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Lived Lives; with Mary Jane Jacob,  Seamus McGuinness, Joan Freeman and Prof Kevin Malone

7th October 2011
The Office of Non-Compliance, Dublin Contemporary, Earlsfort Terrace 7 PM

OCT 07
7 - 8 PM. RSVP.
Followed by questions and answers.
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Lived Lives is the response of artist Seamus McGuinness to the ominous presence and increase of people under 35 taking their own lives in Ireland. Hidden behind the official statistics lays personal stories of loved ones lost to suicide. The Lived Lives project goes behind these clinical statistics to capture another story.

Encompassing a nationwide process over the past five years, Lived Lives developed side–by–side with the Suicide In Ireland survey conducted by Professor Kevin M. Malone (SVUH/UCD). Both artist and psychiatrist listened to and collaborated with over 300 suicide bereaved persons from all walks of life. The process and outcomes were shaped by these relationships, ultimately focusing on the lived experiences of 62 families—107 individuals—who came together to co-create and co-produce, ultimately transforming private loss into a collective experience.

Lived Lives also speaks about how artists working across disciplines and through public dialogue are making productive and powerful works. As McGuinness has said, “To me Lived Lives is the result of an art practice, one that will continue after my departure, that can bear witness to others, validating their lives, their experiences. It can also responsibly engage a wider circle sensitive to this human issue where silence has perpetuated stigma.”

Mary Jane Jacob - Curator, author, educator, Mary Jane Jacob is known for her work on the national and international art scene. Exploring art outside the museum context, she has spent the past 20 years as an independent curator organizing groundbreaking programs that have tested the boundaries of public space and relationship of contemporary art to audience. Among her most influential programs was “Culture in Action,” a two-year-long project in Chicago that partnered artists with community members to explore the changing nature of public art, its relationship to social issues and an expanded role of audience from spectator to participant. During the 1980s, as chief curator of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Jacob staged some of the first U.S. retrospectives and one-person shows of American and European artists, as well as organized some of the key surveys of art of the period.

Seamus McGuinness - Seamus McGuinness studied at GMIT where his initial art training for his Primary Degree was in textile design - the exploration of cloth-making. His artwork has always been influenced by the notion of the fragile - in terms of material, of the landscape we live in, and now in Lived Lives by the fragility of life itself.  In 2006, he became the first Ad Astra scholar in Suicide Studies in the School of Medicine and Medical Science UCD and was awarded a PhD for his research on young suicide in Ireland (Lived Lives) in 2010. He currently works as a lecturer in Contemporary Textiles in GMIT and lives in the Burren, Co. Clare.

Joan Freeman- Joan Freeman is the founder of Pieta House, a centre for the prevention of self-harm and suicide, which was set up due to the lack of services in those areas. Pieta House is the only organisation in the country providing a free, professional, face to face, therapeutic service for communities in the acute stages of distress. Pieta House has successfully treated over 4,000 people since it opened its doors in 2006. The organisation hired more therapists this year to cope with the demand and now employs a team of more than 60 at its professional centre in Lucan, Co Dublin. With Outreach Centres in Tallaght and Finglas, Pieta House has also opened new centres in Ballyfermot, Dublin and Mungret, Co. Limerick earlier this year. Suicide and self-harm is on the rise in Ireland with over 500 people dying from suicide every year. Joan is married, and has four adult children. She completed her Masters in Psychology in 2005 and is a member of the Irish Association of Suicidology, the Psychological Society of Ireland and the British Psychological Society. She lives in Dublin, and in 2010 published her first book, Cover Up – Understanding Self-Harm.

Prof. Kevin Malone, MD, FRCPI, FRCPsych
Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy & Mental Health Research
St. Vincent’s University Hospital and
School of Medicine & Medical Science,
University College Dublin

Professor Malone is currently Head of Subject (Psychiatry) at the School of Medicine & Medical Science, UCD, and has been Professor / Consultant Psychiatrist at St. Vincent’s University Hospital, Elm Park since 2002. He leads an inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary Suicide Studies Research Programme at UCD, incorporating basic and clinical science and collaborative Arts / humanities studies, and is Principal Investigator of “the Suicide in Ireland Survey: A National Psychobiographical Autopsy Study”.
He was previously Director of Clinical Assessment and Treatment Studies in Suicidal Depression and Associate Professor at Columbia University New York, USA. He is the recipient of several academic research awards including an NIH Fogarty International Fellowship Award, The Research Medal of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and a Distinguished Investigator Award from The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. He has authored and co-authored over 75 original research articles in peer reviewed journals, as well as several book chapters. He co-founded the charity Turn the Tide of Suicide (3Ts) in 2003 with businessman Noel Smyth, in response to the rise in youth suicide in Modern Ireland.

Taking Back: Lost Portrait Gallery Photographic credits Robert Ellis

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2011/0816/1224302518003.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2011/0816/1224302518682.html

http://www.pieta.ie/Index.html

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