It’s Very New School brought a variety of Art School projects to new audiences beyond their original school sites and communities. Held in Rua Red in 2017, the exhibition gave space to consider the range of forms of thinking that Art School and its collaborators have brought out.
At the time of exhibition, the arts component of the Irish Leaving Certificate curriculum had remained largely unchanged for nearly 40 years. Students emerging from this program were effectively isolated from the language, modalities and potential of contemporary art. Thinking outwards from the parameters specific to this isolation, the exhibition advocated for change within much broader sites of education, producing a contagious effect to force us to reconsider larger institutional deficiencies. Participating artists were asked to recast the work they produced with students in a particular school, rendering this context and work legible to new audiences in a gallery setting, or in some cases artists were invited to create new work that considered the impetus and theme of the show more broadly. Taking a sample of projects that had been conducted in a particular time and place, the show brought these site-responsive and ephemeral projects into a space where they could be viewed in relation and new relief, rendering Art School itself more legible in the process.