Masterclass: Introduction to Art Writing with Jennie Taylor in partnership with Bealtaine Festival

Course Summary

Presented by the Irish Writers Centre in partnership with Age & Opportunity’s Bealtaine Festival.

This Masterclass will provide an introduction to the term Art Writing, followed by a workshop in writing stories about, alongside or from a selection of artworks. We will delve into the details, contexts and associations of art objects and consider how visual art can extend into a story and evoke your impression of the pieces. Using examples of contemporary art as prompts, you will learn how to write fiction inspired by artworks.

Course Outline

The course will include a presentation on Art Writing, writing sessions and discussion. Participants will produce one short fiction piece in response to an artwork.

Course Outcomes

Participants will learn new ways to look at contemporary art and respond to examples of art by writing creative and experimental short texts.

Jennie Taylor is a fiction and arts writer. Her work includes speculative art history, flash fiction and art criticism. Her practice draws from particle physics, auto theory and micro-histories. She writes fictional narratives about material properties of art objects and situations. Her work seeks to write invisible histories, materials and subjectivities in experimental and engaging narratives. Through uses of art writing, fictioning and speculative storytelling, her work aims to build a mosaic of textual gestures to take up space in subtle and effective ways, acting as microscopic and lasting forms, troubling existing histories and dominant identities.