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DAN SHIPSIDES - Texts

 

Some ideas and texts:

 

Slavka Sverakova text Death of Delawab - Shipsides and Beggs Projects

Fergal Gaynor text on Radical Architecture - Dan Shipsides

Niamh O'Malley text 'Performed immediacy'- Dan Shipsides

Summit magazine Leap of faith (Echo Valley feature) - Dan Shipsides

Victoria Walters Echo Valley review - Dan Shipsides

Summit Magazine - Art of Climbing - Dan Shipsides


Some things I wrote and were published:

I'm Free: Now I got Worry. (Allotrope press 2013)

Performance on an edge. (CIRCA art magazine issue 111)

On being English in Northern Ireland (Vacuum- English issue)

On once being a painter (Circa art magazine issue 109)

Essay for Four Now catalogue.

Does music influence my practice? (Circa art magazine issue 115)

 

Landscape - a solid slippery place to start.

 

Landscape appears inherently conservative in it's relational status as a cultural source or entity - I seek to develop work which unhinges this...

I generally underplay the political dimensions of my activities but they are gently at the root of my approach to art.

For me the arena of contemporary art provides a flexible field, or maybe a freedom (maybe found nowhere else?), in which to experiment with methodologies, ways of thinking and processes which are not necessarily those of more traditional art practices. It allows the possibility of engaging creative processes which we don't usually recognise or prioritise as significant.

In other words...
You can do stuff in the name of "art" that you couldn't get away with elsewhere.


My artwork or projects take many forms including, interactive sculpture, public intervention, video, photography, drawing, performance and text.

Rock climbing, amongst other outdoor activities, has often provided a source and background to the approach taken.

An area of my practice involves participation by the public or specific groups and draws aesthetics and methodologies from their activities and engagement.

On occasion my practice seeks to challenge or expand the boundaries of art practice to respond to the specifics of site and context. It sometimes happens outside the normal context of art (e.g. features in climbing media).


My practice is at times irreverent and fun and other times involves extended processes of research and is very sincere...


My art practice embodies a cross disciplinary approach exploring a creative relationship to space based on the experiential, often using outdoor sports or pursuits. It aims to find a way of exploring spaces usually with a physical engagement and produce landscape - both rural and urban - artworks based on that experience. Some projects seek to engage the input of others so the work might be drawn from other peoples experiences.


I am an artist with an interest in landscape in its art historical sense but crucially also in the sense of the real spaces around us and the ways in which we actually engage, live, imagine and represent those spaces. I'm interested in looking at new ways of thinking about landscape - as well as new ways of thinking about art - and also new ways of thinking about climbing - and using climbing as a creative methodology.


I work on a project and studio basis enabling me to develop specific work for developed briefs (including site and/or context specific) as well as the research and development of more open ended studio enquiry.