Lara Gallagher is a Dublin composer and multi-disciplinary artist.
Her work includes interactive installation art, live electronic performance and theatre; she performs interdisciplinary improvisatory work, composes works for ensembles and orchestras, presents spatial installations and works across an array of artistic mediums from dance to children's theatre.
Gallagher has been commissioned by French collective lovemusic to develop a new work in collaboration with the ensemble who feature at this year’s MUSIC CURRENT Festival, presented annually by Dublin Sound Lab, which runs this April.
Every sound we make is a bit of an autobiography. It is immediate - a medium to be shared, changing social norms, linking cultures, deconstructing power dynamics and is intrinsically tied to identity. In a world that often seeks to impose singular narratives and binaries, I revel in the endless possibilities that arise when boundaries are blurred and conventions are challenged.
As a sound artist, my practice is founded on collaboration, cultural exchange, community, and multiplicity. I’m interested in facilitating authentic expression, collective engagement and strive constantly to open strands of communication between diverse performing and listening entities.
I seek to critique the position of the 'other', deconstructing binary frameworks and gendered space. These elements aren't just keywords in my artistic manifesto; they're the very essence of how I create and exist in the vibrant world of contemporary music.
tradition meets experimentation'.
Contemporary music as a genre, embodies a spirit of exploration, experimentation and innovation. It defies categorization, boundaries, preconceived notions and encompasses a vast spectrum of styles, techniques, and influences. What draws me to this art form is its boundless potential for creative expression.
From algorithmic electronic composition to avant-garde vocal performance, contemporary music opens a playground where tradition meets experimentation, where the familiar intertwines with the unfamiliar; a space with no rules, but endless possibilities.
Contemporary music as a genre, embodies a spirit of exploration, experimentation and innovation.
Here in Ireland, the contemporary music scene is experiencing a renaissance of sorts. Since its first iteration 8 years ago, MUSIC CURRENT Festival has played a key role in this movement, providing space and agency to experimental artists and work that exists outside of traditional norms.
The festival’s ethos also specifically fosters collaboration through international exchange meaning artists like me are connected with likeminded internationally renowned performers and musicians.
For MUSIC CURRENT Festival 2024, I will present a piece I have written for lovemusic, a collective of musicians specialised in new music based in Strasbourg. lovemusic aim to dismantle the patriarchal systems ingrained in the new music world, something I feel very passionately about as a young, female contemporary artist and I've been extremely lucky to collaborate with such a welcoming, diverse ensemble.
My piece Leap of Foals (Aill na Searrach as Gaeilge) takes the form of an installation that strives to harness and interrogate the condition of sound and the processes by which it operates in bodies of water.
Loosely derived from an old Irish myth depicting the story of seven white foals blinded by curiosity and possibility who leap into the sea, this installation explores the interrelationship of corporeality and water. I’m interested in resonance, water as culture vs water as nature – how can we use water and sound as a means of embodied connection, experimentation and creation?
Alongside two digital Arduino instruments filled with water, the members of lovemusic will represent the foals, reformed members of the Tuatha Dé Danann exploring the boundless possibilities of the Atlantic Ocean through sound.
I invite audiences to engage with this installation on an unconscious level, connecting with authentic versions of themselves, situating their voices within a space (thanks to MUSIC CURRENT) that embraces the experimental and the strange.
MUSIC CURRENT 2024 runs at Project Arts Centre and at the Contemporary Music Centre, Temple Bar, Dublin, from 2-6 April 2024 - find out more here.
