Hoaretraits Ep.8: Zeitgeist Irland 24 artist Lyónn Wolf

Hoaretraits is a new series by photographer and podcaster Neil Hoare, that presents contemporary Irish artists that are part of Zeitgeist Irland 24 – the year’s cultural programme of contemporary arts from Culture Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland in Germany. Conceived of by Hoare as ‘audio portraits’, the podcasts explore, from the perspectives of the individual artists, themes of creativity, imagination and craft. The podcast features conversations with a diverse range of Irish artists living in both Ireland and Germany.

For Episode 8, Neil talks with Lyónn Wolf, a Berlin- and Dublin-based artist whose work reimagines space, identity, and community through immersive installations, performances, and DIY publishing. Using thrifted and recycled materials, Wolf critiques societal norms around family, queerness, and working-class life from an anti-capitalist perspective. Domestic Optimism III – A Lesbian Squat Isn’t Just for Porno’s, the latest in their Domestic Optimism series, reinterprets architecture and social housing with a queer, working-class gaze. This Berlin edition includes a sound work that re-envisions Dublin’s Ballymun Towers as symbols of working-class heritage and as utopian spaces for queer life, reflecting Wolf’s radical urban vision, and was exhibited in October in Scriptings artspace in a project curated by GOSSIP GOSSIP GOSSIP as part of Zeitgeist Irland 24.

Podcaster Neil Hoare is a multidisciplinary Irish artist living in Berlin with his dog Púca. His most recent photographic work ‘A Heimat away from Home’ is a series of portraits commissioned by the Embassy of Ireland in Germany documenting the Irish who made Germany their home since Ireland joined the EU 50 years ago. The experience of photographing so many people across Germany and hearing their stories led directly to the creation of Hoaretraits.