
Anchor 8
09:30 - 19:00
Eve Olney
Spyros Tsiknas
ROLE PLAY FOR NONVIOLENT ACTION
Spyros Tsiknas combines theatre practice, NVC techniques and explorative processes within social art practice in constructing a setting where people get to consciously embody and think/act through conflict resolution.In this workshop violence will be treated through a systemic approach configured by Needs and Emotions. Through role play we will examine specific scenarios that relate to “violent stories”. Through participatory approaches (like discussions between participants) we will create a list of Needs and Emotions and with the use of feedback loops we will try to see how we can balance within these complex systems.
28/09/19
Anchor 9
10:00 - 16:00
Fiona Woods
Conor McCabe
WHAT WOULD A FEMINIST CITY LOOK LIKE?
Through the lens of feminist economics and eco-feminist socialism this presentation and workshop will create a space to consider the entrenchment of power in existing social and institutional relations in Ireland and how those might be reconfigured in the present moment.
There are four elements to the event. Participants are invited to explore the installations in Spare Room, which includes an installation by Fiona Woods that considers matters of solidarity, feminist and solidarity economies and points of intervention. This will be followed by a presentation by Conor McCabe presenting key ideas from feminist theorists Silvia Federici and Maria Mies and their work around economies of care. A discursive session led by Conor will explore the institutional structures of power in Ireland as a way to identify modes of resistance. After lunch, participants will workshop the question 'what would a feminist city look like?'. The ideas presented in the Spare Room project and during the first half of the session will inform the direction of the workshop.
Dr. Conor McCabe is an activist and economist whose recently published book, Money (2018), addresses the opaque and abstract form of money as a social relation and as a technology of power. It also puts forward alternatives that involve facing up to deep economic class divisions within Irish society.
Fiona Woods works with aesthetics and critical spatial practice, often in a co-productive capacity with others. She employs social, public and institutional circuits to explore ideas of what we have 'in common'. Her ongoing work, FREE*SPACE, takes the form of a social choreography, exploring themes of alternative economies and the politics of bodies, through modes of co-production oriented towards a politics of the Commons.
28/09/19
17:00 - 18:00
Anchor 10
John Malcolm Anderson
DIGITAL IMMIGRANTS
John is a technologist and activist from the west of Ireland. His field of work includes web, graphic & user interface design and more recently big data engineering, visualisation and mixed media visual arts. Drawing from this experience he maps out how big data engineering is interwoven within our daily lives and the agencies controlling this engagement. He further considers how gaining an understanding of how these systems operate could help individuals and their communities gain more control of online media to a point where it is specifically responding to collective social needs and services.
29/09/19
14:00 - 16:00
Anchor 11
Touria Besbas
Darren Kirwan
THE PEOPLE’S KITCHEN
The People’s Kitchen is a space for solidarity and dialogue for exploring alternatives to capitalism through food and print. The aim of the People's kitchen is to create a platform for people to experiment with their own community food and print practices. For spare room the People’s Kitchen invites NUMIDIA by Touria Besbas [https://www.facebook.com/touriafood/] and Open Kitchen by Darren Kirwan. Finally Molly Garvey will present 'Eat my thesis: let me feed you and help you grow.'The research and development of the People’s Kitchen has recently been supported by Arts Council Ireland through the Artist in Community Scheme managed by CREATE. The project is being mentored by Dawn Weleski of Conflict Kitchen.
29/09/19
Anchor 12
18:00 - 20:00
Yavor Tarinski
Durty Books
LAUNCH OF YAVOR TARINSKI’S BOOK
‘Direct Democracy Context, Society, Individuality
‘Supported by the School of Applied Social Studies, UCC’
29/09/19
Anchor 13
10:00 - 13:00
VICKY DONNELLY
CONOR MCCABE
WE ONLY WANT THE WORLD:
LESSONS FROM THE FINANCIAL CRISIS, ALTERNATIVES FOR THE FUTURE
Citizens For Financial Justice Project.
How do communities resist austerity, when it cuts the ground from under us? How do we deal with the impact of a financial system that is increasingly out of the reach of democratic control? How do we fight for our future, when even the environment is sacrificed to the Financialisation of Everything? This workshop will involve looking back at the Financial crash of 2008. What led to it, and what can we learn from resistance to the imposition of austerity and the enclosure of public goods in its aftermath? From there we’ll take stock, asking how the field has changed, and look forward to explore strategies and tactics that communities, grassroots and civil society groups could use to fight back against these forces, for a future built on equality and sustainability.
01/10/19
Anchor 14
18:00 - 20:00
Kevin Flanagan
Solidarity Networks...
Solidarity Networks linking alternatives to Capitalism Presentation by Kevin Flanagan. Kevin Flanagan is a PhD researcher with the Department of Anthropology at Maynooth University. His current research is on the city as a commons a study of social movements and alternatives to capitalism in the city of Barcelona with a focus on Commons, Cooperatives and Solidarity Economy. Kevin is a member of An Áit Eile (The Other Place) in Galway. An Áit Eile (AAE) started as an association of cultural workers organising events and projects engaged with social and ecological issues as well as mental health. In 2019 AAE became one of Ireland’s first multi-stakeholder cooperatives. The coop provides a range of administrative services for social and cultural projects focused on social and ecological impact. Kevin will present some reflections from his research and host a conversation on tools for self-organising networks for community empowerment and democratising the economy.
03/10/19
Anchor 15
19:00 - 21:00
Siobhán Clancy
KITCHEN TABLE DISCUSSION
Seeding: Discussion “Imagining an end to capitalism.”with Siobhán Clancy
“Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. We can now revise that and witness the attempt to imagine capitalism by way of imagining the end of the world.”-Frederic Jameson, 2003
For this event, guests will be invited to come together in the former premises of a bank to share insights on actions that are generating imaginative ways to ensure the world does not end. Using the ‘kitchen table’* format with the support of The People’s Kitchen, guest speakers with the input of attendees will share useful strategies on combating ecological disaster. The conversation will explore questions like: What practical strategies are addressing the current climate emergency? What difference is working collectively making? How do we grow the imagination for more solutions to emerge?
Guest Speakers :
Eve Olney
The Living Commons
‘Seeding:’ is a programme of events for Spare Room by Where Is Our Feminist Library involving the operation of a seed bank from the vault of a former financial bank in Cork City Centre. It is supported by Cork Nature Network, Cork Environmental Forum, Green Spaces for Health and and the Irish Seed Savers Association. Thanks to artist Rachel Doolin for advice.
Where Is Our Feminist Library is a public engagement project by artist Siobhán Clancy that collaborates with feminist initiatives to produce bespoke events and activities that highlight their work and promote their value as a social resource through the arts. *The Kitchen Table discussion format is borrowed from Ruth Fletcher, Senior Lecturer in Medical Law at Queen Mary’s School of Law, London. Guests speakers are invited to initiate a conversation on a topic at the table. Participants may join the table at any time to input to the conversation.
Fletcher, Ruth, FLaK: Mixing Feminism,
Legality and Knowledge (November 30, 2015). Feminist Legal Studies 23(3): 241-252. Available at SSRN:
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