The Imaginary Archive.




Tulca 2011. After the Fall.
Curated by Megs Morley.



4th November - 20th November, 2011


Ben Geoghegan presented new work in collaboration with artist and writer Gregory Sholette for “After the Fall”. A critical international figure in the area of collectivity and artist-led activity and politics, Sholette has been collaborating with the 126 Gallery and its membership over the last number of months to re-visit the concept of the Imaginary Archive.

Synopsis: Imagine yourself uncovering a cache of materials and documents that record a past whose future never arrived? Imaginary Archive Galway (IAG) is just such a repository: printed materials, objects, and narratives that imagine an alternative history, which nevertheless sheds a surprisingly strong light on concrete realities. New York based artist Gregory Sholette invited participants from Galway, New Zealand, Europe, and the United States to produce this “what if” collection of archival materials addressing topics from forgotten Irish inventors and fantastic nation-branding campaigns, to uncharted offshore islands and mysterious pirate radio broadcasts. On display at 126 Gallery, IAG consists of under-represented, unknown, invisible, or merely hoped-for "historical" materials that point to multiple ways of interpreting the past, the present, and the future. For more information click here.

Biography:
Gregory Sholette is a New York-based artist, writer, and founding member of the artists’ collectives Political Art Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D: 1980-1988), and REPOhistory (1989-2000). His publications include Dark Matter: Art and Politics in an Age of Enterprise Culture (Pluto Press, 2011); Collectivism After Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination after 1945 (with Blake Stimson for University of Minnesota, 2007.

www.gregorysholette.com
www.darkmatterarchives.net


Participating artists: Niall Moore (Galway), Dave Callan (Galway), Simon Fleming (Galway), Roger O'Shea (Galway), Ben Geoghegan (Galway), Austin Ivers (Galway), Tiarnán McDonough (Galway), Paul Maye (Galway), Àine Phillips (Clare), Allan Hugues (Belfast), John Hulsey, Brian Hand (Dublin), Jeffrey Skoller (NY), Matthew F. Greco (NYC), Todd Ayoung (NY), Aaron Burr Society (NY), Yevgeniy Fiks (NYC), Maureen Connor (NYC), Johan Lundh and Danna Vajda (NYC/Sweden), Trust Art (NYC), Ellen Rothenberg (Chicago), Oliver Ressler (Austria), Markus Wetzel (Berlin), Murray Hewitt (NZ), Jeremy Booth (NZ), Grant Corbishley (NZ), Dara Greenwald & Josh McPhee (NYC), Bryce Galloway (NZ), Lee Harrop (Australia), Malcom Doidge (NZ) and White Fungus (Taiwan) working in collaboration with Imaginary Archivists Olga Kopenkina and Gregory Sholette (NYC).







GALWAY FISHMARKET/SPANISH PARADE 1986/2011

In 1986 a pressure group formed in Galway to engage in dialogue with the city council on the development of the Fishmarket/Spanish Arch area of the city. The group was made up of several organisations from bird conservationists, heritage enthusiasts, craft works and visual artists to name a few.

The group proposed a vision for the Spanish Parade area which allowed for the buildings of the time to be refurbished and used as cultural amenities for the city. Providing a dynamic and diverse cultural area inside the city center. All aspects were considered from the traffic flow to the re-design and allocation of the buildings to various cultural agents of the city.

Where Jury's Inn stands now was to be the Galway Arts Center and along the Spanish Parade the houses were to be re-appropriated into meeting rooms, workshops and studio's.

This record jacket was produced as a tribute to the vision of the Galway Pressure Group of 1986.