Acts of hospitality: Relations between ‘guest’ and ‘host’ as art practice

My research centres on my experiences as an artist, a ‘guest’ and ‘host’ in rural communities in Ireland, where building relationships at a local level has revealed wider notions of hospitality towards ‘outsiders’ on a national and international scale. Over time, it’s become clear that the act of being a guest, or host, is deeply personal, shaped by an entanglement of influences and experiences, built up over time that make up who you are. When tracing the complex dynamics of hospitality in rural communities in Ireland, I am also uncovering the historical and cultural conditions that lie beneath or behind my ‘Irish’ identity. In this research, I consider the perspectives of guest and host, not as binary but as interconnected. The movement or flow between perspectives is embodied in acts of hospitality.

I have identified the hotel as an ideal site to explore how the role of guest and host play out and are expressed. How these roles were enacted and are remembered opens a philosophical and ethical discussion around patterns of difference. Under the title The Hotel, I set out to trace the complex dynamics of hospitality in rural communities in Ireland, while questioning what is revealed about wider notions of hospitality on a national and international scale. This enquiry consists of a body of practical, site-based, and archival research, interwoven with contextual and conceptual research, from which the perspectives of guest and host are disrupted and expanded. An emergent form of hospitality is revealed, if we understand ‘emergence’ as the disclosure of complexity, ‘the way patterns and complex systems are formed from apparently simple actions and interactions’ (Nelson, 2013, p.46). We can perceive a praxis between action and idea, as an emergent method of hospitality. This praxis, of building relationships over time, while exploring the historical and cultural conditions that lie beneath or behind Irish identity, is central to my research into hospitality as art practice.