about
Sean Taylor is a socially engaged artist and educator. His collaborative practice engages with social and environmental issues through sonifications, multimedia artworks and situated public performances. Sean uses various media and creative genres to create art works that speak of the urgent need for social action. The core artistic research methodologies he employs reflect a strong connection to space, place, ecology, and social action. He has exhibited extensively internationally and his work is available in both private and public collections throughout Europe, Mexico, Asia and the USA.
He holds a PhD exploring the praxis of Acouscenic Listening and the Creative Soundwalk and its links to the social and creative reimaging of place.
He is a qualified Deep Listener instructor having completed a Deep Listening Certificate Programme, with American contemporary music composer Pauline Oliveros at the Deep Listening Institute, Kingston, New York, USA, 2013.
In 2021 he established the LennonTaylor collaboration with artist Marilyn Lennon. He established the Art & Science collaboration Softday with software engineer Mikael Fernström in 1999.
He was the Joint-Programme Leader for the MA in Social Practice and the Creative Environment (MA SPACE, 2010-2022 in collaboration with Marilyn Lennon), and is currently Year 4 Lecturer on the undergraduate Sculpture & Combined Media programme at Limerick School of Art & Design.
selected cv
SELECTED COLLABORATIVE EXHIBITIONS
KinShip Art Project Tramore Valley Park, Cork (on-going) with artist Marilyn Lennon
The Hodges Effect, Various public billboard sites in Cork, Blackrock Observatory, Cork, University of Alabama, USA, with artist Sean Miller (on-going)
Audible, University of Limerick/Limerick Arts Office (on-going)
Uisce Salach (Dirty Water), Liberty Hall Dublin, Science Gallery Dublin, with Softday
Sounds of the Unthinkable, Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork, with Softday
NAWR ANOIS, BBC Concert Hall, Swansea, Wales, with Softday
(Re)Public, Hyde Park Arts Centre, Chicago, USA, with Softday
FUNDED RESEARCH/AWARDS
Creative Ireland Climate Action Fund Award
Limerick Arts Office, University of Limerick Arts Office Award
National Sculpture Factory of Ireland Project Award
Arts Council of Ireland Arts Participation Award
Artist in Residence Award Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork
CREATE Residency Award to Hyde Park Art Centre Chicago, Illinois, USA
publications
The Canaries in the Coalmine, chapter for Socially Engaged Art Across Ireland: Contested Narratives, Places and Futures, University Cork Press (publication pending)
Sound, Media, Ecology, Milena Droumeva (Ed.) Palgrave Mcmillan, ISBN: 9783030165680.
Art as Social Action, Gregory Scholette (Ed.) Allworth Press, New York, ISBN: 9781621535522.
On the border of Art and Science, an essay for Grenzüberschreitende Projekte- Impulse aus Kunst und Pädegogik, published by Fabrico Verlag 2015, ISBN: 978 3732363490.
Water is in the Air: Physics, Politics and Poetics of Water in the Arts, Annick Bureaud (Ed.), Leonardo/ISAST, MIT Press, Leonardo ebook series, Kindle Edition, February 20, ISBN: 9780262757010.
The Global Composition, Conference on Sound, Media and the Environment Proceedings, Sabine Breitsameter & Claudia Söller-Eckert (Eds.), published by Hoghschulle Darmstadt, University of Applied Sciences, ISBN: 978-3-00-038817-0.
Sean Taylor and Mikael Fernström, “Marbh Chrois – Dead Zone”, Leonardo, OLATS, Journal of Science, Art & Technology Magazine, Issue No.42, 2012.
Conferences
An Uncomfortable Audio Ethnogrophy- Sound and politics in the evolution of an Acouscenic Listening approach to Softday’s sonically engaged art practice. Sound + Environment: Sonic Explorations, Journal of Acoustic Ecology, Volume 18.
‘Acouscenic Listening- a Sonically Engaged Collaborative Art Practice’, Sound + Environment Conference, University of Hull, UK.
‘Acouscenic Listening and the Creative Soundwalk in the work of the Softday science/art collaboration’, Sounding out the Space Conference, Dublin Institute of Technology, Grangegorman, Dublin, Ireland.
An ACADEMY symposium of Interdisciplinary Research, Limerick School of Art and Design. 2010, “Exploring ambient sonification of water toxicity.” Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD), Washington DC, USA.
“From a Year of Rain to Fifteen Years of Art-Science with Contested Watery Issues”, academic paper for “Fluid Currents: Water, Art and Ecology”, 2015 SECAC Conference, Pittsburgh, USA.
‘The Creative Soundwalk’, Acoustic Communication and Soundscape Design Conference, Green College, Vancouver, Canada.2013 Deep Listening: Art/Science First International Conference on Deep Listening, Troy, New York July 12-14.
The Global Composition, Conference on Sound, Media and the Environment Proceedings, Sabine Breitsameter & Claudia Söller-Eckert (Eds.), published by Hoghschulle Darmstadt, University of Applied Sciences, ISBN: 978-3-00-038817-0.
