Adrian Duncan

Adrian Duncan

Born Year, Month, Day (Location)
Website adrianduncan.eu

Adrian Duncan is an artist and award-winning writer based in Ireland and Berlin.

In 2020/21 he exhibited, in collaboration with Feargal Ward, a large-scale film/sculptural installation work titled The Soil Became Scandinavian, at VISUAL, Carlow. In 2019 they co-directed a music video for Joy Division’s Day of the Lords as part of the Unknown Pleasures Reimagined project. In 2020 his and Ward’s film Tension Structures received its North American premier at Hot Docs, Toronto. In 2021 Duncan’s short film Lost Colony was selected in competition for Docs Ireland.
In 2022/23 Duncan will present a new body of work and writing about his long-term research project on the subject of Bungalow Bliss. This will appear as a book titled LITTLE REPUBLICS: The Story of Bungalow Bliss, published with The Lilliput Press and a solo exhibition in the Irish Architectural Archive curated by Askeaton Contemporary Arts. ¹

Bio & Career

His debut novel Love Notes from a German Building Site was published by The Lilliput Press and Head of Zeus in 2019. It won the 2019 John McGahern Book Prize. In 2020 he was shortlisted for the Dalkey Literary Awards Emerging Writer. Duncan’s second novel A Sabbatical in Leipzig was published by The Lilliput Press in 2020. It was shortlisted for the Kerry Novel of the Year Award. It will be republished in the UK in late 2022 with Tuskar Rock Press. His collection of short stories Midfield Dynamo was published by The Lilliput Press in March 2021 and was longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize.
His third novel, The Geometer Lobachevsky, will appear in April 2022 with The Lilliput Press (IRL) and Tuskar Rock Press (UK).

From 1995 Duncan studied and worked as a structural engineer for over a decade in the UK and Ireland. He received his chartership from the IEI (Irish Engineering Institute) in 2007, before returning to study fine art at IADT, Dún Laoghaire in 2008. He received a 1st class MA (Art in the Contemporary World, NCAD, Dublin) in 2011.

He has guest tutored and guest lectured at UCD School of Architecture, Dublin; UCC School of Architecture, Cork; NCAD, Dublin; and Crawford College of Art, Cork.

He is coeditor of Paper Visual Art Journal.²

Awards and honours

2021, Arts Council Visual Artist Project Award
2021, Arts Council Artist Bursary
2019, Arts Council Film Project Award
2019, Arts Council Artist Bursary
2018, Arts Council Artist Bursary
2017, Arts Council Reel Art film award (with Feargal Ward)
2017, Arts Council Artist Bursary
2016, TG4/Arts Council Film Award (with Feargal Ward)
2015, Arts Council Artist Bursary Award
2013 & 2014, Short-listed for the Wexford Emerging Visual Artist award
2012, Arts Council Travel and Training, October 2012

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

2022/23 (forthcoming), Bungalow Bliss at Irish Architectural Archive, Dublin – with Askeaton Contemporary Arts
2020/21, The Soil Became Scandinavian (with Feargal Ward) at VISUAL, Carlow
2016, Baustellebeschreibung (Building-site description), Scriptings, Berlin
2012, The Difference in how I Believe You, The Dock Arts Centre, Carrick-on-Shannon, Leitrim, Ireland
2012, How the Mighty have Fallen, Monster Truck, Dublin
2011, Two Towers in a Forest, The Joinery, Dublin
2011, The Ministry for Education and Design, The Guesthouse, Cork
2011, Master and Man, Skibbereen Arts Festival, Cork
2011, Epiphenomena (curator Emmet Kierans), Occupy Space, Limerick City
2011, How the Mighty have Fallen, Queen Street Studios, Belfast
2011, My Dear Brother’s Tree, The Joinery, Dublin
2010, How the Mighty have Fallen, The Joinery, Dublin
2009, Gooseberries, Pallas Contemporary Projects, Dublin

Group exhibitions

2021, Lost Colony (short film directed by Adrian Duncan) at Docs Ireland, Belfast
2019, The Parted Veil, group show at The Glucksman Gallery, UCC, Cork, curated by Fiona Kearney and Christopher Clarke
2019, Floating Structures (feature-length documentary film directed by Adrian Duncan & Feargal Ward) at VMDIFF, Dublin
2018, Memory Room (short film directed by Adrian Duncan & Feargal Ward) at IDFA (Paradocs), Amsterdam, Holland
2018, Infrastructures of Now, NCAD Gallery, Dublin, Ireland, curated by Anne Kelly
2018, EVA International 2018, Limerick, Ireland, curated by Inti Guerrero
2017, The Bungalow Bliss Bus Tour with the Red Bird Youth Collective and Galway Arts Centre, Galway, Ireland
2016, The making of the unrealised at Kreuzberg Pavillon, Berlin.
2016, TULCA – The Headless City, Galway, Ireland, curated by Daniel Jewesbury
2016, Veins / Small … Far Away at Molesworth Gallery, Dublin, Ireland, curated by Pendergast and Moor
2016, Bungalow Bliss at the Irish Film Institute, Ireland, short-film collaboration with Feargal Ward, as part of TG4 and the Arts Council of Ireland 2016 celebrations in film. There were 7 other commissioned film works all of which were screened at the IFI and broadcast on TG4 (Irish-language national broadcaster)
There are little kingdoms at Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, curated by Emma Dwyer
2015, Curate Life Collection, at Museum of African Design, Johannesburg, South Africa
2015, Bungalow Bliss: A Rural Modernity, at Irish Embassy, Berlin, Germany, with Olga Tiernan
2015, The Lie of the Land at Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork, curated by Miranda Driscoll
2014, The Conquest of the Impossible, Experimental Project, IEEB6, Bucharest, curated by Javier Martin Jimenez (as part of Allá afuera (Out There), curated by Jeronimo Hagerman (MUCA Mexico))
Oiticica’s Instructions, IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art), Dublin; co-curated with NCAD, IMMA, and Projectos Oiticica – as part of IMMA’s Oiticica’s Propositions
2014, this is authenticity *, The Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, curated by Eoin Dara
2013, A lamb lies down, Broadstone, Dublin, curated by Paul Hallahan
2013, The Land, The Joinery, Dublin, with filmmaker Feargal Ward
2013, Ingenious, at The Drawing Project, Dublin, curated by Mark Joyce
2013, Artists on Architecture, Offaly County Council buildings, curated by Oonagh Young
2012, Radio Joinery, curated by the Joinery with Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll
2012, Instructions on How to Survey a Promenade, The Drawing Project, Dublin, with Marta Fernández Calvo
2012, Horizontal Sprawl, Ormston House, Limerick City, curated by Stephanie Bertrand
2012, Under the Counter Poster Manifestation, Galway City, curated by Ruby Wallis and Vicky Smith
2011, Radical Love II, Dublin, curated by Sam Keogh and Joseph Noonan-Ganley
2011, Void:Volume, Galway Arts Centre, Galway City
2011, Busáras in Cape Town, The Proposal Project, Cape Town, South Africa, with Marta Fernández Calvo
2011, Invite / Reject, MART/C4 Contemporary, Los Angeles
2010, Of Process, Catalyst Arts, Belfast, with Fiona Marron
2010, Preface, Pallas Contemporary Projects, Dublin
2010, Recharge, Transcolonia, Dublin, curated by Blaithín Quinn
2010, A Mapping, MTSL, Dublin, curated by Rebecca O’Dwyer and Seán O’Sullivan
2009, Grin and Bear it, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, UCC, Cork, curated by Matt Packer and Claire Feeley