Creative Pathways - Immersive art exhibition DÉAD* celebrates legacy of Dracula and Nosferatu
Opening to the public on Culture Night 2023 (22 September) at the Goethe-Institut Irland, this interdisciplinary art exhibition draws on immersive technologies to celebrate the legacy of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s classic silent film Nosferatu.
Through virtual reality (VR) installations, 3D animations, video projections, sculptures and more, the exhibition brings vampires, monsters and the undead to life and invites visitors to Merrion Square to explore topics including life cycles, (im)mortality, and transience.
Created by students and recent graduates from six notable arts colleges in Ireland and Germany, the exhibition has emerged from the Creative Pathways programme, an initiative established by the Irish Embassy in Berlin to bring together students and lecturers based in both countries to develop collaborative and interdisciplinary artworks.
At the start of the programme, artists based in Ireland were paired with artists based in Germany. Artists with complimentary skillsets and practices were matched and their collaboration was guided by lecturers from participating colleges.
The current edition of Creative Pathways is run in partnership with the Goethe-Institut in Ireland. The students and graduates come from a wide range of artistic disciplines, including fine art, drama and theatre, film, and sound art. Through their interdisciplinary work, they explore the joint German-Irish heritage of Dracula and Nosferatu, and raise intriguing questions about life, death and the complexity of the human condition.
*Déad is the Irish word for ‘set of teeth’.
Evergreen
Sona Smedkova
In their mixed media installation piece, Sona Smedkova (ATU Galway) and Veronika Pfaffinger (HfBK Dresden) explore the theme of immortality through physical and digital landscape. This piece extends beyond the walls of the institute. Take a walk through Merrion Square to find out more. Kindly supported by Dublin City Council.
SUSURRATIOn
Stefany Smolkina/Dunk Murphy
The single-channel video piece by Stefania Smolkina (HBG Leipzig) and Dunk Murphy (UL) intertwines cinematic depictions of Dracula with the rendering of contextual aspects captured in Wismar in northern Germany, where Nosferatu was filmed. In the video, a journey through physical spaces meets the borderline between trance, sleep and memories.
Patryk Kujawa’s (HfBK Dresden) and Adrian McCarthy’s (UCC) video installation is the first chapter of a two-part project. The piece has been adapted for the show at the Goethe-Institut Irland in collaboration with German artist Luis Kürschner, where the second chapter “Lament of Light” responds to the light-filled architecture of the institute’s Georgian building in Dublin.
Maximiliano Sinani (Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main) and Melissa Morrigan (UCC) present two art works: a video piece that interrogates how fiction leaves its traces in the real world, and a sculpture of a modified pack of cigarettes that casts the shadow of a coffin.
Deathlocked Phoenix
Adrian Q. Vardi / Manuel McCarthy
This piece consists of an animated short film by Adrian Q. Vardi (HGB Leipzig) and a projection of a generative algorithm that reacts to the film, created by Manuel McCarthy (UL). The film is presented as a video loop that depicts the futile efforts of a virtual vampire to escape immortality and embrace death.
Last Body, Last Territory
Rocío Romero Grau / John Flindt
Rocío Romero Grau’s (ATU Galway) and John Flindt’s (Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main) VR-installation explores the potentially devastating impact of mutations, infections, and ungovernable organisms on our lives. Body and mind, our last territory, are the first to be attacked.
The following arts colleges/ lecturers are participating in the Creative Pathways programme:
