Island Talk 11
17th April 2024
Talk 1 - Enda Bowe
Enda Bowe's work is concerned with cinematic narratives; blending documentary and staged photography, he creates images tracing the physical and psychological landscapes of the everyday. He embeds himself in both urban and suburban worlds, that are at once personal and universal.
To date Enda's work has been exhibited in galleries and museums including the Victoria & Albert Museum , London, Red Hook Gallery, New York, the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, the National Portrait Gallery, London, Fotohof, Salzburg, Dortmund U, Dortmund, The Gallery of Photography, Dublin and The Visual Centre Of Contemporary Art, Ireland.
Enda won the Zürich Portrait Prize 2019, National Gallery, Ireland. He received the Taylor Wessing Portrait Second Prize on consecutive years, 2018 and 2019, National Portrait Gallery, London and in 2023 was nominated again for the Taylor Wessing Prize and long-listed for his work titled "Love's Fire Song" in the Prix Pictet Awards, V&A Gallery, London.
Talk 2 - Fadi BouKaram
Fadi BouKaram is a Lebanese documentary photographer based in Ireland. In 2016 he flew to the US and went on a cross-country road trip in a camper, visiting 47 towns named Lebanon. In 2018 he returned for a second trip, revisiting some of these Lebanons to plant a cedar tree in them. During this talk Fadi will present some background to his work, as well as photographs and stories from his American road trips.
Talk 3 - Sean Hillen
Seán Hillen is a visual artist based in Dublin. His practice over 40 years has centred on photography and photocollage. His work is known for its humour and its engagement as well as accessibility. His collage works for instance are used on the covers of over 40 books and journals etc. His photographs taken as a student during the Troubles are now held as a Permanent Collection at the National Library of Ireland Photographic Archive, and published as a book ‘Melancholy Witness’ (History Press, 2013).
Seán brought us on a whistle-stop review of his work from the earliest to the latest unseen works. With work in significant Museum and private collections, Hillen has been called “possibly Ireland’s funniest artist” as well as ‘the artist of record’. Fintan O’Toole wrote that his collages constituted “The best impression of what it felt to live in Northern Ireland” and Roy Foster called him ‘a National Treasure’. Seán will also talk about his experience as ‘probably the most censored artist in Britain & Ireland’ and recently becoming the subject of a prizewinning biopic on Netflix; "Tomorrow Is Saturday".
