The artist-led interview series is back.
Art to Art has launched its second season with a live event at the Irish Film Institute, following a debut season that racked up over a million views across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
Season 2 expands the project beyond its artist conversations into live events, publishing and cross-disciplinary collaborations.
Created by Rebecca Breene McDonnell and Daniel Breene, Art to Art pairs two artists together with no interviewer present, letting the conversation run without a third party steering it. The format has grown from a filmed conversation series into a platform that’s picked up interest from artists, labels, managers, festivals and cultural organisations both in Ireland and abroad.
The launch night began with a sold-out screening of the Season 2 trailer to 60 ticket holders, who were then introduced to surprise guests Andrew and Charles Hendy of The Mary Wallopers, and Spider Stacy of The Pogues. The three talked through Stacy’s love of the Ramones, the removal of competition from art, the dynamics of the Irish trad scene, and the work of Jinx Lennon, before reading out poetry and ideas they’d each stored in their phone’s notes app. The conversation was recorded.
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An afterparty followed at Curveball, built around an open session hosted by Last Apollo and friends, with bands from across disciplines joining in as the night went on. The “notes app segment” from the main talk got its own live version too, with a giant corkboard set up for attendees to pin their own stored notes.
Episode one: Aiesha Wong and Ben Goddard (Chalk)
Season 2’s opening episode pairs multidisciplinary artist Aiesha Wong, whose work spans filmmaking, photography, creative direction, dance and design, with Ben Goddard of Chalk, the Dublin/Belfast duo blending guitar-band energy with hardcore and techno-infused industrial punk. Goddard also directs, having made Resonance, a short film that premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh this year about a composer scoring a cursed silent film after developing sudden onset tinnitus.
The episode covers music videos in the Dublin International Film Festival, the use of silence in sound design, using your network to get things done, both artists’ origin stories, Chalk’s new album Crystalpunk and more.
Season 2 cast includes:
- Aiesha Wong, multidisciplinary artist
- Ben Goddard (Chalk), musician and director
- Paul Banks (Madra Salach), musician
- Goldbug, musician
- Farouk Alao, visual artist
- Vittorio Angelone, comedian
- Aoife Leonard, director
- Sexy Tadhg, musician
- Antony Szmierek, musician and spoken word artist
- Nell Mescal, musician
- Jack Leavey (BASHT), musician
- Asha Egan McCutcheon (Pebbledash), musician
- AE MAK, musician
- Last Apollo, musician
- Jessica Doolan, musician
- George Houston, musician
- Conor Dockery (The Scratch), musician
- Alex Gough, musician
- Greg Purcell, musician
- Hazel Doupe, actor
Subscribe to the full series releasing on Art to Art’s YouTube channel.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
