Exploring themes relating to host and guest, Greer MacKeough, an artist and researcher from Dublin, took us through an overview of her practice (that forms part of her doctorate) and some of the projects she is currently working on.
For me Greer’s work was inspiring in terms of the depth of artistic research she is carrying out in order to progress her collaborative, community-oriented practice.
Bishop, 2023, 4
Instead, my goal is to analyze the forms that artistic research takes, the type of knowledge that artists produce, and how the viewer attends to the information that has been assembled.
The way Greer approaches her practices is from a place of deep generosity. Her work is a gift to the community in which she works. In her work In These Rooms, an exhibition containing artworks made up of stories and images shared but the community as well as Greer’s own works, she addresses ideas around experiences of hospitality in the Royal Hotel in Boyle, a hotel that was closing to be refurbished and transformed into a landing space for start-up businesses and exhibition space.
Sadly, we live in a time when many rural hotels across Ireland are closing or been repurposed.
MacKeogh’s collaborative work was able capture the community’s sentiment and historical attachment to the site prior to its transformation and rebirth, providing a trace of permanence to what was the disappearance of an era in a time where commercial objectives are paramount.