Eleanor Mulhearn
Programme Leader, BA (Hons) Illustration with Animation
Eleanor Mulhearn is the Programme Leader on the BA (Hons) Illustration with Animation programme. Joining the Manchester School of Art in 2015, she has been teaching in Higher Education for fifteen years.
As a graduate of the School of Art, Eleanor is committed to the development and delivery of diverse forms of illustration and animation practice, above all, encouraging the personal and individual interests students bring with them to the BA, crossing art and design contexts. Eleanor's passion in teaching is to work with students to help them in finding a personal and meaningful visual voice through their practice development over the three years they spend on the programme.
Eleanor is also an active practitioner, a maker, focusing on animate states, folklore and the ecology of materials. From 2002, she worked independently and collaboratively with artists and designers, producing a range of animation and illustration work for cinema and TV. She then began working in installation and with expanded film practices for exhibition and theatre, (including puppet theatre), to explore the tactile and three-dimensional potential of these environments. Eleanor also works in a collective and produces work for galleries and enjoys workshop delivery with diverse communities.
Eleanor Mulhearn is a member of the Society of Animation Studies and the School of Art Design Research Group and is currently External Examiner for BA Illustration UCA Farnham and BA Illustration Animation at Kingston University, London.
Projects
a. The House of Dreaming, 2024
The House of Dreams: current project, exhibited in March 2024, with participant workshop (available as artwork with 90 minute clay workshop) Therapeutic Landscapes: Conference of the Folk Cultures research group at the University of Worcester: March 2024 Ceramic House made in collaboration with MSA graduate and ceramicist, Jessica Mok, with support from Rudi Morris. House functions as a site for community ritual and dreaming inspiration, using the house as a container for clay animal votive making and dream writing. Details…
b. Milan Design Week: Visitors from the House of Opposites 2023
The miniature inhabitants from our travelling artwork installation, The House of Opposites, have been extracted from their ‘dollhouse-home’, and re-presented for this exhibition as photographic portraits and sculptural pieces. Inspired by the Feminist, surrealist artist, Leonora Carrington - our figurines loosely reference the movement’s Exquisite Corpse technique (the blind swapping with a collaborator of a drawing and adding of body parts. Details…
c. Residency with AirSpace Gallery / BCB: The House of Octaversilia: 2021
This is the foundation of the city…a net which serves as passage and support (Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, 1972) The House of Octaversilia installation was been created by our collective InsideOutsideHouse during our August residency with AirSpace Gallery. Community participation with local residents who attended our creative workshop sessions was key to this project. Details…
d. The House of Opposites: 2020/1
Images from the first InsideOutsideHouse exhibition, entitled, The House of Opposites. The work draws inspiration from artist Leonora Carrington’s painting, The House Opposite (1945), and from collective memories of childhood and the childhood dollhouse. Details…
e. Enchanted Environments: 2020
Exhibition of ceramic works shown at the Art House Gallery, Worcester, in connection with the Enchanted Environments Conference 2020. A ceramic sprig-mould workshop: 'Enchanted Objects': was delivered: resulting work has been pandemic delayed, but is near completion. Details…
f. Made in Translation: Bessie and her Babies: 2017
Group residency at the historic Portico Library and Gallery, Manchester City centre. Individual and collaborative works were made in response to works of non-fiction, selected from the Portico Library collection. Details…
g. Atopia Project (vol. 1) / Miniature Worlds Castlefield Gallery: 2016/7
The Atopia Project (vol.1) First of a series of works made with Steven Gartside. Details…
h. Grimm’s Feast: 2016/7
An installation of miniatures in peephole environments, commissioned to accompany Arts Council Funded production, Grimm’s Fairy tale adaptation, directed by Proper Job Theatre and written by Ian McMillan, touring 2015/6. The work explores the focused presence of the puppet without animation, drawing also on tropes of pre- / early filmic presentation, through specific apertures and angles of vision. Details…
i. Fewer Emergencies: 2016
A series of projections made for an experimental production of Martin Crimp’s play, produced and directed by Chloe Beale (Proper Job Theatre), touring 2016. Using hand-held miniature projectors. Details…
j. Moomins: 2016
Animation for the Horse and Bamboo Puppet Theatre / Bath Theatre Company Production - the first UK puppet theatre production of the Moomins at Waterside Arts Centre, Sale, showing Dec 2015- Jan 2016, working with the Moomin Foundation on artwork representation.. Details…
k. Hansel and Gretel: 2015/6
A series of animations / moving image projections for the Horse and Bamboo Theatre production, touring Northern UK theatres in 2015/6. The animation uses diverse forms, including stop-motion, hand-drawn animation, rotoscope, pixillation of actors in mask, re-composited into film, model and live action. Details…
l. The Bird Song Speaks: 2015
A series of miniatures, produced from found scrap materials and developed from miniature sculptures, each discarded by their previous owner and donated to charity shops, sold through e-bay or flea markets. These displaced ornaments which had become unwanted, here find new imaginings, re-told through junk materials. Details…
m. The Fielden Project: 2014
Todmorden Unitarian Church / United Chapel Trust, Artists’ collaborative group exhibition and artists’ talks. Eight artists from the Calder Valley worked in response to this landmark site in the valley town, producing a range of diverse works, from sound, photography, writing, sculpture, drawing to sound and performance. Details…
n. Sketchbook and Workbench - experimental practice
A collection of images from studio: workbench and sketchbook.. Details…
Research
Eleanor Mulhearn is a member of the Design Research Hub.
Artefacts
Mulhearn, E., Eleanor, M., 2021. 'InsideOutsideHouse', UK.