Kreider + O’Leary are a poet and an architect who collaborate to make performance, installation and time-based media work in relation to sites of architectural and cultural interest. Since 2003, they have made work in places such as prisons, military sites, film locations, landscape gardens, desert environments and more traditional gallery venues across the UK, USA, Europe, Australia, South America and Japan. Their work has been shown at venues including Tate Britain, Whitechapel Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts as well as in the Lisbon Architecture Triennale and the Istanbul Biennial. Their book Falling was published in 2015 by Copy Press, Field Poetics was published in 2018 by Ma Bibliothèque, and they are currently working on a large-scale project, Ungovernable Spaces, engaging with five sites of community and resistance globally.
> Dr. Kristen Kreider is a writer and artist. Her work stems from an interest in the poetics of thought, its materialization as form, and a concern with how artworks relate to the world. Through her work as a writer, researcher and educator, Kristen works to promote an interdisciplinary, socially engaged approach to contemporary poetics, and to encourage a rigorous dialogue between creative and critical practice in contemporary art. Her monograph 'Poetics & Place: The Architecture of Sign, Subjects and Site' is published by I.B. Taurus (2014). Kristen has held Professorships in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College of Art (where she made a Mountain of Art Research), and the University of Oxford (where she lead the Ruskin School of Art). She is currently Professor of Fine Art and Head of the Doctoral Programme at the Slade School of Fine Art, at University College London.
> Dr. James O'Leary is a RIBA qualified architect and installation artist. His work explores the inter-relationship between human beings and the spatial systems we inhabit. As a practitioner and academic operating between the disciplines of art and architecture, his specific interests include narrative, interactive and reflexive systems in architecture; performative and site-specific practice in contemporary fine art; and the codification and documentation systems deployed in these fields. He has held previous positions in architecture practices including Hopkins, MasaStudio, SoftRoom, Theis & Khan and in academia at the Royal College of Art and Chelsea College of Arts. He is currently Associate Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, where he is the Programme Director for MA Situated Practice. His current research involves compiling a Peacewall Archive that documents the history of ‘peacelines’ and defensive barriers in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
+ selected exhibitions / performances:
2023 : Fieldwork for Future Ecologies / Thinking in the Deep, CCA Goldsmiths, London, UK
2019 : PALISADE, Fragments from the ‘Peacewall Archive’ / PS², Belfast, Northern Ireland
2019 : Silver Birch Circle (Performance) / Floating Peripheries, Rovaniemi, Finland
2018 : Thirteen Points, Expanded (3 Channel Video Installation) / Extratextual / Contemporary Calgary, Calgary, Canada
2017 : Milk, Confetti, Erratics / Edge: Situated Practice in Art, Architecture & Urbanism / The Slade - The Bartlett - Folkestone Triennial, UK
2017 : This is the Interface / Film | Making | Space / Royal Academy, London, UK
2016 : Thirteen Points, Expanded (Edit) / Are We Human / Istanbul Design Biennial, Turkey
2016 : Border Patrol / Salt Festival / Folkestone, UK
2016 : Thirteen Points, Expanded / Wayfaring / &Model, Leeds, UK
2015 : LA Tapped / VideoGUD / Public squares throughout Sweden
2015 : Peacewall Archive / Installation / The Barbican, London
2014: Cifra / Live Performance and Installation / The Open City, Valparaiso, Chile
2013 : Edge City / Live Performance, Video Installation & Virtual Tour, Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Portugal
2013 : Blitzkreig Sonata / Live Performance with Audialsense at Daniel Blau Gallery, London, UK
2013 : Of Insects & Ash / Who is the Common Intellectual? - Copy Press Launch, Conway Hall, London, UK
2013 : Light Vessel Automatic / Performing Architecture at Tate Britain, London, UK
2012 : Rock Video for Fiona Templeton's Bodies of Memory / Acts of Legacy / Tate Britain, London, UK
2012 : LA Tapped / Runnymede International Literary Festival, London, UK
2011 : Gorchakov's Wish / Performance for Video at The Centre for Creative Collaboration, London, UK
2010 : Allegory of the Five Elements / Live Performance at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL London, UK
2010 : The Edge of Emily's Desk / Video Installation at The Centre for Creative Collaboration, London, UK
2010 : LA Tapped / Site-Specific Performance, Westin Bonaventure, Los Angeles, California, USA
2010 : Post-Performance Drawings / The International Centre for Drawing, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia.
2009 : Video Shakkei: Space, Performance, Drawing / Installation at The Centre for Drawing, London, UK
2009 : Video Shakkei / 14 Site-Specific Performances in Kyoto, Japan
2009 : Immolation Triptych / Drawing Performance at The Drawing Field, London, UK
2009 : Kino Haiku / Installation in Chelsea Triangle Space, London, UK
2009 : Alba Lunedí / Exhibition of Performance Documentation at Stephen Lawrence Gallery, London, UK
2008 : Fall (An Allegory) I / Performance for Film in Triangle Space, London, UK
2008 : Fall (An Allegory) II / Live Performance at The Betsey Trotwood, London, UK
2008 : Alba Lunedí / Site-Specific Performance at Bagno Vignoni, Italy
2007 : 5 exercises for the voice + 5 more / Live Performance at Woburn Studios, London, UK
2006 : Cell / Video Installation at Art X Contemporary Art Exhibition in Toyama, Japan
2005 : Termini / Video Work / Rome, Italy
2005 : Eight Rooms / Installation at Triskel, Cork, Ireland
2005 : The Edge of Emily's Desk / Video Installation at Woburn Studios, London, UK
2004 : s.i.g.n.a.l. / Performance and Installation at Art Radionica Lazareti, Dubrovnik, Croatia
2004 : Untitled (for M.) / Installation at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London, UK
2004 : Just Above a Whisper / Live Performance at bookartbookshop in London, UK
2004 : I, at the threshold of an interdiction –; / Text Installation at bookartbookshop, London, UK
2003 : In the Midst / Installation for In Light of Transient Aims …, The Swiss Church, London, UK
2003 : Dead Space / Video Work for Queen Street Urban Display, Cardiff Festival, Wales, UK
2003 : To Come This Far. To Have Left … / Installation in WWII Flak Bunkers, Dover, UK
2003 : Gesturing Toward the Ellipsis / Installation at the The Slade School of Fine Art, London, UK
2003 : Wall: A Dialogue / Installation, Urban Intervention, London, UK
2003 : Question (for S./V.) / Video Work screened at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL London, UK
2001 : On : Fear / Performance and Exhibition at The Foundry, Old St., London, UK
1999 : 104 Kilotonne Idea, Wendover Air Base, Nevada, USA
+ book publications:
2024 : Ungovernable Spaces (London: Bloomsbury, 2024 - forthcoming)
2018 : Field Poetics (London: Ma Bibliothèque, 2018)
2015 : Falling (London: Copy Press, 2015)
2014 : Poetics and Place: The Architecture of Sign, Subjects and Site (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013)
2005 : Eight Rooms, Limited Edition (500) Artists' Book published for Cork European Capital of Culture 2005
+ web archives:
2023 : Peacewall Archive: Online archive documenting the history of ‘peace walls’ and defensive architecture in Belfast, Northern Ireland
2020 : Mountain of Art Research: Online archive of the MARs research centre, which supports the development of innovative art research
+ research publications:
2022 : Belfast’s ‘peace walls’: How the politics and policy of 1969-1971 shaped the city’s contemporary ‘interface areas’, in The Routledge Handbook of Architecture, Urban Space and Politics, Vol I (London: Routledge, 2022)
2022 : Milk, Confetti, Erratics - A stratigraphy of the landscape of the Belfast ‘peace walls’, in Fieldwork for Futures Ecologies: Radical practice for art and art-based research (Eindoven: Onomatopee, 2022)
2019 : 'Prairie / Argo', in Zero Degree Seeing - Barthes/Burgin and Political Aesthetics (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2019)
2018 : 'Volver a no saber: Poetry, architecture and the beginnings of Open City', in Architecture, Literature & The City (London: Routledge, 2018)
2018 : 'Thirteen Points, Expanded', in The Creative Critic: Writing As/About Practice (London: Routledge, 2018)
2017 : 'The Interface: Peace Walls, Belfast, Northern Ireland', in Footprint Issue # 19 | Autumn / Winter 2016 | Spaces of Conflict (TU Delft, 2017)
2016 : 'Peacewall Archive', www.peacewall-archive.net (Online archive, 2016-onwards)
2015 : 'Particles of Air', in Drawing Ambiguity: Beside the Lines of Contemporary Art (London: I.B. Taurus, 2015)
2015 : 'Open City', artists pages in Performance Research, Volume 20, Number 1 (February 2015)
2013 : 'Time, Place and Empathy - The Poetics and Phenomenology of Andrei Tarkovsky's Film Image', in Visual Studies 2013 (Volume 28:1): 1-16
2010 : 'Memento Mori', Artists Pages in Performance Research, Volume 15, Number 1 (May 2010
+ keynotes / conferences / symposia / lectures / readings
These are highlights only. See Twitter feed for latest updates:
2023 : Slade Talks, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London, UK
lecture: Ungovernable Spaces
2023 : Creative Enquiry Forum, Sheffield School of Architecture, Sheffield, UK
lecture: On Creative Practice
2020 : Architecture At The Edge Festival 2020, Galway, Ireland
lecture: Ungovernable Spaces: Lessons from Berlin and Belfast
2020 : Architecture Foundation 100 Day Studio London, UK
lecture: INTERFACE ARCHITECTURE: 50 Years of Belfast’s ‘Peacewalls’ [You Tube Video]
2020 : KEYNOTE: Infra-, Counter-, Contra-, Anti-, Alter- Structures, Conference, Centre for Post-Digital Cultures, Coventry University, UK
lecture: ‘Threshold Infrastructures’ (Cancelled due to Covid-19)
2019 : CCAE Cork Centre for Architectural Education, Guest Lecture Series, CCAE, Cork, Ireland
lecture: ‘Learning from 50 Years of Belfast Peacewalls’
2019 : Arvon Foundation Hybrid Writing Programme, Arvon Foundation - Lumb Bank, West Yorkshire, UK
reading : ‘Fields, Falling, Flowering’
2019 : Lunchtime Lecture Series, Linen Hall Library, Belfast, Northern Ireland
lecture: ‘Peacewalls 50 - Half a century of Belfast Peacewalls’
2019 : Peacewalls 50 Conference, Ulster University, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Intro lecture: ‘Peacewalls 50 - History & Context of Belfast Peacewalls’
2019 : Konstfack Internat Public Guest Lectures, Konstfack, Stockholm, Sweden
lecture: ‘You could think of it as a commingling of lots of little circles, like something planted or a blossoming of refusal’
2019 : Rewriting the Map: Literature & Urbanism in Divided Cities, LCB - Literarisches Colloquim Berlin, Berlin, Germany
lecture: ‘Belfast Confetti’
2019 : Borders Lecture Series, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
lecture: ‘Ungovernable Spaces’
2019 : OPENING KEYNOTE: SAR International Conference on Artistic Research, Zurich University of the Arts (Z_hdk), Switzerland
paper: ‘The beautiful mess we’re in’ (Livestream: here)
2019 : Sharing Borders : Institute of Advanced Studies, / Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London, UK
paper: ‘Splatter, Shard, Erratic — A Stratigraphy of ‘The Interface at Short Strand / Inner East Belfast’
2019 : OPENING KEYNOTE: Floating Peripheries - Mediating the sense of place, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland
paper: ‘Kites, Clouds, Filth, Order – Conditions of a Situated Practice’
2019 : Architectural Research Lecture Series , Faculty of Architecture, TU Graz, Austria.
paper: ‘Kites, Clouds, Filth, Order – Conditions of a Situated Practice’
2018 : School of Art Lecture Series, Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland.
lecture: ‘The figures are falling, the ground’
2018 : MULTI-STOREY Lecture Series, Canterbury School of Architecture, University for the Creative Arts, UK
lecture: Kreider + O’Leary - Recent Work
2017 : Edge: Situated Practice in Art, Architecture & Urbanism, The Slade - The Bartlett - Folkestone Triennial, UK
paper: ‘Milk, Confetti, Erratics’ – A stratigraphy of the Interface
2017 : Text & Image Symposium, The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Naropa, USA
paper: ‘On Text & Image’
2017 : Never the Same: what (else) can art writing do? / On The Agencies And Futures Of Art Writing, Contemporary Calgary, Calgary, Canada
paper: ‘Prairie/Argo - Toward a New Poetics of Propter Nos’
2017 : Tigersprung: 1936-1972, Goldsmiths College of Art Research Department Symposium, Goldsmiths College of Art, UK
paper: ‘1972 - Operation MOTORMAN'
2017 : Resistance, without presupposition - language, philosophy, film & performance / Royal College of Art, London, UK
paper: ‘Field Poetics'
2017 : Goldsmiths Fine Art Lecture Programme, Goldsmiths College of Art, UK
lecture: ‘A Constellation, A Cluster, A Grid - Studies in Urban Formation'
2016 : Writing Buildings - CREAte international conference / The University of Kent, UK
paper: ‘The Interface'
2016 : Forms of Criticism, Parasol Unit, London UK
paper: ‘Thirteen Points, Expanded'
2016 : Writing Photographs Lecture Series, London College of Communications, University of the Arts, London UK
paper: ‘Word, Image and Situated Practice'
2014 : The University of Westminster Institute for Modern & Contemporary Culture, London, UK
lecture: ‘Ways to Cut the Earth Open’,
2012 : School of Art, Loughborough University, UK
lecture: "Who or what is the ‘I’ that sees ‘my’ face against the glass?”'
2012 : Literary and Critical Theory Seminar, Institute of English Studies, Senate House, London, UK
paper: ‘Reflections on a Future Nostalgia: Exploring Andrei Tarkovsky’s Film Image and It’s Expansion through Contemporary Art’
2011 : International Image Conference, San Sebastian, Spain
paper: ‘Gorchakov’s Wish: Translating Elements of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Film Image through Site, Image, Video and Performance’
2011 : Undergraduate Architecture jury, Architectural Association, London, UK
critics panel for Architecture Unit 12
2011 : Procedures & Enquiries 5, Chelsea College of Art & Design, London, UK
paper: 'On: Intervention'
2010 : Postgraduate Diploma Architecture jury, Architectural Association, London, UK
critics panel for Postgraduate Architecture Unit 6
2010 : Sexuate Subjects : Politics, Poetics, Ethics, at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL London, UK
Paper: ‘Time, Place and Empathy: Material Poetics and the Film Image’
2010 : Intermediate Architecture Unit 2 jury, Architectural Association, London, UK
critics panel for Undergraduate Architecture
2010 : Drawing Out 2010: Festival and Conference of Drawing, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
paper: ‘Video Shakkei: Event-Space, Performance and Time-Based Drawing’
2010 : Guests @ Grays, Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, Scotland
talk: ‘Legible Spaces: The Work of Kreider + O’Leary’
2010 : Talk on NaoKo Takahashi, Image Music Text Gallery, London, UK
gallery talk: ‘Cities, Bodies, Stories: Explorations of Perforated Space’
2010 : Theorising Practices Lecture Series, Bartlett School of Architecture
talk: ‘Site and Generative Process in Gorchakov’s Wish’
2009 : Spaces and Narrations Lecture series, Chelsea College of Art & Design, London, UK
lecture: 'Video Shakkei: Space, Performance, Drawing'
2009 : Translated Acts 3 Symposia, ICFAR and Contemporary Poetics Research Centre, Birkbeck, London, UK
talk: ‘Kreider + O’Leary: Recent Works’
2009 : TALKS series, Contemporary Poetics Research Centre, Birkbeck, London, UK
talk: ‘Video Shakkei: Live Drawing and Borrowed Landscape’
2009 : Agendas, Agendas, Agendas, Wimbledon College of Art, London, UK
forum discussion with Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, Professor Stephen Farthing, Rubert Hartley, Kreider + O'Leary
2009 : Procedures & Enquiries 3 Symposia, Chelsea College of Art & Design, London, UK
paper: 'Drawing Time'
2009 : Architecture & Phenomenology 2 Conference, Kyoto Seika University, Kyoto, Japan
paper: 'Constructing Atmospheres: A Phenomenology of the Film-Image and Its Relation to Place'
2009 : Postgraduate Architecture School jury, Arkitektskolen, Aarhus, Denmark critics panel for Postgraduate Architecture
2009 : Greenwich Forum, University of Greenwich, London, UK
paper: 'Constructing Atmosphere - Andrei Tarkovsky's Film Image'
2008 : Space in the City: Arts, Architecture and Engagement, Rokeby Gallery, London, UK
panel discussion: Kreider & O'Leary, Fashion Architecture Taste, Office for Subversive Architecture
2008 : Procedures & Enquiries, Chelsea College of Art & Design, London, UK
paper: 'Spilling Ink in the Digital Void'
2008 : Enhancing Curricula, Lycée Francais, New York, USA
paper + showcase: 'iSD Open Data: Open Source Information Portal'
2008 : Studio Wolf D. Prix jury, Vienna Universität für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, Austria critics panel
2007 : Project X, Bartlett School of Architecture, London, UK
talk: 'Moving Through Eight Rooms: Site-Specificity and Performance in Art Practice
2007 : The Mobility of the Line, University of Brighton, UK
paper: 'Syntax. Sequence. Site - & Speaking the Line'
2006 : Contemporary Women's Experimental Poetry Festival, Cambridge University, UK
paper: 'Page, Space and Emily Dickinson's Material Poetic Gestures'
2005 : The Inclusive Studio, Royal College of Art, UK
panel discussion: 'Design Thinking through Virtual Environments'
2005 : The Inclusive Studio, CEBE Conference on Architectural Education, Royal College of Art, London, UK
paper: 'How Architecture Lost the Will to Live'
2005 : Research Spaces, Slade School of Fine Art / Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, UK
paper: 'Faces and Folds in 'the vastest earthly day': Page and Spatial Practice in Dickinson's Later Writings'
2005 : Discursive Spaces: Identity, Memory, Meaning, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
paper: 'Performing the Line: Memory and Present-ness in Fiona Templeton's Cells of Release
2005 : The Dromocratic Condition - Interdisciplinary Conference, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
paper: 'Dislocated Perceptions: The Contemporary Subject and the City in Process'
2004 : Theory in Practice 2, Art Radionica Lazareti, Dubrovnik, Croatia
paper: 'Collection II: Objects toward a Material Poetics'
2004 : Theory in Practice 2, Art Radionica Lazareti, Dubrovnik, Croatia
paper: 'Counter Sites and Nested Entities'
2004 : (Dis)locating Specificity, Slade School of Fine Art / Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, UK
paper: 'Lyric Atmospheres: The Making of Untitled II (for M.)'
2004 : Contemporary Writing Environments, Brunel University, London, UK
paper: 'Untitled I (for M.): Refiguring Lyric through a Material Poetics'
2004 : Unit 2 Gallery, London, UK
gallery talk: 'Anxious Cartographies: A Story of Bodies and Cities'
2004 : TALK Series, Contemporary Poetics Research Centre, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
paper: 'Turning the Line: Toward a Spatial Practice of Poetry'
2004 : Text . Space . Writing, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London, UK
paper: 'Punctuating the Image'
2002 : TALK series, Contemporary Poetics Research Centre, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
paper: 'Collection: Writings toward a Material Poetics'
2001 : Unit 14 Conference on Spatial Interaction, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, UK
paper: 'Cut-Up Space: The Architecture of Sample and Loop'
+ talks / interviews:
2019 : James O’Leary talks to Malkit Shoshan / HereEast, London, UK
talk: 'Border Ecologies and Design Activism’.
2019 : Kristen Kreider & James O’Leary talk to Petra Eckhard and Daniel Getan / HDA – Haus der Architektur, Graz, Austria.
talk: ‘Thoughts on Narrative Architecture’
2018 : Kristen Kreider talks to Chris Krauss / Institute of Contemporary Art, London, UK
talk: 'Social Practices’
2018 : James O’Leary talks to Richard Mosse / HereEast, London, UK
talk: 'Heat Maps’
2018 : Kristen Kreider talks Field Poetics / Berlin Art Book Festival, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin
talk: 'Field Poetics’
2018 : James O’Leary talks to Wolfgang Buttress, Michael Pinsky, Diane Dever / Place Alliance, London, UK
talk: 'Artists and the Arts in Placemaking’
2017 : Kristen Kreider talks to Ruth McLennan / Royal College of Art, London, UK
talk: 'From the White Sea to the North Sea’
2017 : Kristen Kreider talks to Juliet Haysom, Peg Rawes / London School of Economics, London, UK
talk: 'The House that Philosophy Built’
2017 : Kristen Kreider talks to Maria Fusco / Mousse Magazine, London, UK
talk: 'Force on Loan: Legend of the Necessary Dreamer’
+ residencies:
2011 : The Centre for Creative Collaboration, London, UK
2009 : The Centre for Drawing, London, UK
2005 : Limerick City Prison, Limerick, Ireland
2004 : Art Radionica Lazareti, Dubrovnik, Croatia
1999 : Unit 16@Centre for Land Use Interpretation, Wendover, Nevada, USA
+ workshops:
2018 : Goldsmiths College of Art, London UK
workshop: "The Future of Arts Research”, with Prof. Kristen Kreider, Dr. Nina Wakeford, Dr. Johanna Linsley, Oreet Ashery
2017 : Topography of the Threshold, University of Surrey, UK
workshop: Topography of the Threshold’ with James O’Leary
2017 : AA Visiting School, Paris School of Art, Paris, France
workshop: ‘Pronouns, Prompts, and the Collective Text’, with Prof. Kristen Kreider
2016 : AA Visiting School, Villa Vassilieff, Paris, France
workshop: ‘Architecture & Ecriture’, with Prof. Kristen Kreider
2012 : The Aarhus Architecture School, Aarhus, Denmark
workshop: "In flagrante Delicto”, The Aarhus Architecture School, Aarhus, Denmark
2012 : The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark
workshop: "IT WAS AND IT WAS NOT - The Skewer, the Pin and the Fork”, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark
+ project funding awards:
2019 : UCL Architecture Projects Fund
2017 : The UCL Bartlett Architecture Research Fund
2014 : TECHNE Doctoral Scholarship
2013 : Irish Arts Council Architecture Bursary Award
2012 : The UCL Bartlett Architecture Research Fund
2008 : CCW Research Award Funding
2006 : Irish Arts Council Bursary Award
2005 : Malcolm Hughes Memorial Bursary
2005 : UCL Graduate Research Fund Projects Award
2004 : Irish Arts Council Commission Award
2004 : Jean Spencer Memorial Bursary
2004 : UCL Graduate Research Fund Projects Award