Michael Fortune was born in rural Co. Wexford, in 1975. He studied Fine Art, specialising in video and performance, at the Limerick School of Art, where he graduated with a First Class Honours Degree in 1999. On graduating, he became involved with the Real Art Project (RAP), a Limerick based artists-run initiative dedicated to providing opportunities for emerging and established artists in the city. On leaving Limerick he travelled to Australia, where he worked in PICA (Perth Institute of Contemporary Art), and returned to complete an MA in Screenwriting/Film with Dun Laoghaire School of Film in 2004.

From his studio in rural Co. Wexford he conducts numerous commissions, projects and residencies throughout the country. He has been the recipient of many awards and commissions. In November 2009 he won the Spirit of Darklight Award at the Darklight Film Festival in Dublin, as well as winning joint first prize at COE in Mayo for three years in a row. He has produced numerous public art and participatory projects throughout the country which have been launched and screened at various locations from art spaces, village halls, ferry ports to handball alleys. Most recently he launched a new photography based publication entitled The Kitchen Sessions (www.thekitchensessions.ie) which was commissioned by Galway City Council under their Per Cent for Art Programme. This publication features a newly commissioned essay on Michaels practice by Sarah Tuck, Director of Create. He is currently working on a new body of work in Co. Offaly which received an Arts Council Commissions Award.

Fortune grew up in a family immersed in story, superstition and belief on the coast of Wexford and this subject has proved to be a rich feeding ground for his own work and the work he conducts with communities. As a result he has produced many folklore collections on film throughout Ireland. These collections are housed in various public and private collections nationally and internationally and in recent years he has presented these to various Folklore Departments, including The Folklore Departments of Memorial University, Newfoundland and UCC. (www.folklore.ie)

His ability to explore the nuances of identity, place, ritual and story have been well demonstrated and are central to the success of his participatory projects. He has a proven track record working in this field and has conducted numerous participatory and training projects with young and old people throughout the country. Utilising the forms of video, animation, photography, writing and installation his participatory projects attempt to draw attention to the cultural, social and political environment within communities. Past projects have ranged from photographic projects exploring the domestic aesthetic, collections of local superstitions on film through to the devising of fictitious local news stories in the form of fake parish newsletters and mock television stations. Central to Michaels� practice is his commitment to producing projects which have longevity in terms of participation and outcome. (Please visit www.michaelfortune.ie)

Alongside project work, he has worked as a visiting lecture in various art and film colleges throughout Ireland and for the past four years he has been teaching part-time at Limerick School of Art. Here he conducts a module with the Teacher Education Department, where he introduces new media and technology to the trainee teaching students.

VAI

Fortune`s work is presented widely nationally and internationally in a variety of contexts, ranging from gallery and off-site presentations through to single screen presentations in film and video art festivals. Since the beginning of 2007 his work has been presented in over 100 shows in a total of twenty-five countries spanning from Armenia to Venezuela and from Kilnaboy to Claremorris. His work is also housed in many public and private collections throughout Ireland including the OPW and University College Cork.

He artistic practice spans the formats of writing, video and photography. Working predominantly in video and photography, his work explores the circumstantial boundaries between art and culture, folklore and interpretation and fact and fiction.

Fortunes practice revolves around the collection of material. He does not script or storyboard, instead he generates material out of the relationships and experiences he develops with the people and circumstances he encounters. Fortune combines the stand-alone idiosyncrasies of people and incidents in everyday life, with complex and visually careful and contemplative treatments that adeptly handle the aesthetics of repetition, humour, obscurity, strangeness and intimacy.

In much of his video work the camera remains static, where editing is only ever employed out of necessity rather than luxury. Although referring to the form of the documentary, all evidence of the documenter or narrator is removed. The intimate nature of the relationships with the people and circumstances he encounters, and the subsequent reflective treatment of the material at hand is a key feature of his work.

Much of Fortunes work borrows heavily from accepted contemporary methodologies of recording, documenting and presenting information. As a result, he utilizes the mediums of home videos, snap photography and the printed media within his work.