Tuam Logged in – With Michael Fortune

A series of workshops for local community groups and artists with artist / folklorist Michael Fortune

Our aim is to create a series of workshops that allow interested community groups avnd local artists to work with familiar tools (from their phones to recognisable online video platforms and social media sites) to connect and stay connected during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. As we emerge from this time of physical isolation we feel there is a need to create opportunities for community groups and local artists to learn new skills and develop new platforms for connecting and sharing the work they do.

SESSION 1: THE MAKING (JUNE 12)

Learn how to use your phone to make images and film for your online community. Find ways to utilise your phone to its fullest potential alongside the DIY tips needed to create tripods and accessories needed for shooting images and film. You will also find ways to shoot and edit your work on the In Shot App.

SESSION 2: THE BROADCASTING (JUNE 19)

Find ways to share the work you make/do with your membership and the community of Tuam and beyond. The question of how we stay connected during isolation saw the rise in many of us using zoom and social media platforms. Here we will learn how to fully utilise these platforms to promote your community group and work. Learn how to share and live stream at optimum times.

SESSION 3: THE RESOURCES (JUNE 26)

Finding the many national resources available to us and how to use them. From the National Photography Archive to Ordnance Survey Ireland, we will explore resources that home information relevant to Tuam and its surrounding areas. We will discuss the etiquette on using footage, crediting sources, how we acknowledge the makers on our social media channels.

Michael Fortune has been a pioneer in the area of socially engaged work within Ireland over the past twenty years and his practice has widened the conversations regarding the intersection of traditional and contemporary cultures. Fortune continues to produce project work throughout the country and works as a part-time Associate Lecturer at Limerick School of Art and Design (Master of Education and Digital Media). He also conducts work as a Visiting Lecturer in many colleges and universities Ireland and is currently an External Examiner on Limerick School of Art and Design’s MA programme. His life, interests and practice are an intertwined and inseparable mix of the ancient, the contemporary, the private, the public and the intangible.

Michael grew up in a family immersed in story, superstition and folk belief in an area known as ‘The Macamores’, an old Gaelic stronghold stretching along the east coast of Wexford. He completed his BA in Fine Art, specialising in video and performance, at Limerick School of Art in 1999 and his MA in Screenwriting at DLIADT in 2003.

Working predominantly in film and photography, much of his practice revolves around the collection of material – material which he generates out of the relationships and experiences he develops with the people he encounters. The intimate nature of the relationships with the people and circumstances he encounters, and the subsequent reflective treatment of the material at hand, is a key feature of Fortune’s work. Much of Fortune’s work borrows from the popular conventions of film, home video, snap photography and the printed media and his work can be seen as growing out of a tradition of social documentary and anthropological film.