name Mark Leahy
contact mail@markleahy.net
biography
MARK LEAHY is a writer, artist and curator operating among textual practices, performance and visual arts. Critical publications include essays in Open Letter, Performance Research and The Journal of Writing in Creative Practice; a chapter in The Blackwell Companion to Digital Literary Studies (2007); and an essay in The Salt Companion to John James (2010). Curated projects include ‘Public Pages’ for the conference Poetry and Public Language (University of Plymouth, 2007). ‘Swatches’, a poetry sequence was published by Acts of Language (December 2009), and texts have appeared in UK and US journals. Live work includes ‘Voice Recognition’ at Chapter and Verse Festival (Bluecoat, Liverpool, Oct 2011) and Performance Market (Plymouth, January 2010). Forthcoming publications include a chapter on the poetry of Thomas MacGreevy. He was Director of Writing at Dartington College of Arts (2005-2007), and was MA Programme Leader at Dartington Campus, University College Falmouth (2007-2010). He teaches part-time and supervises PhD students at University College Falmouth, and works freelance as an arts project manager.
selected publications
’3 or 4 Things I Know About Them’, in Here’s to another 10, ICIA, University of Bath, April 2013, pp 51-56
‘lengths and ends: six poems for Penzance’, presentation and publication as outcome of CAZ Weekender Residency, Penlee Bowling Club, Penzance, Friday October 26th 2012
‘Hand in Glove – sinister hand vested sable lozengy couped’, Open Letter, Fourteenth Series, No. 8, edited by Nancy Gillespie and Peter Jaeger, Spring 2012, pp 74-82
‘“I might have been a painter”: John James and the Relation between Visual and Verbal Arts’, The Salt Companion to John James, Simon Perrill ed., Salt Books, March 2010
‘“Where stone is dark under froth”: Screening the datastream’, catalogue text for Katy Connor’s Pure Flow, Phoenix Arts Centre, Exeter and Permanent Books, December 2009
swatches: a sequence, Acts of Language, Dartington, December 2009
‘Guaranteed Insurance’; text to accompany online project by Mocksim; September 2009 at: http://www.mocksim.org/GI.htm; also published in tiktoc 6, unpaginated; Summer 2010,
‘glossing Speakers, or bookmaking for amateurs’, Journal of Writing in Creative Practice 2:1, June 2009, pp. 55-67
‘Private Public Reading: Readers in Digital Literature Installation’, A Companion to Digital Literary Studies, S. Schreibman and R. Siemens eds., Oxford: Blackwell, 2007, pp 301-317
‘what is it here now I can persuade you of? scraps towards a rhetoric of poetry performance’ in Frackija: Performing Arts Magazine no. 37/38 ‘Rhetoric’, Autumn / Winter 2006, pp 48-57
selected performances and presentations
‘muster page habit: flat-head self-tapping’presented as part of ‘plinths’, in PW12: Performance Writing weekend, Arnolfini, Bristol, Saturday May 5th 2012
‘Voice Recognition: A Play (after Gertrude Stein, William Shakespeare and Rolf Harris)’, performance presented as part of Electronic Voice Phenomena, hosted by Mercy at Bluecoat, Liverpool for the Chapter and Verse Festival, 16th October 2011
‘after Durer after Mantegna’; Window Work project, DxDx Studios, Regent Street, Plymouth, 3rd — 17th August 2011.
‘figure and ground: Plymouth’; a two-day durational performance as part of Performance Market, The Pigs of Today are the Hams of Tomorrow, Plymouth Arts Centre, 22nd – 23rd January 2010.
‘glossing Speakers: bookmaking for amateurs (strikethrough)’; a presentation at Writing Encounters conference York St John University, York; September 2008
‘and the little magnetic atoms turn and set themselves in orderly lines’; a performance at Whippit 4, Elevator Gallery, Hackney Wick, London; 1st August 2008
‘barbed gadlyngs’; a durational performance and action at Live Art Falmouth, Falmouth, Cornwall; 6th June 2008
‘figure and ground’; a durational performance and action; Alytus Bienial 2, Alytus, Lithuania; August 2007
‘instructions and databases’; a presentation as part of ‘e and eye’ series, at Tate Modern, London; November 2006
curating and project management
project manager for Liminal on Organ of Corti (PRSF New Music Award)working on fundraising, planning and UK tour management; April — August 2011
creative producer of MA Platform in Art, Performance and Writing, Dartington Campus, University College Falmouth; September 2007; September 2008; September 2009; July 2010
curator of exhibition ‘Public Pages’ as part of conference Poetry and Public Language 2007 at School of English, University of Plymouth; April 2007
curator with Deborah Price of the exhibition Performance Writing 1994-2004; at Exeter Phoenix Galleries, April 29 – May 16 2004; the Gallery, Dartington College of Arts, May 24-30 2004; Fine Arts Gallery, George Mason University, November 10 – 18 2004
tour manager on Bobby Baker’s Box Story, and project manager for Artsadmin on Bobby Baker’s Box Story at LIFT’01, London and UK; May 2001 – August 2003
organiser and administrator on Verbal inter Visual for Gresham College, London; and joint curator on the accompanying exhibition with Central Saint Martins College of Art; April 2000 – May 2001
educational qualifications
PGCHE (Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education), University College Falmouth; (completed August 2009)
PhD on contemporary American poetry at the School of English, University of Leeds; (completed December 1999, conferred July 2000). Thesis: ‘Language Writing and Its Audience: Learning Reading through Writing in the Work of Bruce Andrews, Tina Darragh and Peter Seaton’
MA by Research in Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at Department of English, University College Dublin; (first class honours, 1994). Thesis: ‘The Limits of Belonging: Nation-building and the Plays of George Fitzmaurice’
BA in English (Mode 1); (first class honours, 1993); University College Dublin
NCEA Diploma in Fine Art – Sculpture; (pass with distinction, 1986); Limerick School of Art and Design
experience of teaching in Higher Education
dissertation and PhD supervision; Dartington College of Arts and University College Falmouth; October 2004 — present
MA Programme Leader; Dartington Campus, University College Falmouth; October 2007 – October 2010
lecturer in Writing; Dartington College of Arts, Totnes, Devon; October 2003 – October 2010
lecturer on Introduction to Visual Culture (Year 1), and dissertation supervisor (Year 3); Department of Visual Media and Culture, University of Middlesex; September 2001 – May 2004