ARTIST BIO
Ellen Duggan is a writer and interdisciplinary artist from Dublin whose work specialises in small islands, both real and imagined, and their visceral and emotional evocations, as well as the general study of islandness, or nissology.
Her work centres particularly on the northern isles of Scotland, where she completed a master’s in island literature at the University of the Highlands and Islands, Orkney, focusing her dissertation on the ‘good enough’ developmental container of the island during childhood within the island memoir form, studying the novels of two Orcadian writers, Edwin Muir and George Mackay Brown.
Ellen has previoulsly been selected as an RHA Young Art Writer and has acted as a writers delegate for the Dublin Literary Festival, during which she was mentored by writer Sean Hewitt. Her work has been read at both Temple Bar Lab and Gutter Bookshop.
Her recent Dublin Digital Radio show, Circadian Oradian, focused on popular conceptions of islands, from alluring to maniacal, across episodes including Lonely Islands, Sexy Islands, Evil Islands and Paralax Islands, with readings from island memoir and island-related literature interspersed with sounds, and sonic constellations fused with personally written work.
Ellen is currently working on exhibition work centred on the proliferation of contemporary dating shows located on small islands and the implied, contradictory connection between geographical insularity and the depicted and often ambling process of connection formation.
SELECTED WORKS
Circadian Orcadian
