‘Kapuluan’
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- Winner of the RDS Members’ Art Fund Award 2024 -
A ten minute, retrospective and poetic documentary film. Exhibited in Ulster University’s Belfast School of Art’s end of year show named ‘Contemplations’, from the 7th of June to the 21st of June 2024. This film allowed me to graduate with First Class Honors. I also earned a number of awards and recognitions, which are listed at the bottom of this page.
Kapuluan was first screened in a cinema-like room I created myself, inside Ulster University’s BSoA building, from 7th June - 21st June 2024.
Image above is the film’s title sequence.
The above image shows the inside of the original screening room at Ulster University (2024).
When translated, ‘Kapuluan’ means ‘Archipelago’ in English. This film contains continuous voice-over in the language of Tagalog, questioning the connection I have to my Filipino roots and the relationship - or lack thereof - I have with my father.
I have never spoken Tagalog to this extent before, and this unsettling cultural blank is an important part of the meaning for me. The use of Gaston Bachelard's text The Poetics of Space, translated into Tagalog, furthers that 'lost in translation' aspect within, as the original text was published in French, then translated and released in English, and now I am translating some quotes into Tagalog - possibly changing the initial meaning to something entirely different.
The visuals aim to mimic thought and of memories long past, bringing to the forefront themes of family, diaspora, migration and identity.
Awards & Recognitions
Royal Dublin Society
&
Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts
Out of 120 people long-listed in the whole of Ireland for the RDS Art Awards, 10 artists were shortlisted.
They had their work exhibited in the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts gallery in Dublin from 22nd of November 2024 to the 18th of January 2025.
The 10 Shortlisted Artists:
Ava Lowry, Fionn Timmins, Cahal O’Connell (drag name Miss Mary Jane), Mary Madeleine, Stell de Burca, Keara Simonsen, Claire Ritchie, Kyle Fairbanks, Heather Hughes, Sorcha Browning.
The RHA Gallery’s Curator Colin Martin, also pictured in the middle.
Picture: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland
Keara receiving her RDS Members’ Art Fund Award certificate.
Pictured left to right: Dr Andrew Power - Chairperson RDS Foundation Board, Keara Simonsen - Artist, John Dardis - RDS President
Picture: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland
‘50 For The Future’
(Irish Times Magazine)
In 2024, I was interviewed to be featured in the Irish Times Magazine ‘50 For The Future’.
“Keara Simonsen has just graduated from Ulster University in Belfast, where she is currently based. Her work is showing at the RHA as part of this year’s RDS Visual Arts Awards, where she also picked up the RDS Members’ Art Fund Award. She was born in Canada and is of Irish and Filipino descent and makes documentary-based work looking at identity, family, diaspora and urban decay. Living with cerebral palsy “hasn’t explicitly come up in my work yet”, she says, “but I know that it informs all of my work, whether conscious or not. Sometimes we can pour parts of ourselves into our art that we aren’t even aware of.” It is that openness to experience that makes her work so strong. She finds parallels between her exploration of the Filipino Tagalog language and the modern context of the Irish language. “The idea of being disconnected from one’s own culture and heritage is something many people can relate to.” The recognition that comes with the RADAR and RDS Arts Awards has been huge. “It really makes going through a few tough years with my art worthwhile. I have never felt so passionate about it.”
- By Gemma Tipton and Nadine O’Regan
Irish Times Newspaper
Leading to the 2024 RDS awards, I was interviewed for the Irish Times newspaper, however, the paper came out not long after the awards ceremony, as to include what I had won.
Keara Simonsen: 'I believe that there will never be a replacement for the soul and creativity of human-made artwork.' Photograph: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland
“Keara Simonsen, who is of Filipino and Northern Irish descent, is a visual-media artist who explores rootlessness, language, cultural displacement and human connection. “Future challenges range from a lack of financial stability to AI, which can be threatening to so many different disciplines. However, I believe that there will never be a replacement for the soul and creativity of human-made artwork, which is infused with stories and emotions. Our experiences shape so much of the art we create, so even though I know that today can be a difficult time for many graduate artists, I know that these life experiences will inform and be soulfully poured into our future work.”
Simonsen, who is a graduate of Belfast School of Art, at the University of Ulster, is the winner of the €5,000 RDS Members Art Fund Award; the judges remarked on the poignancy and beauty of her work as it deftly explores relationships, language and place.”
- Gemma Tipton, November 30th 2024
Irish Examiner Newspaper
This was another promotional piece leading towards the RDS Visual Art Awards 2024.
Picture: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland
“At this year’s RDS Visual Art Awards, 10 graduate artists will showcase their work at the RHA Gallery in Dublin from November 22 - January 18. At the awards announcement were, front row: Artist Heather Hughes, RDS staff Rebecca Kelly, artist Claire Ritchie, RHA Gallery’s Colin Martin, RDS staff Karen Phillips, and artists Keara Simonsen, Kyle Fairbanks, and Fionn Timmins. Back row: Artists Mary Madeleine McCarroll, Cahal O’Connell (drag name Miss Mary Jane), Ava Lowry, Sorcha Browning, and Stell de Burca.”
Irish Arts Review
Irish Arts Review pg 7.
All 10 shortlisted artists were included in a promotional issue of the Irish Arts Review, on page 7.
And the artists who won awards were included on an online article by Róisín Kennedy, linked above.
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‘Kapuluan’ was included online in Source Magazine.
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Item description
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I was a shortlisted artist for the Research And Development Artist Residency (2024).
