Sara Greavu & Ciara Phillips present
Derry Film and Video Workshop (DFVW), also known as Derry Film and Video Collective (DVFC), was established in Derry in 1983, incorporated in 1984, and lasted until 1990. Collective members, at different points in time, included Anne Crilly, Margo Harkin, Trisha Ziff, Geraldine McGuiness, Jim Curran, Stephanie English, Tommy Collins, Therese Friel, Brendan McMenamin, and Jamie Dunbar, most of whom had no prior experience of filmmaking. They came together with a sense of urgency to address overlapping political tensions around gender, class, the Irish ‘national question’ and legacies of British imperialism.
The presentation of the work of the collective at Project Arts Centre is part of a long-term, ongoing research process that has involved working with former members of the collective, their supporters, peers, and fellow activists; helping to preserve, digitise, and archive the videotapes that only existed in their original U-matic format; and working with an extensive document and image archive that was preserved by former collective member, Margo Harkin. This second chapter of the DFVW archive involves unseen footage, photographs, and archival documents that trace a partial history of the workshop and its practice. The first iteration took place as part of the 39th EVA International Guest Programme, Little did they know. This second iteration includes further material from the later work of DFVW.
Working through the archive, the research begins to uncover the organic, reactive, and experimental methodologies of the collective and their tensions and frustrations, both internal and external; as well as the overarching political principles and energy that bound them together.
Accessibility
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Credits
With thanks to: Paul Barwise, Niamh Brown, Raelene Casey, Jim Collins, Anne Crilly, Paddy Critchley, Jim Curran, Philip Devine, Julie Doherty, Jamie Dunbar, Merve Elveren, Stephanie English, Tadhg Flynn, Margo Harkin, Louis Haugh, Francis Jones, Mary Kervick, Mitchel McLaughlin, Daisy Mules, Mary Nelis, Kasandra O’Connell, Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, Deaglán Ó Mocháin, Matt Packer, Chris Steenson, Rod Stoneman, Michael Stumpf, Trisha Ziff, and Derry Print Workshop, Gallery of Photography Ireland, IFI Irish Film Archive, The Nerve Centre Derry, Northern Ireland Screen.
Biographies
Irish and Canadian artist Ciara Phillips has exhibited widely in public galleries and museums in the UK and internationally. Phillips has been artist-in-residence at Trykkeriet, Bergen, Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin County California, St. John’s College, Oxford, and at Drawing Room, London. In 2014 her long-term artwork Workshop (2010 – Ongoing) was nominated for the Turner Prize. Recent exhibitions of Phillips’ work have been staged at: Kunsthall Stavanger; V&A Dundee; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; Benaki Museum, Athens; Bergen Kunsthall; TATE Britain, London; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; CCA Derry~Londonderry; Western Front, Vancouver; Konsthall C, Stockholm and The Showroom, London.
Sara Greavu is a curator, writer and organiser and is Curator of Visual Arts at Project Arts Centre. Previous curatorial and development roles include Centre for Contemporary Art Derry~Londonderry, VOID Gallery, and Outburst Arts, Belfast; in addition to working independently. In CCA she initiated the two-year residency programme, Our Neighbourhood, which engaged with local communities of place and communities of interest, alongside artists Sarah Pierce and Sarah Browne. In 2019/2020, in partnership with artist Andrea Francke, she developed Knowledge is Made Here, an alternative pedagogical practice, produced with trans and non-binary young people. Institutional and independent projects have included artists such as Renate Lorenz & Pauline Boudry and Phil Collins, and new commissions by Aideen Doran and Eimear Walshe, among others.
Funding
Supported by the Arts Council, Dublin City Council, and the British Council.
A co-commission with EVA International