Approved: 25.05.2013

Tonya McMullan

Artist, Arts development worker, Event organiser, Project manager

Archived
Approved: 25.05.2013

Tonya’s practise revolves around the exploration of everyday life in the public space through context-specific, process-based, participatory and performative interactions and interventions within a place. The running themes often center around the everyday experience and the work draws on the unique qualities of a space sometimes relying on public interactions to complete the work. The work manifests

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Artist Statement

Tonya’s practise revolves around the exploration of everyday life in the public space through context-specific, process-based, participatory and performative interactions and interventions within a place. The running themes often center around the everyday experience and the work draws on the unique qualities of a space sometimes relying on public interactions to complete the work. The work manifests in a documented experience either in or informed by an encounter in a public place such as a phone box, street corner, retail environment or a clothes shop changing room. Essentially Tonya uses personal experience and autobiographical references as material to make work that explores the context of her working environment and its confines in an attempt to both challenge and touch the participant/ viewer. Tonya works in a range of media including textiles, photography, video, text and installation.

CV & Education

CONTACT
Tonya McMullan
Website: www.tonyamcmullan.co.uk  www.infinityfarm.info
Email: [email protected]

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
This Place with Amanda Coogan, Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown, Co. Armagh, 2020

Homes for insects and memories Science Festival Belfast 2019

Poetic Surveillance Visual, County Carlow,  Arts Festival 2017

City as Gallery Temporary public art installation, Place and Belfast City Gallery 2016

Sit Down Cross Legs Link Arms (solo show) CCA Derry 2015

Collective Histories of Northern Irish Art, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast 2015 

Under the Radar Catalyst Arts, Belfast. Curated by Michelle Horrigan 2015 

Rapture Pollen Studios, Belfast. Curated by Jayne Cherry  2015 

Palimpsest Golden Thread Gallery Belfast 2014 

Points of View Monster Truck Gallery, Dublin. Curated by Peter Prendergast and Alissa Kleist. 2014

Scope Art Fair New York. Represented by The Golden Thread Gallery. 2014 


 

COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS

Infinity Farm (2016 - Present)

Infinity Farm raises awareness, tackles environmental issues and aims to improve the health and wellbeing of urban communities by creatively connecting organisations, people, plants and bees in Belfast. We keep bees on rooftops in the city, deliver workshops and creative events that consider the environment and our relationship with it. 

 

CCTM (2015 - 2019) 

CCTM was founded by artists Colm Clarke and Tonya McMullan, together their projects explore through art alternative perspectives of the built and natural environment. They have curated a group show ‘Cache’ on the rooftop of a modernist car park and travelled to the University of Florida in 2016 to deliver a Photography and performance project with young people through the Centre for European studies programme. The duo co founded Infinity Farm. 

 

PRIME Collective (2011 - 2016)

The collective fostered a flexible work ethic that encouraged a process-based approach and actively seeked collaborations with other artists, collectives and organisations. These collaborations took the form of peer reviews with guest artists/curators, residencies, seminars, talks and critiques. PRIME collective’s members worked together on various projects. Curators-in-residence at PS2 Gallery in Belfast in 2011/12, where they archived the gallery storeroom, created a curatorial ‘hub’, held exhibitions, talks, workshops and peer reviews, and organized a series of events that questioned the nature of prearranged structures. 


SELECTED RESIDENCIES

This Place Connected MCAC Portadown 2019

Double Take CCTM University of Florida 2016 

Corners SoAM - Sister of Another Mama Belfast Arts Festival. 2015

Corners San Sebastion, Bibao & Bari www.cornersofeurope.org 2015-2016

Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival Transform. Curated by Household 2013

Curators in Residence (PRIME Collective) PSsquared, Belfast. 2012

 

EDUCATION

Scottish School of Social Entrepreneurs, 2018 

Preliminary Beekeeping Certificate, distinction, 2015

Art in Conflict: - Belfast social theatre lab, Sept 2009 - January 2010

Wide Open Art School Hayward Gallery London: - Workshops with Suzanne Lacy and Jeanne van Heeswijk, Maaike Engelen and Johan Siebers, July 2012

BA (HONS) Fine Art (Sculpture): - Edinburgh College of Art, Oct, 2001 – June, 2004

Diploma in Foundation Studies: - U.W.E, Bristol, Sept 2000 – June 2001


 

TALKS & PRESENTATIONS 

Urban Beekeeping and social enterprise - Soroptimist Society Stormont 2018

Urban Beekeeping Mount Stewart Conversations Festival, 2017

Double Take University of Florida 2016

Points of View Monstertruck Gallery Dublin 2013

Show and Tell Visual Artists Ireland, Dublin 2013

Wide Open Art School Hayward Gallery, London: Presentation on Here You Go Project, July 2012

Gallery Rajatila, B-Gallery & Oksasenkatu 11 Gallery, Helsinki: Talks on the Archives and Artist-Run Spaces. 2012

Influx Limerick: Talk on Catalyst Arts Archive. May 2011

Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh: Artist talk ‘Playing Beyond the Ha Ha’, 2006

Generator Projects, Dundee: Artist talk‘My Life is Best’ Project  2006

 

AWARDS / Collections

Arts Council for Northern Ireland (SIAP) 2016, 2012,2010
Arts Council of Northern Ireland permanent collection acquisition 2016

Arts Council for Northern Ireland (ACES) 2014

Arts Council for Northern Ireland (Travel Award) 2010, 2012

Culture Ireland Travel Award 2010

Edinburgh Visual Arts and Crafts Award 2009/2006

Scottish Arts Council Curatorial Fund 2008


REVIEWS / PUBLICATIONS

This Place, Amanda Coogan and Tonya McMullan, ISBN: 978-0-9928266-5-9
Great Reimagining: Public Art, Urban Space, and the Symbolic Landscapes of a 'New' Northern Ireland, by Bree t hocking - published by Berghahn New York - Oxford: ISBN 978-1-78238-621-6
Ten Years in an Open-necked Shirt, 2009/2014 by Neil Mulholland, part of the Generation, 25 years of Contemporary Art in Scotland reader (echo projects mention p116)
After the Crash before the Crash Crash, 2014 by Jenny Richards, part of the Generation, 25 years of Contemporary Art in Scotland reader (echo projects mention, p130)

Review on Palimpsest, Group show at the Golden Thread Gallery, July 2014 by Joanne Savage https://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article/6565/art-review-palimpsest

Critical Fail May 2014, by Dorothy Hunter https://blog.sculpture.org/2014/05/01/a-public-city/

Paper Studio, produced by PRIME

Household Residency by Slavka Serakova May 19th 2013 https://slavkasverakova.wordpress.com/

MEMORY INTERVENTIONS AND ACTS OF CONSCIOUS FREEDOM by Diana Damian, Friday 2 November 2012 https://www.spillfestival.com/spill-writing/