Interview: Mark Durcan und Freigora

Mark Durcan is a final year art student from Dublin's NCAD. We interviewed him about Freigora, the exhibition he hosted and exhibited in Berlin, this Summer.

You are an art student…how easy is it to put on your own exhibition?

Grand. I suppose it is just another commitment that needs to be fulfilled. When you need to do it, you get it done. It was an eye-opener, trying to achieve something like that in a foreign city, away from the support network and the comfort of the familiar.

Explain the concept of Freigora?

Freigora has a double-barrel composition. The word Frei is the German word for free and Agora is an acient great word used to describe a
marketplace or a meeting place. So Freigora would translate to mean 'a free place of exchange'. A freigora can exist anywhere, but where it does, it must initiate a reappraisal of the space it is conducted from. This may take form of an interactive intervention in a public park or
an exhibition and discussion in a gallery, what's important is that
their is some level of democratisation in the work. Democratisation in
this sense does not refer to a passive complicit consensus, it refers
to the active engagement of differing and conflicting opnions and
attitudes.

How is Berlin different form Dublin?

Berlin is vast, Dublin is very colloquial. Berlin is also a very poor
city, the people are unwilling to spend their money, it is after all
fifty billion euros in debt. It was this that struck me most evidently
when I returned to Dublin; the extravagant display of wealth. From the
make-up and clothes women were wearing to the aggressive placements of
Centras and Spars on every street.
Also, Berlin has a plethora of unused space, there are abandoned
buildings everywhere. Their wealth resides in their history. When
considered in this context, it now seems like a place residing in an
uncertain flux.

Was the Berlin Freigora simply born out of your Berlin experience
and other notions you had about Berlin and art?

I had my ideas about Berlin before I went there but they were based on
ignorance, or rather on a simplistic tourist model. Living there, for
the period I did, gave me a very different perspective on the place. I
tried to abandon those notions and look at it afresh. Of course, an
entirely new perspective is impossible, you will always gravitate
towards the things that interest you and this interest is born from
your life experiences. But essentially yes, the produce and the ideas
for the show were formulated in Berlin.

What did you exhibit/perform/host and with whom in the Berlin
Freigora?

I spent the majority of my time exploring the wrecks and ruins of
Berlins previous eras. I did a bulk of work that was based in an old
steam engine factory on Chauseestr. This included me appropriating
certain objects from the site that were destined for destruction and
reinventing their emphasis by turning them into installations. These
objects were the control tools of the factory. The electrical
switchboards, the health and safety warning signs and a key chest
containing all the keys to all the doors of the entire building,
despite the fact that when I arrived there there were no interior walls
or doors. These tools were the mid-point between the workers and their
labour reality. It was their daily interface.

The show consisted of a Parking Meter Press studio, installations by
myself and Christophe Bachalard along with an extensive diagrammatic
representation of the history of Berlin’s rail network from 1933 and
the old Reichbahn through to 1989/1990 and the momentous political
changes of that time. Presenting the original engineer’s drawings this
accumulated work outlines a particular aspect of a larger system from
the inceptive creative hand. John Holten read from his collection ‘The
United States of Europe’ before he opened up the reading of a
discussion concerning the idea of a European art and literature,
looking at ideas of collaboration, intergration and European identity
itself.

How did it go?

Very well.

What were the most important moments of the show for you as an
artist?

Seeing many arms working the switchboards was one. It was a basic
curiosity, but it also harked back to when this was the daily life of
the workers of the factory. I was also very pleased by the discussions
that were held amongst the Germans, English, Irish, Italians and
whatever other nationalities were there as to the significance of the
railway diagrams. The Germans were obviously reticent to talk about the
Reichsbahn aspect, but the other nationalities weren't and this created
a dichotomy of interest, which I enjoyed.

What are you future plans for exhibitions and work?

I have my degree show next May and that will be quite important. I
also have some plans for some work in Paris and London in the new year.
At the moment I'm very much interested in the idea of certain tools
being the tangible interface we have with reality. This is a direct
continuation of my work in Berlin. Here in Dublin I'm going to study
the process of construction, or rather its aestheticisation,
distinct from architecture - which is an end point. The construction of a building is again this thing that floats in the middle, an intersection between past and present. Fuck knows we have a lot of it to contend with in
Dublin.