'Maybe I Can Be Part of That!’ Jennifer Walshe and the Invention of the Irish Avant-Garde. Dr Rob Casey (Music, Ulster University)

This research seminar, hosted by the Music, Drama, Film and Museum Studies research unit at the School of Arts and Humanities, is free and open to all interested parties.

‘If you're only ever told in school that your predecessors are these, in my case, all of these dead men. There is not a lot of space to imagine that you have any position in that narrative. You know, whereas if you can imagine a whole pile of different people. You know, there is more space for you to say, 'Maybe I can be part of that!’ - Jennifer Walshe

Recent debates in heritage and archive studies have focused upon the question of intangibility and how best to faithfully conserve and document dynamic cultural practices. The composer Jennifer Walshe’s Aisteach project is a forceful contribution to discourse around the production and conservation of intangible, specifically musical, cultural heritage. This research seminar will explore the way in which Walshe’s  ‘archive of the Irish avant-garde’, interrogates and seeks redress for questions of authenticity, exoticisation, commodification, misrepresentation and marginalisation in musicological and heritage discourse, both tangible and intangible.