MAKE 2021 is our eighth Symposium designed to highlight contemporary issues concerning making and is hosted by our BA (Hons) Contemporary Applied Arts Degree, which has at its heart a commitment to hands-on engagement with material as a path to concept, a kind of thinking through making, through dialogue with a material. We stress experimentation and innovation within an interdisciplinary offering of Ceramics, Glass, and Textiles, addressing current debate in the culture of the object and in material culture, all within the context of historic and contemporary fine and applied art.

Our first ever online MAKE symposium will take place on Zoom. When you book your ticket you will receive a confirmation email with links to both the Friday night Dress Rehearsal event and to the main Saturday event. These links will let you join the events. You will need to sign into Zoom to join, there will be instructions to help guide you through this in the confirmation email.

MAKE 2021 SPEAKERS FROM THE WORLDS OF THEATRE, PERFORMANCE, EDUCATION, AND MAKING:

Performance designer and researcher Donatella Barbieri is the author of Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture and the Body (PQ19 Best Performance Design Publication award) and founding editor of Studies in Costume and Performance. Her costumed interventions have been performed and displayed internationally while her participatory practice has been re-proposed beyond the UK in cities across Europe, including Prague, Oslo, Tallin and Galway. As a result of her long-standing research into the agency of costume, in 2006 she founded the experimental MA in Costume Design for Performance at London College of Fashion, from where many ground-breaking costume artists have since emerged. As well advancing discourse through practice, publishing and teaching, Donatella supervises PhDs at London College of Fashion: UAL, where she is Principal Lecturer in Design for Performance.

Pilvi Porkola, Doctor of Arts, University of Arts, Helsinki, is a performance artist, writer and researcher on performance art and the role of objects in performance. Currently she is Senior Researcher in Academy of Finland project ”Political Imagination and Alternative Futures” (2020-2024) at University of Turku. She is the editor of Performance Artist’s Workbook: Essays on Teaching and Learning Performance Art  (Uniarts 2017). www.pilviporkola.com

Dr Áine Phillips is a performance artist exhibiting and performing in Ireland and internationally since the late 80’s. She has created work for multiple contexts, public art commissions, the street, club events, galleries, theatres and museums. Her work deals with feminist philosophy and politics, using art to comment and make propositions on subjectivity, gender and social change. In 2015, she published 'Performance Art in Ireland: A History’ (Live Art Development Agency/ Intellect Books UK). Her performative video works are screened internationally and part of the Arts Council Collection. She is head of sculpture at Burren College of Art, Co. Clare. www.ainephillips.com 

Ali trained in art history and theatre design at Edinburgh University and Croydon College of Art and has spent the last (nearly!) forty years designing and teaching all over the UK. Much of her work is new work, often for young people, involves live music and singing, and is created collaboratively.

Ali was a founder member of the acclaimed touring company, the Shadow Syndicate, winner of four Fringe Firsts, since when she has worked with other companies including Scottish Opera, Battersea Arts Centre, Hull Truck, Belgrade Theatre in Education Company, the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, and countless touring and fringe companies. She created and led the costume design degree at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, and is co-author of Readings in Theatre Practice: Costume (Palgrave) www.alimaclaurin.net

Mika Satomi is a designer and an artist working in the field of e-Textiles, Interaction Design and Physical Computing. Her work explores how we relate with technology and what we really want in them.  She often collaborates with musicians and performers creating technology embedded costumes and interactive systems.

Since 2006 Mika has collaborated with Hannah Perner-Wilson, forming the art collective duo KOBAKANT creating artistic projects in the field of e-Textiles and Wearable Technology Art. She is a co-author of the e-Textile online database How To Get What You Want. Currently she lives and works in Berlin, Germany. www.nerding.at

Eglė Ganda Bogdanienė is Lecturer in Textiles of Vilnius Academy of Arts. She has had 30 solo and more than 100 group exhibitions throughout Lithuania, USA, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Poland, Dominican Republic, Sweden, Latvia, Estonia, Taiwan, etc. She is a member of Lithuanian Art Association. Eglė is a prolific writer, curator, and serves as expert on art study programs. Her artworks have been widely recognised and awarded in numerous exhibitions and competitions. She is currently Chairwoman of the Lithuanian Artists' Association. www.eglegandatextile.com

Monika Žaltauskaitė Grašienė ŽALTĖ is a visual and textile artist and the Head and Associate Professor of Textile Department, Kaunas Faculty, Vilnius Academy of Arts. Educated VAA Master of Arts, Art Licenziate degree, ESMOD, Paris, France, Bergen Academy of Arts, Norway. An artist, she has become well-known worldwide, and her works have been noticed by many curators. She was awarded several times and her works are in public and private collections. Since 2013 she is a board member of the Kaunas Biennial. She has curated and managed a number of local, national and international exhibitions and projects, including a major Kaunas Biennial. Her focus is on building international relations between artists, organisations and cultural operators through interdisciplinary art projects, artist promotion and networking.

Ticketholders will also be invited to a special Dress Rehearsal MAKE 2021 Friday night event, also on ZOOM. This will be audience participatory, informal; it will be full of video fragments from our presenters and student projects.

A special exchange project, BODY, between CCAD Art Textile, Vilnius Academy of Art textiles departments, and UCC Theatre and Performative Studies students will feature during MAKE and in our exhibition at 46 Grand Parade. Artworks based on BODY from students of CCAD Contemporary Applied Arts, and from Vilnius Academy of Arts, Vilnius and Kaunas faculties, will also feature.