Skibbereen based Visual Artist Tomasz Madajczak has been announced as the Cork County Council recipient of the inaugural PLATFORM 31 Bursary Award. Developed by the Association of Local Authority Arts Offices (ALAAO), in collaboration with the Arts Council, PLATFORM 31 offers financial and developmental support to 31 artists in each local authority in Ireland.
Tomasz Madajczak is a very respected Polish visual artist who has exhibited in Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, France and Ireland. He moved to Ireland in 2005 and spent five years in Donegal before moving to West Cork in 2010.
Tomasz has a multi-disciplinary approach to his art and his work features video, photography, paint and projection. He works collaboratively with artists from West Cork, nationally and internationally and he has had various residencies in Cork including the Guest House and Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre.
The main focus for Tomasz Madajczak of the PLATFORM 31 bursary programme is the No Space Project which started in 2020 shortly after the pandemic began. No Space Project is a series of art collaborations initiated by the isolation experienced by individuals all over the world during the Covid 19 Pandemic.
Through the bursary and the Arts Council Covid 19 Supportive Funding, Tomasz approached different artists and individuals to engage into an art practice together sharing the experience of particular spaces (physical and mental) and their specific nature. To date the project has involved 11 artists and has been shown in Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Pakistan, Poland and Australia.
To celebrate Culture Night on Friday September 17th, Tomasz will screen four art films in the Uillinn West Cork Arts Studio in Skibbereen which he has created as part of the No Space Project through collaborations with artists in Ireland, Australia, Pakistan and Sweden. The films are:
- ‘Shifting Spaces’ an experimental art film created in collaboration with Swedish artist Helle Kvamme.
- ‘Disturbed Ground’ an experimental art film based on collaboration and a sound performance which took place in the Uillinn West Cork Art Centre in 2020 involving artists Irene Murphy, Mick O’Shea and Tomasz Madajczak.
- ‘Mattering’ an art film based on an installation which was created by Tomasz Madajczak in the Uillinn West Cork Art Centre and artist Pattie Beerens in Australia.
- ‘Becoming a Painting’ a film based on a video interaction which emerged during collaboration between artist Zainub Mawaz-Khan from Pakistan and Tomasz Madajczak in West Cork.
PLATFORM 31 is a nation-wide artist development scheme by the 31 Local Authority Arts Offices, in collaboration with the Arts Council. PLATFORM 31 is managed by Wicklow County Council on behalf of The Association of Local Authority Arts Officers, in collaboration with the Arts Council. For more information on the initiative, see:https://platform31.localartsireland.ie/ / www.LocalArtsIreland.ie
