About Rachel MacManus

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So far Rachel MacManus has created 201 blog entries.

Messages to nowhere- Substacking

Ive started writing on Substack. See the link to my tappings here I have been writing online regularly since 2016. When I started my MA in Fine Art I had to write a blog and update it regularly. We had to do this as our MA was remote learning and as the tutors said, they had no idea what we were or weren't doing bar [...]

2025-01-18T12:42:24+00:00January 18th, 2025|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: , |

Synaptic Space- Our progress so far

Synaptic Space is the title that we- that is myself and the artist Olivia Hassett- have given the work we made, are making and hope to make together, as a duo. We commenced working together in 2024. We have known each other as friends and artists for a few years now and have been connecting more of recent over our shared performance ideas and aspirations, [...]

2025-01-12T11:13:56+00:00January 12th, 2025|Categories: Uncategorized|

betwixt and between and tax returns

This blogpost is now archival- It was written in late September 2024- I found it in my draft section and I think it had been parked there as it was too raw and I felt it also more than a little self indulgent. With the benefit of some objective distance I can now let go of it emotionally so here it is to be perused [...]

2024-12-30T10:38:07+00:00December 30th, 2024|Categories: drawing, Uncategorized, Visual|

La Pocha Nostra Vest and Page Summit

Back 4 days now from my week at Milford House, home of Live Art Ireland, attending an intensive week of performance workshopping with collectives Vest and Page, and La Pocha Nostra. Still thinking about the experience. Not had sufficient time to reflect fully on my time spent there. Significantly it was the longest time I'd spent away from my kids since my middle kid A [...]

2024-07-29T21:40:19+00:00July 29th, 2024|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: |

Do It Yourself

It was very nice to be put beside my good friend Evelyn in the July/August edition of Visual Artists Ireland Newsheet. She is a get things done woman for sure and is my age. I liked having more or less full editorial control over the article also. I mean I know they want you to write it, not them, but this process suits me, as [...]

2024-07-15T10:47:50+00:00July 15th, 2024|Categories: Uncategorized|

June- emotional ineptitude and decreptitude and the notion of effort

June, Friday 21st precisely. Coming up to a week back from a family holiday to Sacramento, California. Generously and kindly hosted by our friends Robye and Matthew. Kids had an amazing, different experience. Constant intense heat, huge cars, freeways, eating out constantly, swimming pools. Thats was my goal- just one time for them to experience a different holiday- rather than the usual west of Ireland [...]

2024-06-22T19:31:28+00:00June 21st, 2024|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: , , |

p(art)y Here and Now June- our 5th p(art)y

All photos here courtesy here of Avia Gurman I asked each participant for 3 words to describe their experience of participating today p(art)y Here and Now, June 22, Breakthrough Dance, Ennis We were still in that immediate post performative moment- no-one was fully 'out' of performance mode yet. I wanted deliberately to ask at this stage- where feelings are still emotive and immediate [...]

2024-07-09T12:54:49+00:00June 9th, 2024|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: , , , |

Making a bad ting good and ringfencing.

Late last years and early this years spate of rejections prompted me to write a rant- now much edited- seen above in May/June edition of Visual Artist Ireland News sheet. Delighted to have a piece published for VAI. Ask, or rather proffer, and you shall be rewarded. Not always, but sometimes. As rastamouse would say, by publishing my latent despair over manifold rejections,  I was [...]

2024-05-13T13:33:03+00:00May 12th, 2024|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: , , |

Performancey weekend and Atlantic tales

Had a busy weekend of performance. Weeks of domestic drudgery (slight exaggeration here) and frantic laptop tapping and then it all comes at once.. Well a lot of hunched down in drizzle or freezing cold painting also during January. We had our inaugural p(art)y Here and Now performance event last Saturday 3rd Feb. It was in essence a great success. Here we all are post [...]

2024-02-06T13:14:03+00:00February 6th, 2024|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: , |

Head Wreckers unite- recent performances to camera

https://youtube.com/shorts/cCGGp_oiewI?si=LQ_yoABxRBajjTlg Low Expectations. Performance to camera. January 2024. Still operating under the process of think, and do. Think of something, then make it. I continue to be fascinated by repetition and experiencing repetition. What it is, to be in it, continuing through it, how it feels to do it, to witness it. Sped this up to increase the ridiculousness and relentnessness (! possible made [...]

2024-01-23T11:22:17+00:00January 23rd, 2024|Categories: performance art, Visual|Tags: , |
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