07 March — 04 April 2022, 6pm - 7.30pm
Spring Survival School - or the acronym SSS - is a free five week art programme for adults. Facilitated by TBG+S Studio Artist and unqualified contemporary survivalist, Léann Herlihy, the school’s syllabus revises and scraps outdated forms of survivalism with the aim of (re)imagining new ways of living.
Departing from archaic survivalist endeavours that promise not improvement but rather endless struggle, the SSS curriculum will be informed by ecological, socialist and abolitionist coalitions which pave pathways for thriving rather than just surviving. In all its capacities, SSS values community over individualism with the school’s motto:
COALITION OVER SEGREGATION!
Working with rather than against nature, each Spring Survival School Student will be equipped with an eco-friendly SSS starter-pack! By the end of this five-week crash course, you too will graduate as an unqualified contemporary survivalist!
The Spring Survival School takes place in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios every Tuesday evening, 6pm to 7.30pm, over five weeks from 8 March - 5 April 2022. The programme is free of charge and open to adults. View the full schedule and details below.
Are you an experienced survivalist? No? Me neither.
Spring Survival School doesn’t believe in traditional forms of education, but rather explores shared learning through horizontal collectivism wherein each individual's contribution is of equal importance in the entity of the collective group. There is no experience needed within a traditional art frame, but rather a willingness and openness to share space, time and respect with other individuals.
There will be some suggested activities and readings between sessions. Access to a smartphone or laptop is useful but not necessary – we can work to your needs! You will be asked to bring some items to the Spring Survival School, but only things that you already have.
With an optimum focus on thriving through your experience, please do not hesitate to contact us with any accessibility desires or needs that you may have.
Temple Bar Gallery + Studios is accessible for wheelchair users. The building is also fitted with an elevator and accessible bathroom. We are currently working to try and improve our facilities to make them as accessible as possible. If you have any suggestions as to how we could improve please let us know. We welcome your feedback.
Temple Bar Gallery + Studios is currently inviting applications for participation in the Making Connections Spring Survival School. Find out how to apply at the link below.
A Collective Introduction facilitated by Léann Herlihy and Órla Goodwin.
Tuesday 8 March 2022, 6pm - 7.30pm
Similarly to your first day at school, this first Spring Survival School session will be focused on introductions and a gentle easing into the physicality of collectively sharing space. Each participant will be asked to bring their own survival object which will be shared amongst the group. During this show-and-tell, Léann Herlihy will facilitate an open group conversation of what we think survival is in contemporary times.
This session will also include a welcome and introduction to TBG+S with Learning + Public Engagement Curator, Órla Goodwin.
Léann Herlihy (they/them) is an artist and researcher based in Dublin. The methodological fulcrum of their practice pivots around academic studies in queer theory and feminist epistemologies which they utilise in tandem with live action, performance, video, sculpture and text. Pairing gestural action with in-depth research, their practice employs an emancipatory paradigm that actively destabilises gendered and sexualised dichotomies in an overtly heteronormative society.
Originally from Waterford, Léann Herlihy holds a MA in Gender Studies from University College Dublin and a BA in Sculpture, Performance and Spatial Awareness from the University of Arts Poznań, Poland. They were the artist-in-residence for Steak House Live Residency Programme, London [2020] and Assembly #2, Simiane-La-Rotonde, France [2019]. Solo exhibitions include the middle of nowhere, Project Arts Centre, Dublin [2022]; STUNTMAN, ] performance s p a c e [, London [2020]; Trojan Horse, STROBOSKOP Art Space, Warsaw [2019]. Select group exhibitions and festivals include Slow Sunday, Artsadmin, Toynbee Studios, London [2020]; Foreign Bodies, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw [2019]; Biennale Warszawa, Mokotowska, Warsaw [2019]; ZABIH Performance Festival, Lviv, Ukraine [2019].
Léann Herlihy is the recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland’s Visual Arts Bursary [2021] and Agility Award [2021]. They are currently a Project Studio Artist at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin
A reading group with Sinéad Kennedy and Léann Herlihy
Tuesday 15 March 2022, 6pm - 7.30pm
This Spring Survival School session gains its title from the introductory chapter of Post Capitalist Desire: the Final Lectures,¹ a book which has become the fulcrum of a socialist reading group organised by Sinéad Kennedy. Relating this reading group back to survivalism, Sinéad and Léann will open the room into a shared dialogue about navigating the crumbling terrain of Dublin’s cultural scene. Speaking from her experience of impromptu coalition building, Sinéad will lead us through the steps of rallying a movement which counteracts Dublin’s shadowy side of neoliberal existence in its emphasis on precocity trumping security and self-preservation trumping flourishment.
Sinéad Kennedy's multidisciplinary visual art practice consists of illustrations, sewn together sculptures, wearable garments, installations, video, pen & pencil drawings, paintings, collage, and musical performances. Sinéad plays traditional Irish music on the fiddle, and also composes traditional and experimental music for voice, fiddle, bouzouki, synthesizer and drum machine. Venues Sinéad has exhibited and performed in include abandoned fish factories, rafts on swimming pools, tunnels under mountains and old folks homes - as well as more conventional institutions such as the Douglas Hyde Gallery, the Royal Irish Academy, and Brown Thomas Dublin. Sinéad Kennedy is the designer and illustrator for the Dublin is Dying - Save the Cobblestone campaign including posters, graphics, banners, placards and merch. Sinéad’s designs were used at the protests and also on social media as well as being featured in The Guardian, The Irish Times and RTE News.
A workshop by Ro Hardaker and Léann Herlihy
Tuesday 22 March 2022, 6pm - 7.30pm
In a conversation transcribed in Mousse Magazine,³ Alex Baczynski-Jenkins and Eliel Jones discuss their understandings of collaboration within and beyond their art practice.
EJ: It’s a complex family of sorts, without wanting to sound too incestuous.
ABJ: I’ve said it before: who you want to work with is who you want to share your life with.
Acting as a prompt to week 3, Léann Herlihy and Ro Hardaker will lead a workshop on building and sustaining collaboration through connections; a crucial aspect of flourishment in both of these artist’s practises. Speaking to her experience of opening up her studio space as a training ground for trans wrestlers or as a rehearsal stage for trans choirs, Ro will lead us through the importance of giving spaces to communities so that they not only survive, but thrive and how these communities become infiltrated into her art practice.
Ro Hardaker is an artist currently based in Leeds (UK). She works at the blur between discursive, visual and embodied practises to improvise new worlds and modes of survival. By addressing the manners in which specific technological, social and material conditions shape, restrict and organise access, she enacts instances in which language, intimacy and violence are extracted, then redistributed as intense affective encounters. Her works have been presented at The Tetley (UK), SPILL Festival of Performance 2014 and 2015 (UK), The Leeds Playhouse (UK), Tate Modern (UK), Queer City Cinema and Performatorium (CA), Uppsala Konst Museum (SE), PAGE: Assembly (FR), Yonder Gallery (UK) and ] Performance s p a c e [ (UK).
Talk with Diana Bamimeke and Léann Herlihy
Tuesday 29 March 2022, 6pm - 7.30pm
The final week of Spring Survival School will look towards post-survivalism within and beyond the framework of art spaces. This talk will open up a dialogue towards what we want the future of art-making to be and most importantly, what must we do to make that attainable and sustainable. We are joined by guest speaker, Diana Bamimeke.
Diana Bamimeke is a writer & independent curator from west Dublin, interested in curating & producing socially engaged art, with a focus on community engagements (workshops, activism, etc), and criticality. Their work has featured in publications by Origins Eile, the VAI News Sheet, the RHA, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios and TU Dublin. They are currently the 2021/22 Curator-in-Residence at the Museum of Everyone, a community-led curatorial & programming platform based in Offaly.
Graduation Ceremony delivered by Unqualified Contemporary Survivalist, Léann Herlihy
Tuesday 5 April 2022, 6pm - 7.30pm
Graduating from this crash-course, you will receive your own unqualified contemporary survivalist ‘badge’. Collectively sharing a space together for one last time, this session will focus on reflection and feedback on the previous four weeks.
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¹ Colquhoun, M., 2021. Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures. London: Repeaters Books.
²Bassichis, M., Lee, A. and Spade, D., 2011. Building an Abolitionist Trans and Queer Movement With Everything We've Got. In: E. Stanley and N. Smith, ed., Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. Oakland: AK Press.
³ Baczynski-Jenkins, A. and Jones, E., 2022. A Queer Politics of Entanglement: Alex Baczynski-Jenkins. Alex Baczynski-Jenkins in conversation with Eliel Jones. [online] Mousse Magazine.
15 May 2026, 4–5.45pm
Exhibiting artist Rebecca Moccia and Marta Bianchi from Care of, Milan will host a curated series of short video’s followed by an artist talk and introduction to the Gallery exhibition Nostalgism.
16 May 2026, 11.30am–1pm
An experimental drawing workshop with artist Shane Malone-Murphy exploring alternative ways of mapping experience through mark-making.
16 May 2026, 2-4pm
Drawing Room is a combined studio visit and workshop with visiting studio artist John Graham, emphasising drawing as location.
