East Wing, a gallery with its foundation in Doha, Qatar has held an impressive presence at the international art fairs, Unseen and Paris Photo for the last two years. In March, East Wing opened their new physical gallery space in Dubai, UAE under the direction of Elie Domit with a new curator, Lars Willumeit, past Photo Director of Du – Die Zeitschrift der Kultur magazine. Over the summer they added to their team Artistic Director, Peggy Sue Amison, who comes to them from Sirius Arts Centre in Ireland, where she was the Artistic Director for 13 years.
L’Oeil de la Photographie spoke to Peggy Sue recently about her new position and the future of East Wing.
L’Oeil de la Photographie: Tell us a bit about your background up to this point.
Peggy Sue Amison: I’m originally from California. I left San Francisco in 2000 to come to Ireland for a change of scenery. I had no plans for what I was going to do there, except photograph. I took a job washing dishes at a restaurant in the west of the country and later worked at a number of odd jobs, until I applied for a residency and exhibition of my own photography at Sirius Arts Centre in County Cork during the winter of 2001. I was hoping to eventually find a position working in the arts and the day before my exhibition opened at Sirius, quite by surprise, the Administrator left her position to take another job up the country. She asked if I could ‘fill in’ for 3 months and help with the administration of the arts centre. That was 13 years ago and during my tenure I developed this position from that of a part-time Administrator to a full-time Artistic Director.
Sirius is a multidisciplinary arts centre with an international artist in residency programme – as a photographer, I had been feeling very frustrated because, in 2001 there were only two galleries in the entire country that exhibited photography year round and both were far from Cork: the Gallery of Photography in Dublin and Belfast Exposed in Northern Ireland. Once I had gotten settled into my new position, I slowly began curating more photography into our programming – specifically through the artist in residence and exhibition programmes. I was fortunate to be able to invite Simon Norfolk and Martin Parr to speak and exhibit at Sirius in 2002 & 2003.
Following that, I started developing partnerships with other arts organisations within Ireland. Belfast Exposed partnered with Sirius on an exhibition of Norfolk’s “Afghanistan Chronotopia” held in Cork and Belfast. In 2005, Cork was European Capital of Culture and with their support I was able to commission Simon Norfolk for an artist’s residency with the Irish Army. Simon travelled to Kosovo and Liberia, looking at the landscape of Irish peacekeeping. We were extremely fortunate to have the support of the Irish Defense Forces on realizing that project. A small body of work resulted titled, “Welcome to the Hotel Africa”. Later that same year I invited Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison over from the United States – they had a residency at Sirius and we were able to exhibit “The Architect’s Brother” in Cork and then later at the Gallery of Photography in Dublin, it was the first time the ParkeHarrison’s had shown in Ireland, if not Europe.
From then on, I cultivated international partnerships. I was able to curate photographic exhibitions in Cobh where Sirius is located, showcasing Irish photographers like; David Farrell, Patrick McCoy, Jackie Nickerson and Richard Mosse, along with the work of international artists including; Vee Speers, Reiner Riedler, Alexey Titarenko, Sputnik Collective, Roger Ballen, Michael Somoroff, August Sander and Immogen Cunningham, as well as group shows such as: “Cruel and Unusual” an exhibition curated by Pete Brook and Hester Keijser, which was obtained through Noorderlicht in the Netherlands, “IS/Not” by the photographic collective, Sputnik and “All My Lovin”, which I co-curated with Krzysztof Candrowicz and Christoph Tannert which premiered at the Lodz Photofestival in Poland and was later brought to Berlin and Cork.
Through the residency programme I invited a number of photographers to come for short stays in Cork to develop projects in Ireland, with the aim of challenging their perspectives about the country. Among the artists who came to stay with us were; Michelle Sank, Gilles Perrin, Maleonn Ma, Laurent Millet and Doug DuBois. Doug’s Irish project, “My Last Day at Seventeen” received international attention and will be published by Aperture in 2015. I also organized an Artist in Prison Scheme project in Dublin with French photographer, Klavdij Sluban in 2006. Over the years, I developed a number of opportunities to build relationships with a wide range of photographic professionals, as a way of supporting the careers of emerging photographers in Ireland through master classes, conferences, lectures and an exhibition of Irish photography that I curated in Shanghai, China, titled “Postcards from the Celtic Tiger”. This was all fueled by my passion for photography. Over time, my focus had shifted to creating opportunities for discourse and development around image making and became less about my own practice.
LODP: Now that you’re leaving Ireland and making a radical change in location to Dubai, what do you think you can bring to East Wing?
PSA: The main focus throughout my career in Ireland has been about developing collaborations and broadening discourse through exchanges in and about photography as an art form. With these initiatives I’ve tried to strengthen the voices of Irish artists by contributing potential opportunities for their work to be recognized further afield. I will continue this work with the team at East Wing. Our founder, Dr. Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani is President of Hamad Bin Khalifa University, an initiative of Qatar Foundation, he is also Chairman of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), a leading global forum for innovative practice in education. All of us at East Wing share an interest in creating a strong platform for cutting edge photographic practice, through the development of partnerships and exchanges, both within the region and globally. I feel with my past experience in Ireland I can organize similar opportunities for new dialogues about photography in Dubai.
LDP: What projects are ahead for East Wing that you are particularly excited about?
PSA: We are working in partnership with Foam to bring their “Talents 2014” exhibition to East Wing in late November 2014 and with it, a master class and other events to begin the process of exchange. We will also present the most recent edition of the Prix Pictet in January 2015. Later in the year, we intend to organize a few group exhibitions of established and emerging artists, along with a solo exhibition of works by George Awde, a photographer based in Cairo and the United States. Alongside this, I will be in charge of organizing events to support these programmes and bring new topics to the gallery for our audience to interact with. There is a lot of work ahead to establish the gallery as a center for creative development and exploration in photography, video and publications. It’s an exciting time for all of us and we’re really looking forward to the year ahead.
For more information about:
East Wing: http://www.east-wing.org
East Wing
#12 Limestone House
DIFC
Dubai
United Arab Emirates.
