Imbibe
verb
drink (alcohol).
absorb or assimilate (ideas or knowledge).
Myself and a team were selected to create a publication to represent our Visual Communications graduating class. After joking around about a pub-lication we came to the conclusion that the humble pub is, in fact, the final forum. It is the only place of true discussion and a place where we had spent most of our time.
Anything worth talking about is talked about in the pub. This book was published through NCAD’s publishing wing Repository 101. Selected as part of 100Archive 2017︎︎︎
Jessie de Boe
Dan Eames
Conor Foran
Deirdre Rawle
Hayley Carr
Liam Trumble
Finn Mullan
An excerpt written by me;
The pub has stood firmly in our society for many years and for many reasons. Traditionally it is a place of community and support. Nowadays it endures as a forum for discussion in an increasingly disengaging time. In the past, the grounds of NCAD once belonged to Power’s Whiskey Distillery, producing the finest, most outstanding whiskies in the country. Now, the plot owes itself to producing the finest, most talented and dedicated art and design practitioners in Ireland.
This correlation between past and present is prevalent within NCAD and student-life itself. Speaking to any local bar-goer in The Clock — a pub just beside NCAD — you will quickly learn about how much the college has changed Thomas Street since its inception. The change that the street has faced, and is still facing, is quantitative and comparable to the constant ebb and flow of students from the college. Just as NCAD’s past and present is linked with distilleries and pubs, so too are the lives of the students of Visual Communication 2017.
As spaces for conversation and discovery, they have allowed us to discuss freely, to dispel bad thoughts and to distill in us a deep appreciation of the power of collaboration. Few places remain where people of all ages can integrate and share. There is no denying the nature of pubs as places for tomfoolery and memory-loss, but let us not forget their origins as spaces in which to spread ideas and knowledge, and to imbibe them candidly in good company.
To imbibe has two meanings; to drink alcohol and to absorb ideas. It’s easy to compare the effects of drinking with the excitement of a new idea. Intoxicating ideas liberate the mind and facilitate the free flow of conversation. Both strong liquor and strong opinions can cause you to throw caution to the wind and act recklessly. Creative juices flow as wilfully as alcohol and may not agree with some. Your thoughts can be misleading and you can easily make mistakes. The loudest is not often the brightest, similar to the classroom when you were young. The glazed over eyes of a drunkard are similar to the vacant stare of a student staring at their computer screen. Double vision or tunnel vision, the rest of the world is irrelevant.
Jessie de Boe 2022 ©