Lucy Andrews, Lesley Cherry, Billie Jean Cullen, Marie Dollard, Alissa Kleist, Cainneach Lennon, Iain McEllin, Cathal McGinley, Tim Millen, William Smith, Anne Marie Taggart, Marie Varley

Previews 3pm Saturday 6 August

This annual project features art from degree and postgraduate shows selected by a panel of artists who know the unique locale and context of Fort Dunree, County Donegal. For 2011 the selectors were artists Ursula Burke, Sam Keogh, and Jim Ricks, who exhibited at Fort Dunree for Artlink in 2010.

In 1998 French curator/theorist Nicholas Bourriaud published a book entitled ‘Relational Aesthetics’, a term that sought to promote the idea that the artist was involved in creating a space in which relationships could be created between people and new conversations and ways of living started. He saw artists as facilitators rather than makers and regarded art as information exchanged between the artist and the viewers. It was a controversial point of view and had its supporters and critics. It could be developed however and this is what Artlink seeks to do in its Here and There exhibition at Fort Dunree. Taking work from Graduate and Postgraduate shows throughout Ireland Artlink wishes to create a dialogue about how contemporary art can work in a historic, military, rural setting such as Fort Dunree by allowing artists who have already shown there to choose work which they think fits in with the locational aesthetics, so to speak, of the site.

The term locational aesthetics is intended to imply creation of a debate as to how contemporary artwork can engage with the geographical, social, historical and political context of Fort Dunree. Fort Dunree is not a traditional ‘white-cube’ (clean lines, purpose-built cube void of architectural/historic features) city-centre art space. Therefore for this exhibition, Artlink wishes to exhibit work that resonates with the specific site and setting of the Fort Dunree galleries. The art may not ‘speak’ directly about the context of this specific military fort, or of rural Donegal landscapes. But the art is selected as it starts new conversations on issues relevant to the site and setting of the Fort Dunree galleries.

The exhibition continues until 7 September. For more info see www.artlink.ie For directions see www.dunree.pro.ie/findus.html