Irish art and culture through a European lens

One thing artists do well is travel. Roaming for inspiration, to find conducive places, and to seek out the company of intriguing people: from James Joyce to Sam Beckett, Mainie Jellet to Mary Swanzy we have a great legacy of getting out of here. While many left, many also returned with new ideas and new connections. All these have added to the rich sense of what art and culture means today.

Imagine, in a pre-internet age, the surprise in Ireland of Jellet’s take on modernism and abstraction, gleaned from her time spent in Paris with Evie Hone, learning from Cubist master Albert Gleize. The theme of learning continues today with the EU Erasmus programme, championed by Ireland’s former commissioner Peter Sutherland, which enables students to study, train or work in another member country. Back in the day, however, travel was trickier business, and not just because of the older modes of transport and communications. Those with longer artistic memories will recall the difficulties of customs dockets, checkpoints and reams of red tape.

It’s ironic that the EU got a reputation for adding red tape when, in fact, it did away with so much of it for Ireland’s artists. The impact of Brexit has presented some with an unwelcome reminder of the bad old days of border carnets. “We did a show at the Barbican,” says Pan Pan Theatre company’s Gavin Quinn, who describes sending suitcases of props and costumes through a London airport. “We had to go into the airport, ring a man to find an airport security man to bring this very outdated-looking green and yellow paper, in triplicate, down to another man who said he’d never seen one before … We assured him: ‘No, since Brexit, we have to get it signed.’ You have to pay a bond of €5,000 and if you don’t get a signature, you lose the bond,” he explains.

Quinn’s stories of touring Europe with Pan Pan’s lauded theatre shows include tales of driving across the continent in a van, aided by a grant from the then cultural relations committee, now Culture Ireland. “Sometimes we’d be stopped in Germany, and they’d laugh at our Irish tax disc, because it was so old-fashioned looking. But it was amazing to be able to do it. You could just load up and drive to Europe. We performed at all kinds of festivals there.”

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Interestingly, Quinn says that language wasn’t a barrier. “The first time we did an international tour, it was actually pre-Pan Pan, and we went to Lyon. We did this show, which had very few words. Based on the Dada writings of Tristan Tzara, it was called Negative Act. In Dublin, the audience didn’t really get it. I think someone stormed out and said it wasn’t theatre. Then we went to Lyon, and we got all this interpretation. The French audience was interpreting things we’d never dreamed of. So there’s a creative mirror we didn’t even know existed — because of a foreign, or different audience.”

Describing Europe as a “bigger family” for Pan Pan’s work. Quinn also talks of the different theatre systems, and levels of support to be found in different countries, but also of the universal interest in good theatre, from whichever country it may have originated. There’s generosity at play too, as ideas are shared, co-productions initiated, and mentorships organised. Pan Pan has recently donated their archive, including documentation of their International Theatre Symposium workshops, which were supported by grants from the EU, to the University of Galway library.

In Paris, the Centre Culturel Irlandais (CCI) will be celebrating Ireland’s half-century as part of the European Union with its Saison EU50. Running throughout the year, the programme includes artistic projects in collaboration with sister organisations representing other EU member states. There will be music from John Spillane and Rioghnach Connolly, work by artist Niamh McCann, and poet Catriona O’Reilly. Opening at CCI in April, Anita Groener’s major new exhibition explores ideas of migration, safety and home. “There’s huge potential to tour work in Europe,” says CCI director Nora Hickey M’Sichili. “For so long, we have been focused on the English-speaking world, and now there’s a shift.”

The CCI is a member of Eunic, the EU National Institute for Culture, based in Paris, which builds and supports creative and cultural networks across Europe, through the belief that culture helps to build trust and understanding. Irish Museum of Modern Art director Annie Fletcher also notes that sharing culture opens eyes and minds. She recalls seeing the work of French artist Christian Boltanski at the Douglas Hyde Gallery. “I was just finishing college, and having these key European artists coming was incredible.”

A stint on a curatorial training programme in the Netherlands coincided with a shift in attention from obvious art world centres, to art made in places such as Bulgaria and Romania, as the European Union expanded, and with it, came fresh ways of thinking. She draws attention to the European Capitals of Culture programme, and how they can function to shift “the tired old cultural traffic from the old art world. It’s interesting”, she continues, “culturally, to think about cities of a similar scale,” considering connections between Cork and Zagreb, for example. “Obviously, for me, the excitement of bringing links together is really important.”

She draws attention to the networks of cultural organisations, such as L’Internationale, which is co-funded by the EU’s Creative Europe programme, which also supports film, music, writing, and creative innovation. “It’s incredibly important to locate Ireland within that European dialogue,” Fletcher concludes.