Mirror Lamp Press x The Complex Writing Residency
Tara McGinn
Inaugural Writer in Residence
May – September 2024
Tara McGinn, Photo by Ben Malcolmson, April 2024
We’re thrilled to announce Tara McGinn (they/she) is the inaugural MLP x The Complex writer in residence. Tara will be responding to five exhibitions and events at The Complex Gallery in Dublin from May until September 2024 this year.
Tara McGinn is a visual artist with an interdisciplinary practice combining sculptural (re)productions, image-based assemblage and reflex/ct/ive writing. They excavate the language of sentimentality by perverting the syntaxes of domestic spaces, to translate subjects of withheld trauma, falsified memory, and queered identity. Their work has developed into a wider dialogue on mobilising the discomfort of the uncanny and critiquing the aesthetics of the familiar by exposing an emotional interior juxtaposed with decorative motifs and objects. Through their writing, the textures and surfaces of the works expand to become tactile and tangible fictions or speculative sculptures that communicate cultural practices and political narratives around the erotics of class, domesticity, bodily labour, and time, which they hope will grow into a performative practice in the future.
Recent shows include the group exhibition Mother Tongue at the MAC Belfast running until the 21st of July, the group exhibition Betwixt; Held at Mimosa House Gallery London in February 2024, and solo exhibition An Intimate Public at PS2 Belfast in June 2023. They have had short pieces of creative writing and criticism published in the VAN, CIRCA online, Bloomers Magazine and the Northern Irish Arts Network. They have also published art writing in various collaborative publishing projects and regularly posts on their Substack, Brown Studio. A studio member of Flax Art Studios since 2021 and a former Catalyst Arts co-director, they are also a family carer and base themselves between Belfast in the North and Enniscorthy in the Republic.
Julie Morrissy
Writer in Residence
October 2024 – February 2025
Julie Morrissy, Author Photo by Peter Tomka
Julie Morrissy will be responding to five exhibitions and events at The Complex Gallery in Dublin from October 2024 until February 2025.
Julie is a poet from Dublin. She was the first Poet-in-Residence at the National Library of Ireland from 2021-22, and a recipient of the MAKE Theatre Award, Newman Fellowship in Creativity, and the Arts Council ‘Next Generation’ Award. Her poem-artworks have been exhibited at Project Arts Centre, TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, and the Museum of Literature Ireland.