The CIRCA theme we are contributing to is focused on the 'state of the art' - which is very general. I've wondered what we might talk about in the light of this. Perhaps we might discuss whether art criticism and writing on art has changed or been challenged in Ireland in any way that reflects the wider developments in critical writing on culture. I wonder whether the kind of research, analysis and critique pursued in academic circles has really made an impression on how art practice is represented in the realm of exhibition catalogues, newspaper journalism, or even special publications that relate art practice to the cultural politics of, say, the last ten years.

As this discussion is taking place in CIRCA, it is particularly interesting that the formation of CIRCA is something you mention as part of a tradition of Belfast-based artists taking responsibility for their own practice. How, do you think, did the critical writing that CIRCA initially put into circulation affected artists' practice? You've noted the formation of CIRCA, the way artists here take responsibility for their own practice, and a different atmosphere from the South as some points of departure in the context of our correspondence. Can you elaborate on how artists in Belfast take responsibility for their own practice in the light of the different atmosphere you experience in Belfast - different to the South?

There are further, I think, generally reflexive questions that also circulate around our topic. How has art criticism changed in Ireland since the mid/late 1980s? How is Irish visual culture currently mediated by criticism? How much power has the critic? What way is this power demonstrated? How much authority does criticism carry for readers, for artists? What way does this authority manifest itself? What is the role of the art critic in Ireland: Description; Interpretation; Explanation; Validati?n; Valuation; Connoisseurship; Authentication; Legitimation; Investigation; Research; Revelation; Contextualisation; Education?

I think that we can ask what critical practices and cultural politics remain untested? How important is it to document the cultural politics at work at any time? How 'critical' is the administration of art, in academic and public cultural institutions? What is the 'critical' potential of administrative methods? Are artists pursuing critical practices in Ireland? To what extent do/can exhibition policies assume positions of critique?

How 'critical' are our art colleges?

What function does the idea of the periphery fulfil in Ireland now? Where is that now? What cultural capital does the periphery promise speculators now? Is the periphery immediately 'critical' - is that the understanding? Has the language of feminist theory been incorporated into art criticism to the same extent and purpose as postcolonial theory? What happens in the transition of academic critical writing into popular criticism?

Can you tell me more about Gayatri Spivak's 'strategic essentialism' and how this reads against my use of the word 'Irish'? I know what you mean in terms of how problematic this is or how it may be a kind of circular qualifier - are we speaking across a national border? I think the value of the border in cultural discourses, expanded in the South/Republic in the 1990s, especially, was variously exploited as much as it was critically articulated. Maybe it is the exhibitions that travel that bring with them the stamp of the state in a very blunt way. I wonder if the metaphorical mobility of the 'border' in contemporary cultural criticism wasn't cynically used in recommending 'art of the state' that was directed toward an art market and publishing appetite that was being driven from centres outside the state or the island. Can you tell me more about your reading from a Spivak perspective?

Did you see the performance programme presented by Marina Abramovic at IMMA? Is this the event referred to during the 'Appearances' seminar at Arthouse? There was some disappointment at that time that there was not more work presented by Irish artists within Abramovic's programme. If such criticism or omission becomes part of the record, does it lead to an exaggerated impression that performance is not undertaken generally North or South of the border? As this was an international event staged in Ireland, its value as a document of activity in the realm of performance Ireland may ultimately misrepresent the level of engagement in this form by Irish artists.

I am mindful that, in recent years, live art events have been undertaken serially or annually in cities in the South - Dublin, Limerick, Galway and Cork. These platforms for performance artists are, or can be linked to, artists' initiatives. So while there is a history of performance work being presented, are some of the problems of visibility attached to the timeframe of the 'festival' type event? While the concentration of performance work over a localised timeframe facilitates the attention of an audience, do such events risk ghettoising performance work?

When I joined the staff at Project Arts Centre in 1998 these issues were under review. As past participants, Catalyst artists will remember the Live at Project events at Project Arts Centre. At that time, future strategies for presenting performance programming were already being problematised by the then Director, Fiach Mac Conghail. Reviewing his initiatives in programming performance at Project, the above questions had become critical. Ultimately, the discussion arising from this process of institutional review contributed to the direction of the Off Site programme. Sandra Johnston, who collaborated on the 'Appearances' project, was one of the artists who undertook a project for Off Site .

Her work, Reserved , was performed in Dublin's city centre over two evenings. While the artist performed live on the roof of the hotel the audience made their way to her via video work by the artist located on the ground floor of the hotel. I make this connection to draw together ideas about the performativity of both the artist and the administrator who together may pursue critical practices. While artists' initiatives such as Catalyst do not seek administrative specialisation to fill organisational positions, administrative practices are nevertheless performed, and are practised by the artist-committee and artist-board. I'm sure it is uncontroversial to say that administrative practices reflect the policy, politics and ambitions of formally associated organisations. Ideas about transformational art practice must, I think, involve criticism of administrative methods (of which curatorial work is only part). Structural change and interrogative criticism are surely vital.

In the reprinted catalogue for the recent IMMA exhibition Shifting Ground , the chronology set out at the back of the book includes entries for Blue Funk. This was a group of artists with whom I collaborated through the 1990s. In addition to whatever other value the inclusions have, the entries have a curiosity value because in the initial printing (subsequently scrapped) Blue Funk went unchronicled. In the light of the title of the exhibition, 'Shifting Ground', I find that it is again in the record and the document that the contingencies of visibility are demonstrated.

There are various ways for artists to take initiatives. This is one example of how the cultural capital of artists' efforts are generally open to appropriation by official culture. In what circumstances might art historians risk becoming complicit in legitimating the agendas of centres of official culture? Surely, this is as much a question for some archivists as for curators of national collections, as it is for writers in the field.

Can you describe the commissioning process behind your editorial work for the anthology, Feminism-Art-Theory , recently published by Blackwell? The research component is very well represented in the selected bibliography and generously provided. I'm sure you have already received criticism over omissions, a situation that the collection of texts in anthology form surely always provokes. Did the publisher set the brief - was it an open brief?

I am aware that you are a subscriber to an email list on French Feminism. I also subscribe. Is there an active network of academics in Ireland who share your investment in the analysis afforded to art and culture and gender - in the writings of Irigaray, for example? How important are broader networks where you can test and develop theoretical perspectives? In terms of curatorial authorship in Ireland, I am always aware of when aspects or personalities from critical theory (broadly speaking) break through into places of discourse. I am not sure that here, as elsewhere, this is always successful. By that I mean that the conceptual propositions and critical positions espoused by (usually high-profile) theorists are more often the subject of some thematic idea rather than that the theory is put into practice in a way that might transform cultural practices. For my own part, in attempting to institute changes in the culture of curating, I have found one area of focus in theories about how institutional time is naturalised. Are there areas where your subject, your object of interest, continue to inform your own sense of agency, perhaps as a teacher?

All the best, Valerie

Dear Valerie

Some topics I think crucial at present for culture in Ireland: conservative nationalism versus radical nationalism; expanding identity; race; the border (still); Habeas Corpus (especially for women); global communication; gender (its representation and performance); networking and who speaks? My most immediate experience, of course, is Belfast, the students, staff and young artists here. What I'm struck by is the way artists here take responsibility for their own practice, the large number of artist-run organizations, exhibitions, studio blocks, etc., there are. It's a tradition going back to the ARE, the formation of CIRCA, and earlier - and I think it is a different atmosphere from the South.

I think the reason that the issue of what I call 'responsibility' (slightly arch term) came to the fore for me at a seminar in Arthouse, for Pauline Cummins', Sandra Johnston's and Frances Mezetti's 'Appearances' project, is this. Someone in the audience congratulated Arthouse and also IMMA for having put on live-art events, and that there had not been any for a long time. The question was: why not? This shocked me! There have been so many in Belfast - and nearly all of them have been put on by artists themselves. Catalyst Arts was set up by artists, and is run by artists - people are on the board for only a couple of years, so they don't turn into administrators. Flax was set up by artists and facilitates ma ny projects.

So were many of the other studio blocks. Grassy Knoll is artist-run. A new organisation is BBeyond, also run by artists for artists. (Clearly, not all of this activity concerns live art - but these are the places you will tend to see live art, and on a fairly regular basis, alongside site-specific, installation, time-based work, experimental video and web work and so forth.) Maybe the infrastructure in Belfast - or the North in general - has never been as dependable or thorough as that in Dublin? Maybe it is to do with having urgency in the local situation plus the lack of willingness for curators, critics, etc., to visit. These two possible causes are now beginning to change, but historically it may be a factor. And CIRCA, of course, was established in Belfast by artists! Thankfully, it still has many artists writing for it - one of its pleasures.

I'm working on a book of art theory. For me, if art theory is to be of any significance, then it has to be of use in some respect for artists. Not that I say that artists must read theory, far from it: but the languages we speak to mediate our experiences of art to each other must of course be inclusive. And that includes the recognition that art produces its own theories too.

Regarding the Feminism-Art-Theory, 1968-2000 anthology that I edited, well, I set my own brief. I contacted Blackwell's with a proposal. It was in reaction to the Harrison and Wood, Art in Theory 1900-1990 , which includes hardly any women. There is a highly reductive notion amongst many of what constitutes feminism. To me, feminism is not a methodology, not a theory, but a set of politics which can interact with anything, provide analysis, help formulate a position, and which works in a dynamic way. The Harrison and Wood book relegated women; it also relegated feminism. I worked on the book for about four years, huge amounts of archive work in different countries. Oddly enough, I've not (yet!) had too much direct criticism about things that I've omitted... I have clearly offended one or two people who are not in the book. But my aim, as I outlined in the introduction, was not to reprint the 'classic texts'.

I already have the Laura Mulvey essay, Visual Pleasure and narrative Cinema , in about four different books on my shelves at present - also, Linda Nochlin's, Why have there been no great women artists? - there is no need to reprint them. They are easy to find, and students have to learn how to do research - that is why I included a short list of germinal texts, 'essential reading', for each chapter. Start on the easy stuff. More strategically, I wanted to disrupt the growing notion of a canon of feminist writing by finding texts that contributed, broadened and diversified the debates.

So I've kept the input by the 'big names' down, and reprinted may articles which were in small-circulation journals, or out-of-the -way publications for an art audience (the Michelle Cliff article, for example, was from a theology journal; and there are some highly ephemeral sources, such as demo flyers). In 1987 an article was published which had great influence, particularly in the US. It categorised feminist writing on art post 1968 in first-generation/second-generation, activist/theoretical, USA/GB terms - each of these categories mapping on to each other. So something was created which was called first-generation activist US feminist artwriting, which was then juxtaposed with something called second-generation theoretical British feminist artwriting. Now, I didn't recognise ether of these categories. Indeed, with the texts I found, it would have been possible to have produced a book which totally reversed those categories - first generation British activist, etc. The first four texts in the chapter on aesthetics shows how diverse the thinking in the US was in 1971/1972.

The other thing that I wanted to do was to include material from outwith the US/GB axis (though I was sticking to the debate as it played out in the English language). So getting on to 1/3 of the texts are from Canada, Australia, Ireland and elsewhere. It's not perfect, but it is a start.

Maybe this takes us towards considering the art of the state, rather than the state of the art! The border has a direct influence, through the differing political, educational, and funding structures. But then, this is a whole other can of worms. Can I ask, are you thinking about whether there is a critique, or set of critiques, which might be identified as Irish? Or is it that a culture of criticism has developed, which at appropriate points locates itself in, and responds to - maybe speaks for - the local? I have a distrust of identity politics, but I am interested in Gayatri Spivak's notion of strategic essentialism to inform a political cultural critique. Do you see differing forms of this playing out in Ireland (North and South)?

The 1987 article really demonstrated the influence that a critic/historian can have. The power of naming is, as Angela Dworkin taught us, a great and fearful power. Maybe this is where the Spivak comes in? I've looked back at your earlier message, and of course, you didn't say 'Irish' but 'in Ireland'. But I think the discussion is an important one, and maybe useful to have? Spivak resists absolutely the power of naming as it is wielded by those in positions of authority over those they are naming. She also resists the adoption of names in a manner that fixes those who should be subjects into positions where they become objects (or possibly, in Kristevan terms, abject, emptied of subject-hood), defined by the essence provided by the power of the name. She does, however, recognise the need politically and strategically for subjects to gather collectively and to take a name in order to achieve a given end. The risk of essence has to be taken, she says.

I wrote about this in CIRCA in 1995, in response to seeing the Si?Lle-na-Gig carvings. I was speculating about how they were curated, the juxtaposition with Picasso's 'primitivist' drawings of African masks and the Warhol painting of Basquiat as the 'noble savage', in the pose of Michelangelo's David. This produced readings of early Irishness, for me, that were highly problematic, retrogressive - Irishness as a-historic, 'primitive' in imagery and sexuality. I took the Si?Lle-na-Gigs as a starting point to discuss contemporary approaches to the problem of essentialism. Ultimately I as wondering what other productive constructions of Irish/woman/sexuality/culture could be attained with a differing curation - placing the Si?Lle-na-Gigs alongside work by contemporary Irish artists, particularly women, exploring body and sexuality, might make us see the Si?Lle-na-Gigs anew, and see work (such as, say, Pauline Cummins and Louise Walsh's Sounding the Depths ) as reaching far into the cultural history of their location, as well as speaking to an international audience.

That would be a risk worth taking, I think, to explore that richness of place, but not be constrained and named forever by it. This is where I think the political strategies of an artist like Adrian Piper are highly effective - she constantly throws categorisation back in the faces of those who would categorise. Many women artists do not wish to be constrained by that designation; ditto, many Irish artists; the knack is to develop visual languages - subjectivity - in knowledge of what one is, while not accepting the restrictive nature of the imposed designation.

I make a huge distinction between working as a woman and working as a feminist. I work as a woman because that is what I am: it doesn't constrain me (although others may wish to constrain me in their conception of the name 'woman'); I work as a feminist as a clear and present choice. How that manifests will vary according to circumstance.

I found the Spivak quote:

I think the way in which the awareness of strategy works here is through a persistent critique. The critical moment does not come only at a certain stage when one sees one's effort, in terms of an essence that has been used for political mobilization, succeeding...It seems to me that the awareness of strategy - the strategic use of an essence as a mobilizing slogan or masterword like woman or worker or the name of any nation that you would like - it seems to me that this critique has to be persistent all along the way, even when it seems that to remind oneself of it is counterproductive. Unfortunately, that crisis must be with us, otherwise that strategy freezes into something like what you call an essentialist position...A strategy suits a situation; a strategy is not a theory.

I found this provocative and helpful and I think useful when thinking 'in Ireland' (whether Ireland is site or construct). She also suggests that we need "vigilance, what I call building for difference, rather than keeping ourselves clean by being whatever it is to be anti-essentialist."

I wonder if the North/South difference I perceive is to do with a) communication and travel; and b) proportion. If we are talking about innovative practice, then Belfast has the Ormeau Baths Gallery, the Fenderesky...an occasional exhibition at the Museum. All the other sites, galleries and events are artist-run (Catalyst Arts, Flax, Proposition, Golden Thread, Grassy Knoll, BBeyond, etc.), people doing great work with little money. It gives a very particular inflection to what constitutes the artworld in Belfast.

All the best, Hilary