Why Sherkin Island has become a haven for art students
On any given weekend, in normal circumstances, the ferry from Baltimore to Sherkin Island off the West Cork coast is bustling with people. Islanders, holidaymakers, day trippers and often, quite distinctively, artists.
Since being launched by the then Dublin Institute of Technology as a pilot programme in 2000, more than 100 students have graduated from the four year BA honours degree programme in Visual Arts based on the idyllic three mile long fuschia infused island.
Estimated to bring in €60,000 - €70,000 per annum to the local community, students from alternate year groups attend the course on alternate weekends, with lecturers attending in person or teaching classes via a specially installed ISDN line. This year, course administrators hope there will be no exception to what has become their “normal delivery of blended learning” since 2010.
What is exceptional however is that the course, which is fully accredited by the Dublin School of Creative Arts at TU Dublin, and delivered in partnership with Sherkin Island Development Society and the West Cork Arts Centre, Uillinn, will be this year be the only arts school programme in the country to hold a real life physical graduate degree show, which is also open to the public.
Programme co-ordinator, Glenn Loughran, says it was important for students and staff that the final year exhibition goes ahead. It opens on September 5 to September 6 and will see large scale multi media art installations across the entire island for two days.
“Everyone went out of their way to make it happen. The students extended their academic year to pull it together and restrictions have been put in place to limit the number of people attending. One of our past students, Mary Sullivan, won the RDS Taylor Award for Visual Art with her end of year exhibition piece in 2018, so that just shows the calibre of the course and the quality of the work produced,” said Glenn.
The BAVA degree was originally designed for adults who may be excluded from education due to work or childcare but it attracts a broad range of students due to its environmental and philosophical orientation.
“The students work in an expanded educational way, creating art out and about on the island but they also do a lot of digital work online using technology,” said Glenn.
This September, TU Dublin is taking the BAVA one step further by launching an MA in Art and Environment, to be taught across several islands in the Roaring Water archipelago through the use of Virtual Reality.
It’s cutting edge pedagogy and will see MA visual art students being given Oculus Rift VR headsets, through which they can access a virtual reality space where they will be able to attend classes, be creative and connect with other students across the islands.
“What’s interesting is that if you have 10 different people in 10 different places, they can all meet in the same virtual place. Students will be tasked with the job of turning the virtual reality spaces into digitally creative spaces and the VR course elements will be blended with working on the islands and developing work with communities.
“The ambition is to create an archipelagic masters programme which connects Sherkin Island, Long Island and Heir Island together and looks at art in a time of climate change.”
For more on the BAVA on Sherkin Island http://bavasherkin.com/ and for more on the MA in Art and Environment: https://www.art-environment.com/
Dublin native, Jean Dunne, first caught sight of Sherkin Island on RTÉ TV’s ‘Nationwide’ and “just knew” she had to go there. Now a practicing visual artist specialising in photography and Surrealism, Jean “hadn’t even done art in school” but wanted to explore her creativity and, more specifically, spend more time by the sea.
“I wanted to have what I refer to as ‘sea view joy’ in my life and the BA in Visual Arts on Sherkin offered me a route to achieve that,” said Jean.
The mother of two grown up children spent four years “travelling up and down to West Cork from Dublin every other weekend” while holding down her job working in IT and using all her annual leave to complete the degree.
During the course she “fell in love with Sherkin” and developed her creative skills, establishing herself as an artist who uses a “combination of subconscious drawings and photography to explore the concept of an alternative reality”.
On graduating from the BAVA in 2016, Jean took redundancy from work, sold her house in Dublin and bought a house on Sherkin where she now lives and is currently cocooning for medical reasons, due to Covid19.
“The degree enriched my life so much. The course attracts an eclectic bunch of people, the islanders are amazing and Sherkin itself is so beautiful. I’m still trying to figure out how to make a living out of art but I couldn’t be in a better place, living here on Sherkin as a resident artist.”
Multidisciplinary artist, Rob Monaghan, from Cork city, enrolled on the BA in Visual Arts on Sherkin Island, at the age of 35, having been attracted by the idea of adventure and the remote teaching and learning environment, he says.
“It was a good fit for me at that stage in my life. I wanted to learn more as an artist but the idea of a degree in Dublin didn’t appeal to me at all.”
Rob, who comes from a traditional sign writing background, runs a bespoke hand painted furniture business but was eager to explore his interest in lens based art on the degree programme.
Video art and installation art now play an important part in his artistic practise and he often comments on environmental or social issues through his work as a result of his experience on the course.
“The degree changed my life in a very positive way. It offers an accessible way into art and is much more than just an art degree.
“It allowed me to explore my artistic boundaries in one of the most beautiful places on earth and gave me the confidence to create art that I believe in, as well as providing me with amazing opportunities to collaborate and exhibit nationally and internationally since graduation.”
Nostalgic memories of endless childhood summer days spent on Sherkin Island and the chance to relive them while indulging her creativity, drew Barbara Hopkins Reen to the BA in Visual Arts.
Now a visual artist whose creative practice is primarily concerned with identity and strongly rooted in identity, Barbara processes her interests in texture and surface through the media of print, textiles, photography and installation.
“As an enthusiastic advocate and participant in adult education and life-long learning, I recognise the long-term benefits of personal development and the subsequent enhancement of personal identity.
“From tentatively writing my first essay to the giant leap of submitting my much researched and endlessly edited work, my black leather-bound thesis would finally translate into the most tangible and treasured expression of my creativity.
“The experience was undeniably stressful but it was also creatively stimulating and the sense of achievement to this day is overwhelming,” she said.
