It was great to be able to welcome our first international artist in residence since 2019. Sarah arrived, tooled up with an intriguing variety of devices for recording inaudible sounds (infrasonic, ultrasonic). She stayed in a house fairly close to the fort and has spent almost every day in and around the Artlink studio, gathering sounds and developing ideas for a performance and film as well as delivering several community engagement events.
She presented new work at the first Inishowen Walking Festival. She guided a group to Cill Ard, where West Inishowen Historical Society had commissioned an electro-magnetic induction survey. It is suspected that Cill Ard is the site of a monastic settlement, burial ground and a holy well.
Sarah had been in correspondence with John McCarron (of the WIHS) who in turn connected her with Earthworks, the company who carried out the survey. They provided Sarah with the data gathered and she used this to produce a 10 minute sonic piece that walkers listened to while looking at the site. The flag produced by Niamh Mccann on her residency at Artlink in 2018 was used to mark the place that the inaudible sound was
taken from. Sarah also contributed to Culture Night by hosting an open studio and audio demonstration in the Saldanha gallery.
“I was International Artist-in-Residence at Artlink Fort Dunree in September 2021 and found it to be a highly rewarding and stimulating experience that opened up new avenues in my Art practice. The Team at Artlink were very helpful, both in terms of practical assistance and in the development of the work I produced. I had many engaging conversations with the team and felt very supported in pursuing my project, resulting in the production of two new works – A sound piece based on geophysical data extracted from a nearby archaeological site, and a site-specific performance that took place on the ruins of the former officers’ mess at Fort Dunree. The team were deeply knowledgeable about artmaking , as practicing artists themselves, and about the site of Fort Dunree and its unique characteristics. This enabled me to take a more rigorous, critical and thorough approach to the site. Furthermore, Fort Dunree is a spectacular source of inspiration for any artist. There is so much to uncover, and every day I spent exploring there I discovered something new and surprising that contributed to my overall project”.
Sarah Duffy (b.1986) lives and works in the UK. She graduated in 2013 with an MFA from Goldsmiths, after which she became the inaugural recipient of The Acme Goldsmiths MFA Studio Award. Exhibitions and performances include: Enjoy The Silence at The Camden Arts Centre, London; The Frequency of Magic at out_sight Gallery, Seoul; and A Far Away Rendez-vouz at SixtyEight Art Institute, Copenhagen. Selected residencies include: seMA Nanji at Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea and a Triangle Network/Gasworks Fellowship at Lugar a Dudas, Cali, Colombia. In 2020 Duffy joined the 5-year Acme Fire Station live/work programme in London. In 2022 Duffy will take part in a 3-month residency at Schloss Wiepersdorf in Brandenburg, Germany.
- September 30, 2021
