‘Traveller Collection’ was a 3-part art project in 2018 that aimed to show a way of integrating Traveller culture into mainstream museums and galleries.

Art piece from Dublin City Gallery* at Pavee Point – for One Day Only

Street Singer’ by Jerome Connor from the collection of Dublin City Gallery was exhibited at Pavee Point. This was the first time an art loan was organised between the two organisations and represents the start of a process to make representations of Traveller culture within the museum more visible.

‘Traveller Collection’ at Dublin City Gallery 

Artist Seamus Nolan presentedva number of objects, activities, recordings and documents relating to Traveller culture.  Throughout the exhibition material was digitized and made available to the public on WWW.TRAVELLERCOLLECTION.IE.

Roundtable: Representation and the archive: ‘Traveller Collection’ hosted in Pavee Point 

This discussion explored questions of ownership and representation of Traveller culture and heritage.  It addressed the challenges of collecting Traveller culture, the necessity to create such a collection and the importance of a Traveller collection maintained by Travellers.

Presenters Seamus Nolan, artist; Rosaleen McDonagh, Pavee Point; Dr. Eve Olney, Artist and Ethnographer; Jessica O’ Donnell, Head of Education and Community Outreach, Dublin City Gallery. Chaired by Oein de Bhairduin.

Songs and light refreshments accompanied the event.

Background

This project seeks to open a dialogue around what an appropriate approach to integrating the narrative of Traveller culture and history into the ‘national project’ might look like.

The project is engaging in a collaborative process of enquiry with cultural practitioners,  archivists and Traveller activists in an exploration of the basic notions of representations in relation to Traveller culture and heritage.

A series of workshops and meetings with Traveller and Traveller organisations were organised throughout the country to discuss the issues involved and to seek contributions and build a programme to manage the Traveller Collection.

This is a socially engaged commission with artist Séamus Nolan, Pavee Point Traveller & Roma Centre, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, CREATE, the national development agency for collaborative arts and CAPP, collaborative arts partnership programme.