Peer Residency 2018
Ella Bertilsson & Ulla Juske
Ella Bertilsson and Ulla Juske moved, separately, to Dublin during the years of the Celtic Tiger, and ultimately met in 2013, during their time as MFA students in the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Since then the artist-duo (SWE/IRE & EST/IRE) have been using conversation as the generative ground for their multidisciplinary work; sourcing inspiration from films, music, news items, oral histories and interviews; and producing work that uses storytelling, symbolism, staging and sound to produce a mood of absurdity, disquiet and unresolved suspense. This atmosphere is fuelled by the tension in the telling of the narratives, which can indicate something unsaid, be it by verbal feint, communicative noise, distraction or omission. Thematically, the work matches questions of domesticity with questions of memory and personal history, moving to remind the viewer of the associated essences, realities, and dissonances.
During the six-month Peer Residency at the RHA, Ella Bertilsson and Ulla Juske will develop a two-channel video installation that will feature female characters played by the artists themselves. The installation explores the idea of opposite components of stage, backstage, private, public, exclusion and seclusion.
Upcoming exhibition this coming September in Pallas Project, Dublin. Current exhibition ‘Carrier of Memories’ on view at Draiocht Gallery, Blanchardstown. Recent solo exhibitions include: 11.9 km Northwest of the City Centre (Hobusepea Gallery, Tallinn, 2018), The Waiting Room (Artbox, Dublin, 2017), Uncertain Matter (Outvert Art Space & ArtsIceland, Isafjordur, 2017), Uncertain Matter (Deiglan Gallery, Akureyri, 2017), Uncertain Matter (Nordic House, Reykjavik, 2016), Time is what happens when nothing else does (Office of Public Works in association with the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, 2015). Recent public events: Museum of an Unknown Person, (Circe Pavilion, Dublin, 2017), Uncertain Matter Audio-walk (Nordic House, Reykjavik, 2017). Residencies include: NKD; Nordic Artist’s Centre, Dale (2018), Draiocht Incubate Residency, Dublin (2017), Process Residency Artbox, Dublin (2017), The Association of Icelandic Artists, Reykjavik (2016).
Image: Ella Bertilsson and Ulla Juske.
Previous Recipients
2015 – Gum Collective
2016 – Mary Ruth Walsh & Tracy Staunton
2017 – Conor O’Sullivan, Cara Farnan, Eve Rogers & Chloe Nagle
2017 – Eve O’Callaghan & Christopher Kearney
2018 – Monika Bogyos & Claire Tobin-Dunne