Maria Kerin(-Walsh), artist curator choregrapher.


Welcome to my blog. It introduces some of the processes and projects that I have been involved in recent years as an independent, rural based artist-curator and choreographer, working towards sustaining a slower rural based lifestyle, through creativity that also supports autonomy and self organisation within an inter-connective model of collaboration.

My movement-based arts practice provokes and informs a translocal artist-curatorial and choreographic practice, manifesting into peer to peer networks and systems to support collaborations presently in Ireland, Estonia and Sweden, in an interdisciplinary practice without borders.

I am particularly interested in deep listening, sensing time and opening up memories through awareness/presence as an embodied creativity process and ethical inquiry, informed through somatic principles that supports my practice concerned with our relationships with nature and consciousness. For example see blog page 'Post domestic: The future is the forest". Work with Kristina Kvamme, Sweden, since August 2019, in her walking practice that links through image and text live online on Fridays nourishes this. Ongoing explorations with Rachel Sweeney through Articulating Thresholds expands this inquiry.

Since 2018 I've been working on translocal, transdisciplinary collaborations in experimental heritage, with Professor Bodil Petersson of Linneaus University and members of Experimental Heritage network Sweden. This has led to us forming Karum-Creevagh, a group of artists, archaeologists and ecologists from Ireland and Sweden, concerned with our future.
See www.experimentalheritage.com for a detailed archive.

See Outrider Artists.wix.com for more info on local rural networks and cross-cultural sharing.
For other online images, see my kind partner Michael Walsh's documentation of my work:

https://issuu.com/michaelwalsh/docs/10_days_embodied_creative_process_d


https://issuu.com/michaelwalsh/docs/future_domestic_2013_visual_diary


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSYpxRfzKp0&t=4s


Should you wish to contact me for more information please text 00353877711033 or email: kerinmaria@gmail.com
See www.thefloatingvillage.net for collaboration with Dr Rachel Sweeney as part of The Floating Village eco-somatic practice since 2019.

Monday, November 7, 2005

Rural identity- Ground Up Artists Collective

Inspired by and managed by artist/curator Fiona Woods, the then visual artists officer for Clare at the helm, 2003-2006, Ground Up was a unique opportunity for  Clare based artists to highlight and acknowledge their rural arts practice allowing site specific work to be sited in the rural and gave a forum for rural aesthetics to be explored and celebrated.

I learned so much about collaborations, their strengths and their weaknesses while working with a group of artists over a 2 year period. An formal network Ground Up Artists Collective is one of the outcomes, of which I was treasurer for a few years and am now a passive member. 
GUAC creates contemporary art in rural contexts. The group supports, promotes and advocates for rural based art projects and events which engage with local communities of place or communities of interest. See www.groundupartists.com for more details.



“Sweet Bellharbour” was my response to Ground Up; a multimedia temporary installation involvinga sound recording of my neighbours naming their deceased family members and 49 stitched whitesheets with the names of the 49 people I had known in a village of 52 homes who had passed away in my lifetime to date. This took place over 10 days in a triangular field farmed by my father, in the ruins of
 Corcomroe Abbey, Bellharbour, Co.Clare and was commissioned by Clare County Council as part ofthe Ground Up 2 art in rural context process, ‘05.