Little Interview

Over the last number of years, we have interviewed diverse members of the Glucksman community - artists, academics, staff members, guests, audiences and workshop participants. The responses are funny, inspiring, revealing and always a great read.

This month, we hear from Julie Landers, Curatorial Assistant at The Glucksman.

What are you reading?

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I almost get breathless moving through these vibrant and damning scenes that he conjures up with the simplest turn of phrase. I’m also dipping in and out of Tarot for Change by Jessica Dore. I try and do a tarot reading every few days and I find her book is a really valuable resource not just for interpreting the cards but for untangling my own thought patterns and behaviours.

Favourite museum?

Either Musée LaM in Lille or Mudam Museum of Modern Art in Luxembourg. I also have a soft spot for the gorgeous Musée La Piscine du Roubaix- it’s an art museum set in a former Art Deco swimming pool.

Best performance?

Dame Area at Open Ear on Sherkin Island this summer - I couldn’t take my eyes off them. I recently went to see Cameron Winter at the Roundhouse in London which was a bucket list sort of gig for me. He’s a generational talent and I found it really captivating to see someone so at ease on the piano that they could play with this deep humour and presence. Peter Boyle as Clyde Bruckman in The X-Files, Season 3 Episode 4: ‘Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose’ is one of my favourite character actor performances ever. Boyle plays the absurdity of Bruckman’s situation up to the perfect degree, giving us this simultaneously baffled and jaded man to root for and I think he strikes this perfect balance between the two that makes Bruckman a character who you only ever meet for a single episode but you just can’t forget.

Most treasured possession?

I have a small, formerly white and fluffy teddy that I got when I was nine for my Holy Communion called Faithbear. He has been with me through every house move- if he went missing I don’t think I would ever sleep again.

Work(s) of art that inspire you?  

Jennie Moran’s Luncheonette project- to bring in people to consider ideas of ghostis and hospitality through a lived sensation of it- eating and cooking together and sharing the observations from years of doing so is brilliant to me as a researcher and as someone whose foundations are in working in the hospitality industry. And when I first watched Doireann O’Malley’s A dream of becoming 24 eyes, 4 parallel brains and 360° vision (2014), it offered me the idea of the glitch as something emancipatory and vulnerable in an increasingly digital age and opened my mind so much to new media and digital art.

A lightbulb moment?

This summer I went to the wedding of two friends in Kilfenora. It was one of the most fun weekends I’ve had in a really long time, to the extent that it felt really far removed from the tempo of the rest of my life. When I got home and sat with that feeling I realised that the living happens in every moment, not just in those really special and fun ones. Since then I’ve tried to be more present each day but also remember that those moments of connection and celebrating my friends are incredibly important to me and they are what I want to prioritise when I’m building my life.

Guilty pleasure?

I feel enough guilt about too many things to try and imbue the things I take pleasure in with it. Playing mahjong solitaire on my laptop when I’m supposed to be writing and adding salt to almost everything are probably things I should curb though.

What would you like to be doing right now?

Either crocheting in bed while watching The X-Files or drinking an amaretto sour in a gorgeous bar in the company of my beautiful friends. In both fantasy scenarios my hair looks amazing.