Student Conversation - Avril Coroon

"The process has been really difficult, but also in some ways really enjoyable."

Avril on working in and with NCAD

My work has a difficult setting in NCAD because of its critique of the institution while engaging with the institution and using the facilities here and the architectural features.  As part of a project last year I tied a 100 metre rope from my second storey apartment on Thomas Street to the roof of NCAD.  Being here for four years and living in that apartment for four years, working in the college both as a student and also working in the gallery and in the library means that my world is quite small and to actually put that rope up meant having a really uncomfortable, intense knowledge of the college and its workings.

On concept

I was showing a conflict between the College as an institution to facilitate the art student and also as an institution that has several other boundaries where a student also has to be regulated. That brought up a conflict between the art student’s intentions and practice and also what is practical and what you are allowed do.

On her degree show

In the Blue Room of my degree show I am curating the room with Kerry Guinan so both works will be interrupting and intersecting with each other. In my piece there will be an 80 metre rope from a 12 metre flagpole that will be installed on Red Square and the rope will be coming across John’s Lane, through the window of the building and it will be attached with the appropriate knot inside the actual room itself.  I have been engaging with the structures here in order for this to happen and then the room sort of welcomes you in, it has a sort of natural colour or a colour that recognises the piece. The other piece by Kerry Guinan will be on the floor and when you are looking at my work you will be implicated all the time in Kerry Guinan’s piece and her performer will be moving around and so when you enter the room there will be a slight confusion of who owns what and how am I looking at this and what is its relationship to what I am standing on. The process has been really difficult, but also in some ways really enjoyable. Everything seems very heightened because at any point I could get an email that says I can’t do something, or I can, or I have to do something else to make it happen.

On Fine Art Media

It has been fantastic, my work is so much about my experience in NCAD that it has consumed me completely. Working here in Media for the last three years has been the biggest learning experience I have had. Fine Art has changed so much in terms of having a Department that facilitates performance as well as video and how these two can talk to each other and how when you are making your video and you understand the language of video, that shapes how you make the rest of your work, and how you switch between the two.

On the future

I’m looking forward to getting me and my work outside of this institution and building on what I have learned here. I want to see what happens next. I want to keep on working and possibly get a studio. The aim is to have things to do all the time and to keep going and keep learning.