Michael Holly
I am a filmmaker and practice-based researcher working across documentary, installation art and experimental film. My research focuses on the development of nonfiction filmmaking methodologies and creative participatory practices, with a particular focus on rural and agricultural communities on the island of Ireland.
I have exhibited extensively as a visual artist, often working in video installation of nonfiction films, including at Tulca Festival of Visual Arts (2024 & 2022), PUBLICS, Helsinki (2024), Uillinn, West Cork Arts Centre (2022), South Tipperary Arts Centre (2022), Riverbank Arts Centre (2018), Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem (2017), Roscommon Arts Centre (2015), and Y Galerii, Tartu (2015).
Since 2018 I have worked in collaboration with artist, filmmaker and sheep farmer Mieke Vanmechelen and her production company Fierce Quiet Films. Together we have co-directed a feature documentary, Hungry Hill (2023), an ethnographic- style film on the tensions between the agricultural community and ecological fragility of the Beara Peninsula of Co. Cork, and a short film, Like a mouse (2019) about the ecologist Dr Rory Hodd, who discovered a rare fern in Killarney National Park. We are currently in production on our second feature film, Énflaith (Birdreign) about a community of Gaelic culture revivalists in Ireland who follow the teachings of the enigmatic mystic and philosopher John Moriarty.
I am a long-time collaborator with the art, publishing and curatorial organisation Askeaton Contemporary Arts, run by Michelle Horrigan and Sean Lynch. I have worked with ACA on several projects, including eight short films and a book exploring the systematic destruction of historical and folkloric objects on the Irish landscape, Men Who Eat Ringforts in 2019.