CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELVES AND HOW YOU CAME TO DO THE PROJECT TOGETHER?

ALANNAH: During my two-year stint at Trinity College Dublin I studied History of Art (amongst other subjects). However, my main takeaway from university was my involvement with film and photography in university publications. Being a photographer showed me there is so much more to the creative world than being behind a camera. I definitely wouldn't consider myself an artist! I love taking photographs, but mainly to document my life.

LIVIA: I also study art history alongside religion at Trinity so I think about and look at art a lot… I also sometimes make art - paint or draw, take pictures, or write (I do not have one or a consistent medium) - but I think I 
This is the first creative project I have done myself (alongside Alannah of course) rather than assisting on. I was especially inspired by having the opportunity to help a friend and young curator, Noor de Falco, with her first solo show Studio Defa in 2023 in London. She has been putting on shows with friends in her and their apartments for the last couple of years. In December, we were having dinner and I told her that I was feeling stagnant and wanted to put something on and that I was thinking about doing an open call for young, student artists - based in Dublin - for an exhibition in a friend’s flat or something. She pushed me to do it, reassuring me that if there is booze and it’s on the weekend, friends will come regardless of whether the art is their taste, etc. She was right - I am super grateful to be in the cult of de Falco. 

Alannah was my housemate - along with the third grace Nina -  last year. We spent a lot of time at night talking - and laughing at ourselves - about our ‘creative ideas’ and how we might enact them. She is incredibly creative and has a really special eye and way - I am so lucky to have lived with her, I will miss her on her next adventure in Paris. We developed characters together (e.g. Wind Girl) so had already fantasized about putting something on as a duo. She had just left uni and so had some time/ energy to be the perfect ‘co-producer’: she also grew up in Dublin and can drive (two vital things for the project which I lacked).

L: It developed from being a small exhibit of my friend’s artwork into a sort of art charity fundraiser for War Child UK (my mum had just been to an amazing gala for War Child and of course, its aims were and still are timely) - which is where the 5 euro ticket proceeds went. We knew that for it to have the feel we wanted we would need it to be ticketed to help with the necessary alcohol factor and logistical shit. It also evolved from originally taking place in another friend’s flat. We got to the point of sending handwritten letters to her neighbors until I got an angry message from a Dublin landlord who really cut deep: “It's not a Normal People style party house” (lol). The exhibit took place in my friend Phil’s abandoned basement underneath an apartment block off Merrion Square. A challenge was cleaning it up: there was a chair graveyard (literally 200) and Letman’s party relics. Lectures were missed to clean, and Alannah and I will forever be indebted to Aaron and Bogdan.   The name of the show is a mix between “Shenanigans”, an art account I run on Instagram that acts as a visual reference point, and Alannah’s Instagram name “is flying”, which is kind of her tagline besides relating to Wind Girl.




WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO PEOPLE WANTING TO CURATE AN EXHIBITION?

A: Organization, organization, and organization! This project taught me so much more than I’d like to admit about the time I needed to dedicate and all the little things you don't even think about that are essential to the overall experience (Notion is a brilliant platform for this kind of endeavor.). Thankfully for us, we had not only each other but all of our brilliant friends who had their special parts of the show and we knew we could trust them to give their all, such as Nina and Ellen who provided food, our INCREDIBLE musicians, and other friends who helped with day to day production tasks and bouncing off of our ideas. Liv’s friend Noor was such an inspiration on how to showcase things like jewelry in a really simple, low-budget, and beautiful way.

Hot tip: where there is music and booze the people will flock (shoutout to my parents for this key piece of advice). At the beginning of the process, my main fear was that nobody would show up, of course, this was baseless. People our age crave events that they can not only take something away from, but also just hang out, chat, meet people, and have a drink or two.

Another tip: SEATING! Even though we were running around like mad making sure everything was perfect in the little moments of calm I found myself sitting outside in our seating area chatting to people and taking a breather.

L: My main advice would be to work with a friend, don't take it too seriously, find a cause or theme you care about, work with art students, don't stress too much about timing, and trust that people will want to come because it's exciting to see what people your age are creating, and, as Alannah said, use ‘notion’…


WHAT PROCESS WENT INTO FINDING AND SELECTING ARTISTS AND THEIR WORKS - WERE THEY ARTISTS THAT YOU KNEW? DID YOU CHOOSE EXISTING ARTWORKS OR DID YOU ASK ARTISTS TO CREATE WORKS SPECIFICALLY FOR THE SHOW?

A: Naturally to begin with we had friends whose art we loved but once we set up our Instagram account and started posting on social media we had an overwhelming influx of young artists we didn't know who wanted to be involved. At first, we communicated over Instagram but trying to be a little more professional we switched to email so that everyone could submit their work and personal information in a more structured way.

L: We went through all of the submissions and selected them based on the size of our space, the time we had, and also our tastes. Another key thing is that we wanted the show to be student-focused (Trinity, NCAD, IADT, etc) so we were less inclined towards more established artists/ poets. There was no specific theme, so we went off gut instincts of what we liked and that created a sense of visual and thematic consistency anyway. Alongside the exhibit was a stick and poke tattoo artist (Irina), jewelry (Caroline Hager), a make-up artist (Willow), chefs (Nina and Ellen), a clothes stand (Phoebe / The Long Pavlova), live music (DeFunked, Anti-Oedipus, Aaron Martin / Pearse O Reilly / Tom de Paor and Cam Begley), and poetry readings (Jack Briody and Arabella Ware) -  so we were trying to create a feeling which worked across all the ‘creative stations’.




TO WHAT EXTENT WERE YOUR DECISIONS INFLUENCED BY AN INTENDED AUDIENCE - DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE AUDIENCE WHEN CURATING, PROVIDING SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE ARTISTS WORK, OR DO YOU THINK THE WORK COMMUNICATES ON ITS OWN?

A: While the audience is extremely important, Liv and I focused on our tastes for what we wanted to be in the show, I do feel that if you curate to your taste people will see what you're going for and understand the show to be a reflection of the curators and hopefully love it for that!

We had the obvious information such as the name of the artists and the piece, but some works required more contextualisation than others. While some works do speak for themselves there are pieces, universally speaking, that perform better when the audience can read in the artist's own words what is being shown.  I think this is a conversation that needs to / and did happen between curator and artist - do you think your work speaks for itself or would you like more information? We gave each artist the opportunity to provide more information on themselves and their art. I know that if I had submitted work (which due to all the craziness I forgot to do) I would have left it at that, and probably would have been anonymous! But that's just me.

L: I actually particularly liked it when artists provided bios because I think it is interesting to understand a bit about the artists alongside their pieces. Works can definitely - and sometimes should - exist and communicate without any context. Intention, formal quality, and impact can be separated; the three are all important and can simultaneously play a united and independent role in the artwork itself and the effect on viewership; and of course later discourse. 


HOW IMPORTANT WAS THE SPACE OF THE SHOW? WHAT WOULD BE A DREAM EXHIBITION SPACE YOU WOULD LIKE TO CURATE IN? WOULD YOU CURATE SHOWS IN “WHITE CUBES” OR DO YOU SEEK MORE UNCONVENTIONAL SPACES?

L: The space was super important because it allowed for three separate rooms (one for the visual art, one for tattoos/makeup, and one for the live music), a hallway for poetry, and the garden for the clotheslines. A dream space to ‘curate’ in would be more spaces like Phil’s basement (thank you also to his wonderful parents).

A: The space was the most important part of the whole show for me! I will forever be indebted to Phil and his wonderful parents for letting us use their basement, honestly, that space is the dream and I couldn't imagine anywhere suiting our ‘aesthetic’ more. I know that Liv and I are very much on the same page on this (and about everything else to be honest - Liv if you're reading this you're a dream). The basement is where all of our favorite parties have been held and this memory alone meant that the whole show had that same feeling of excitement for a night out (the after-party also helped with this)




TELL US A BIT ABOUT THE OPENING NIGHT - WERE THERE ANY SUPRISES OR PERFORMANCES?

A: My favorite part of the show, and what I believe tied the whole thing together into one cohesive space was actually what accompanied the art. The makeup, tattoos, food, and MUSIC! Anti-Oedipus If you were the only band left on earth I’d be happy. Having so many different areas/forms of art to check out meant that the space was somewhere people wanted to hang out which was exactly what we wanted.




WHAT LIES AHEAD IN YOUR CREATIVE JOURNEYS, DO YOU HAVE ANY FUTURE CURATING PLANS OR ANY OTHER PROJECTS IN THE WORKS EITHER TOGETHER OR SEPARATELY? 

A: Liv is staying in Dublin to finish her studies and I am moving to Paris, but as Dublin is my home and I spend so much time in London where Liv is from I know we can make future projects work, no matter their format. Working with a friend is so special, knowing you can trust each other to get it done and also having the privilege of not having to take ourselves too seriously was amazing.

L: I would love to keep on working with Alannah and Wind Girl!