In the latest edition of the miniVAN, comedians Roger O’Sullivan, Maria Cunningham, and Ailish McCarthy discuss their work as performers, clowns, and activists in a series of essays exclusively for Visual Artists Ireland! They are interviewed by fellow comedians and writers Jack Dolan and Lauren O’Neill, as well as miniVAN Commissioning Editor Thomas Pool. Check it out now by clicking here! The miniVAN is the online magazine published by Visual Artists Ireland. With uniquely commissioned content, The miniVAN explores the visual arts with an accessible view of all aspects of careers and practice that make up our visual community. [Image] [Top left]: Image courtesy of Maria Cunningham; [Top right]: Image courtesy of Roger O’Sullivan; [Bottom]: Image courtesy of Ailish McCarthy.

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COMMISSIONING EDITOR THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS COMEDIAN AND CAMPAIGNER AILISH MCCARTHY

Thomas Pool: How did you get your start in comedy?

Ailish McCarthy: In 2018, I joined the Gaiety School of Acting short course for comedy, because, when I went to college, I turned my back on being creative. But when I finished my masters, I thought “remember when you had fun?” So, the comedy course was a really good way to restart my creativity. I’d set aside time, three hours a week, to write, to laugh. It was a great course. I would recommend it to anybody. I think it’s still running, which is a great indicator of success for the school and those delivering the course.

At the very end of the course, we all got to present our ten-minute standup to friends and family. I then started to approach comedy clubs, asking if I could do a five or ten-minute set or participate in an open mic. After doing this for a while, I was approached by another club who asked me if I wanted to come and do a short set on their stage.

Then it just snowballed from there. I kept getting invited, I kept showing up, I kept on going. Then I started to apply for stages in Vancouver, Scotland, England, and all over Ireland.

TP: You’ve been helping lead the campaign to get comedy included in the Arts Act. How did you first become involved in this effort, and how do you feel it is progressing?

AMcC: It was January 2023 and I wanted to write a show. I thought about applying for the Arts Council Agility Award, in order to develop and research the new show, with the aim of touring once it was finished. Then I learned that the Arts Council doesn’t fund comedy, so I shelved my idea of writing a show just to investigate this. I had a look at the Arts Act, and comedy wasn’t explicitly listed the way theatre, music, and visual arts are, despite the fact that it is a performing art form.

I wrote to the Department of Culture, Communications, and Sport, and wrote separately to the Arts Council of Ireland, to ask whether they regard comedy as an art form. The Department came back and said, yes, it is technically in the Arts Act under theatre as a subgenre. The Arts Council, however, came back to say that they don’t fund comedy because they don’t fund commercial arts. However, I noticed that there are other art forms that have a commercial aspect, like music, that they do fund. So, I began this crusade, to get comedy explicitly included in the Arts Act.

As an artist, I put my practice on the backburner to discover why this group of artists are being excluded. Thankfully, I got some support from Minding Creative Minds at the very beginning. They gave me a platform at their annual summit to discuss art forms that are also feeling excluded, like musical theatre or line dancing. Their director, Emma Olohan Sarramida, introduced me to TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh in 2024, and I spoke to him about the dilemma comedians in Ireland were facing.

There’s nothing explicitly stating that comedy should be excluded from Arts Council funding; I think this was just a decision made years ago that hasn’t been challenged. Aengus had the same view as me, and after the general election, he was assigned to the Committee of Arts and Culture, where he worked to put forward an amendment to the Arts Act to explicitly include comedy.

We started to get support from TD Brian Brennan of Fine Gael. The new Minister for Culture Partick O’Donovan has also been very supportive of the amendment. It’s great to see opposition and government coming together to state that comedians are artists and that they should be funded and supported.

Then in November 2025, it just took off. I had an interview with Joe.ie. I think I got something like 90,000 views in 48 hours, which then meant that Prime Time took up the story, and I had an interview with them that got around a quarter of a million views. Then it got onto BBC, the Financial Times, and Sky News, which was great, because initially, I was finding it difficult to get the word out.

Then in December 2025, after two years of campaigning, the Arts Council made a statement that they’re going to start including comedy in their existing schemes. I’m also aware that they have advertised for a panel of comedians to review applications. Culture Ireland has just announced that they’re looking for panellists, to review upcoming applications to include comedy in their funding.

It’s phenomenal. It feels like a totally different climate to when I started this campaign. A lot of comedians I know who have emigrated are saying that they might actually move home now. I can’t wait to hear about the first recipient of comedy funding, whoever it may be. I hope I get a ticket to their show!

TP: Your debut stand-up show for Scene+Heard in February, titled ‘Me, Myself, and Ireland’, focuses a lot on this issue. Can you walk us through your process in creating this performance?

AMcC: I love Scene+Heard. The festival promotes new work and is a springboard for getting into other festivals around the country, or even to international festivals. I had applied because I felt like this was a good, happy, inspiring, and uplifting story, and given the climate of the world right now, we kind of need those.

It was a huge challenge for me because, even though I’ve been doing comedy for six or seven years, this was my longest show yet. It just kind of made sense to me that my first show would be a biographical standup of how I tried to get the Arts Council to recognise comedy.

I think the first draft I made just wasn’t enjoyable to sit through, and thankfully, I had the awareness of realising that I’m very close to the issue, and it was too cathartic. So I scrapped the first draft, and then asked myself: “What do I want the audience members to take away from this?”

I realised that what I’m effectively doing is creating a playbook for an art form to be recognised within the funding structures of Ireland. So, if someone in the musical theatre space wanted to know how to do that for themselves, they should come to this show. It would be like a tutorial for them.

My comedy is very particular to an Irish audience, so I don’t do well when I travel over to the UK. I remember I once made a joke during a set in the UK that their country had become more dog friendly because they now have a new King Charles. The audience completely turned against me! So, I do better at Irish gigs than I do in the UK.

I’m very good at observational comedy, in terms of Irish culture, so a lot of ‘Me, Myself, and Ireland’ was sticking to that voice. It was something I was very, very proud of. There’s also a couple of visual jokes in there as well. I was very nervous because I felt a lot like the Australian break-dancer, Ray Gun, at the 2024 Olympics. She had loads of qualifications in dance, but unfortunately, when she performed, the reaction wasn’t positive from the public. And now breakdancing is no longer considered a sport within the Olympics after that performance. The stakes were just as high for me, as someone who was campaigning for comedy to be recognised as an art form! But the performance was so well received. A member of government attended the show in an individual capacity, and members of The Arts Council staff came to the show as individuals too and really enjoyed it. That was my goal. I wanted anybody who came to the show to feel uplifted. It was a good news story. But it was even more fulfilling when people enjoyed it.

I’m very excited to be touring the show. I’ve already spoken to venues in Clonmel, Sligo, Bray, and Dublin and I’m talking to somebody in Kilkenny currently. I think it’s a really uplifting show and it’ll probably tour for one or two years. But I’m taking a step back from the crusade – I just want to be an artist and a comedian now. But I’m really happy with the results, that comedians now feel like they’re being supported.

TP: Lastly, are there any other projects you’re working on? What’s next for you?

AMcC: I’m doing a radio and podcasting course at the moment – I love radio. I was presenting a show with Mary Claire Fitzpatrick for six months last year, and it was something I really enjoyed doing. I think in terms of comedy, it’ll really help – one hand feeding the other and so on. And then I have a wedding coming up in September, so I have enough on my plate at the moment!

Ailish McCarthy is a comedian and one of the campaigners for the recognition of comedy in the Arts Act.

@thesleepycomedian

Thomas Pool is the Content and Production Editor of The Visual Artists’ News Sheet and the Commissioning Editor of the miniVAN.

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WRITER AND COMEDIAN JACK DOLAN INTERVIEWS COMEDIAN ROGER O’SULLIVAN ABOUT HIS ACT AND HIS ‘DARK NOSTALGIA’ 8-BIT VIDEOS.

Jack Dolan: What got you into comedy?

Roger O’Sullivan: I think it was watching stuff like The Panel on Irish television when I was growing up. There was a period of time in the early 2000s when comedy was actually quite good in Ireland, when great stuff was on TV from some of the top comedians – Dylan Moran, Tommy Tiernan, and Dara O’Briain. This was during some very formative years for me.

JD: You started posting the 8-bit style stuff online, mimicking video game cutaway scenes. What brought you to this as a concept to mine for comedy?

ROS: I’ve always been really into video games and that specific aesthetic of point-and-click adventure games of the 90s. Sometimes what’s interesting is that they look rubbish, but they were operating within the budgetary means that they had. So, I felt like if it was something I’m just doing in my bedroom, it will look rubbish, but the original products looked bad as well, so it’s actually quite easy to hit that same tone. I think a lot of social media is nostalgia bait, so I wanted to generate a kind of dark nostalgia for shit things.

JD: It’s interesting that you brought up this dark nostalgia idea. When you were initially posting those videos online, do you think it allowed you to talk and give characters more scope than you would have in a traditional ‘talking head’ video?

ROS: I think that there was definitely an opportunity there, as the format launders clichés and tropes through a more interesting lens. It gives you license to state that this is a character in a video game, so they’re stock by nature – the graphics don’t have to be very well realised. You can really ham it up and do things to make yourself look more stiff than you really are, or play around with the frame rate on the video when you’re editing, to make it even more hokey. There’s been times when I’ve had the perfect take and audio, but I’ve edited it to make it look worse.

JD: Your current show, ‘Fekken’, named for the fighting game Tekken, is quite PS1 imagery heavy. What was your desired outcome, in bringing the PlayStation visuals and these videos into the show? How did it facilitate the stand up?

ROS: In hindsight, it was very lucky how it all came together in the final product of the show, which was about my relationship with my dad and growing up in Ireland in the 90s. In Ireland at that time, you didn’t have the American High School clichés of the jocks or the nerds or whatever. Everyone was into the PS1, and PlayStations were in practically every household, so it’s a big part of my nostalgia for that time, and gives the show its aesthetic. I wanted the ending of the show to be a Tekken-style fight between me and my dad; that’s the big finale. At the same time, I was making these 8-bit videos on Instagram, so I knew that the audience that I was building there would also probably relate to a lot of the stuff that I was putting in the show.

JD: How’s the tour going so far?

ROS: The tour’s going well! I’ve never toured before so I’m learning lots about touring. Initially I had a more limited amount of dates, with a very small initial run most of them sold out, so I was asked like ‘do you want to do a tour extension? Do you want to do more dates?’ So I went for it, and I learned the limits of myself in a good way. I had to figure out how much of my audience translates into ticket sales – not to be too mercenary about it. I think the big thing is even when they don’t sell out, it’s more than I’ve ever sold in that place. Because I’ve never been able to sell tickets before.

JD: When you incorporate the 8-bit videos into your show, they build a tension throughout. Do you think embracing this stylised approach made it easier to address more serious topics, or do you think it’s something you could have dealt with purely through standup?

ROS: I think the video element made it easier for the audience, because the aesthetic is really grounded in that time. It’s very easy to talk about these things yet feel removed from them, whereas I think it helps people launch themselves back into that world. I think a lot of the show is quite positive about certain things back then, and it’s good to appreciate what your childhood was like. I do think that having those visual elements helps bring people along, more than just text or pure standup.

JD: When you started off doing standup, did you see yourself embracing this visual aspect during live performance?

ROS: When I started, I was quite puritanical with stand up. I didn’t foresee the visual aspects crossing over, but I was very slow to do social media because it doesn’t come naturally to me. If I didn’t do standup, I probably wouldn’t even have social media, which I use as a promotional tool. I think, over the years, seeing other comedians doing exciting things using AV elements in their shows, made me realise that you can actually make amazing things in these shortform spaces. Ultimately, I think what drives a lot of people to do stand up, myself included, is the need for instant feedback. As easy as it is to be cynical about social media platforms, I think they are actually a great way to truly be a micro-budget filmmaker, find your audience, and figure out your style. The great thing about Instagram is you can be seen by people immediately and you can get quite a big following.

JD: After winning ‘Best Newcomer’ at the Comedians’ Choice Awards Edinburgh 2025, you’ve been working on a new show, what can you tell us about it?

ROS: A lot of the new show is still about Ireland, a bit about missing Ireland or not living there anymore. I have this idea on how to start it visually – it’s almost a dawn and still dark, and throughout the course of the hour the sun slowly starts to rise, and you see more and more bits of the landscape, and towards the end of the show you have this realisation that the different bits of the landscape are actually all of these things I’ve talked about in the show. But the problem is I can’t make that yet because I don’t yet know what I’m going to talk about in the show.

Roger O’Sullivan is a comedian, his show ‘Fekken’ is currently on tour.

@rogerocomedy

Jack Dolan is a writer and comedian.

@goodenoughgang

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WRITER AND COMEDIAN LAUREN O’NEILL INTERVIEWS COMEDIAN, ACTOR, AND WRITER MARIA CUNNINGHAM ABOUT HER ACT, PARTICULARLY HER STYLE OF ‘CLOWNING’.

Lauren O’Neill: How did you become interested in comedy through the style of clowning?

Maria Cunningham: I studied acting in the Gaiety School. In first and second year, we did a week of clowning with Raymond Keane. I had never thought about pursuing clowning before that. I went in wanting to be an actor, and came out wanting to be an actor, clown, and a writer. I think ‘clown’ will always influence my acting. It’s opened up a whole new set of tools to play with regarding acting.

Clowning is this artform based in connection, honesty and failure. It plays with the most fundamental and base level parts of being a human. There’s loads of improvisation and connection with the audience. It’s less like a performance and more like a conversation between the clown and the audience.

In terms of work, there’s more control with clowning, because I make my own work. A lot of acting is auditioning and asking for permission to act, hoping that someone will give you a role – unless you write your own play or make your own film, which is something I love doing. But clowning is something you can just get up and do, whether at an open mic or a fundraiser cabaret night.

LON: How do the aesthetic demands of clowning influence your creative process  differently to stand up?

MC: For me, the very first thing that happens in the process of creating a comedic character is collecting things. I’ll be in a charity shop and I’ll find an object that I like or a piece of clothing that interests me. I’ll get it, not knowing what I’ll use it for. I have this collection of things and the next step is thinking about what I would find enjoyable and exciting. If I want to crowd surf, how am I going to make that happen? What character can I create to help Maria crowd surf? It’s a really fun way of creating work because you’re just following an impulse to facilitate a sensation that you wish to feel. 

I’ll watch a really good stand-up show and think “this is magic.” I have no idea how this is working because I don’t really write structured jokes. The way my brain works is visual comedy. At home, instead of writing jokes, I’m doing freaky movements in my mirror.  

Sometimes I include props and costumes that have the potential for failure, if they fall off or break or move in a weird way – that influences the comedy more. For a clown, failure is a gift. When something doesn’t work the way you want it to work, that’s the real magic. Making my own props and costumes is an important step because it allows me to slow down, sit still, and meditate. The more elaborate the costume, the more potential there is for mishaps, which is what I love.

LON: Does the scripting of shows influence costuming, or do the jokes stem from the visual identity of the characters?

MC: The words tend to come last for me. I wasn’t confident in secondary school English class. Structured writing was never something I was good at. Clowning appeals to me because it feels more natural for me to create a visual or physical joke. A stand-up comedian might write down a joke and ask “is that funny?” It’s the words and the structure of it that might be funny. I’ll try something on in the mirror and I’ll wonder whether that’s funny or not. I’ll start with the visual concept. Maybe the way it moves influences the movement of my body, and, having a background in dance and circus acrobatics when I was younger, I’m confident in experimenting with my physicality and my movement. The costume will always inform the physicality and the physicality will always inform the costume.

LON: The performances often incorporate adult or suggestive themes. What draws you to explore this, particularly through costume design?

MC: I like to make work that deals with taboo themes because, as a woman, growing up in Ireland, I’ve learnt that shame is a very useful tool for an oppressor. I don’t want to sound too intense here, but shame and secrecy are really useful to silence people. As a performer, you have an incredible opportunity to take a theme or subject and put it into the spotlight.

For example, by putting our show ‘Porno’, a clown show about the communication around sex, into the spotlight, we’re trying to release some of that shame. Especially with comedy, you can amplify the scenario and make it absurd. You can have the big boobs and the big vagina and everything is kind of over the top, so it allows people to laugh while we’re still discussing those kinds of themes. That’s why the absurd visual aspects are helpful because they create a little bit of distance between people and reality and that makes the subject less scary.

From a technical point, if you’re thinking about making people laugh, it’s about tension and release. Tension is created in a room when you present a taboo subject. People are holding their breath, then when something ridiculous or unexpected happens, that tension is released and people laugh. That’s why it’s called comic relief, because it’s actual relief.

LON: How does audience interaction come into play during your act?

MC: The audience members will generally help Clown Maria to try to achieve something. We might fail miserably, which can be very funny, or we might succeed and the audience gets to enjoy the triumph. But there will always be a want for the character and a journey they’re trying to go on.

‘Porno’was created by me and my clown partner, Saorla Rodger – we have a clowning duo called Lipstink. The bulk of the show was improvised within a structure we had built. We wanted to focus on the fact that in Ireland, we grow up with very little sexual education in schools, and Irish people are typically not very confident at having those discussions. The concept was that we were Ireland’s top live sex stars and were on the last night of our nationwide tour. We go to attempt our big move and we have an accident, causing us to have concussion. We’ve forgotten how to have sex. There’s Giorgio and Amanda, they’re naked and they’re ready, but they don’t know what the steps are. So, we ask the audience to teach us how to have sex. It was so beautiful and hilarious to hear what people said. We wanted to play with how the words we use can be mixed up. People using innuendos made it funny and so easy to misconstrue the words and fully act out what they were saying, but without the understanding of what it actually meant, which created hilarious scenarios.

LON: Are there any upcoming shows you’re developing?

MC: My next performance will be in ‘The Hoes of Tralee’ run by The Wild Geeze. I’m currently further developing ‘Porno’ with Saorla and a new play ‘Dole Bots’into full length shows. I always post updates of shows that I’m making or performing in on my Instagram page.

Maria Cunningham is a comedian, actor, writer and clown.

@maria._.cunningham

@lipstink_comedy

Lauren O’Neill is a writer and comedian.

@alexmillercomedy

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Dear VAI members and prospective members, Due to the exceptionally high volume of correspondence relating to applications for the Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) scheme, please be advised that membership renewals, new membership processing, and the mailing of physical certificates will be delayed up to 2-3 weeks. We are a small, dedicated team and remain steadfast in our support of artists and the wider arts sector. While we welcome the expansion of the BIA scheme, and all of the new members who have joined our vibrant community, we are asking for your understanding and patience during this time. We understand the frustrations at these delays and we can assure you that our team has been working as hard as we can to meet your needs. However, it is wholly unacceptable to verbally accost or disrespect VAI staff members, whether over the phone, email, or social media. Our code of conduct may be found here: https://visualartists.ie/code-of-conduct-for-members Please be advised: The Department of Culture, Communication, and Sport will currently only accept an embossed certificate OR a photographed/photocopied image of the front and back of your physical professional membership card (combined into a single PDF) from VAI as proof of professional membership. The mailing of these certificates and membership cards are subject to the aforementioned delays. You cannot submit a screenshot of your professional membership card or your digital membership card as proof of membership. If this situation changes we will let you know. We are working on alternative solutions acceptable to the Department. BIA Queries As a reminder, we are not in a position to pre-approve application materials for the BIA scheme. VAI only has access to the publicly available information available at gov.ie. All pertinent information to apply for BIA can be found at: https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-and-sport/publications/basic-income-for-the-arts-scheme-2026-2029-guidelines-for-application/ In order to expedite joining VAI or renewing your membership, we are asking that you please direct all enquiries about BIA, membership criteria, and membership applications to membership@visualartists.ie. VAI Membership Renewal If you are seeking to renew your membership, you can renew online by logging into your members profile: Log In to Members Area. In the ‘About’ tab, scroll down to the bottom and click on the button to ‘Renew, Upgrade or Update Billing’. This will help ensure your membership applications and renewals are completed in an efficient and timely manner. If you are unable to access a computer, are visually impaired, or have other circumstances that preclude you from using our online systems, you may contact us at 01 672 9488. Otherwise, please help keep our phone lines free, in order to continue to assist our community in need of our help desks and advice experts. We thank you all for your continued support, understanding, and patience. This is an exciting new chapter for the visual arts in Ireland, and we continue to welcome all members of our visual arts community to Visual Artists Ireland. With many thanks, Visual Artists Ireland

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From: Department of Culture, Communications and Sport Published on: 1 April 2026 The scheme will open for applications at 1pm on Wednesday 15th April 2026. Before applying for the scheme it is important to note the following – The scheme is for professional practicing artists only – Applicants must be based in the Republic of Ireland at time of application – Funding for 2,000 applicants is available, it is expected that the number of eligible applicants will exceed that number, therefore eligibility does not confer an entitlement to receive the payment – Applicants will be required to prove that their artistic practice is largely based in Ireland – Applicants will need to provide three approved proofs of their professional artistic practice in order to demonstrate eligibility – Annual audits will take place to reconfirm eligibility – The names of successful applicants will be published which is common practice for the receipt of State funding – Successful applicants will need to be tax cleared by Revenue and must register as self-employed if they are not already and provide an annual Revenue Form 11 to ensure tax compliance – Successful applicants will be required to remain primarily based in the Republic of Ireland for the duration of the scheme Artists seeking to apply for the Basic Income for the Arts can find application guidelines here. For all queries about the application process, email: basicincomeforthearts@ccs.gov.ie The application portal will open at 1pm on Wednesday 15th April 2026 The deadline for application is 5pm on Tuesday 12th May 2026

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THE ÁIT COLLECTIVE OUTLINE THEIR COLLABORATIVE ETHOS AND RECENT ACTIVITIES INCLUDING AN EXHIBITION AT THE DOCK.

The Áit collective (previously ^) cultivates collaborative research, experimentation, and dissemination by working with the north County Leitrim community and landscape as mutual co-creators. To achieve this, we organise and host events in our workspace in the centre of Manorhamilton that we run together. This has taken multiple forms, such as social gatherings, symposia, rituals, workshops, walks, shared meals, and the exchanging of knowledge and stories. 

Áit translates from the Irish language as ‘place’ or ‘position’. Our workspace is situated within a strong farming community, close to the border with Northern Ireland. It is ideally located to engage with audiences not usually reached by conventional art spaces. The collective was initiated by our outgoing member Shane Finan, and currently has four members: Tara Baoth Mooney, James Kelly, Laura McMorrow, and Sonya Swarte. 

Our workspace is always in the shadow of Benbo Mountain – a constant, mutable presence in the town. The studio allows the collective members and community to explore art in a rural context. We believe that the creation of work rooted in place and the local landscape can enable innovative and meaningful collaborative work. The Áit collective is dedicated to creating collaborative works of art in the context of wildness. Our work within the space and beyond uses worlding practices that bring human and non-humans into community, conversation, encounter, and care.

 Leitrim is distinct for its thriving ecosystems, supported by small-scale, low-impact farming and traditional land stewardship that allow wildlife and agriculture to co-exist. Meadows are the result of a very intentional balance of care between humans and the land. In comparison to other parts of Ireland, Leitrim has a much lower uptake of intensive farming practices, which has resulted in a unique habitat of semi-natural grasslands and rich biodiversity. However, due to the vulnerable nature of this land and the low population and rurality, Leitrim and surrounding areas have had to be defended over the years from hydraulic fracturing (fracking), immense wind turbines, overabundance of Sitka spruce forestry, and, most recently, gold prospecting in the Five Glens – distinct glacial valleys of the Dartry Mountain Range. 

The work for our recent exhibition, ‘Waking The Land’ at The Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon (22 November 2025 – 14 February 2026), began with the potential loss of Benbo Mountain to extractive goldmining. We created a wake for the mountain to celebrate its life and liveliness and highlight its presence. We  moved between ‘waking’ and ‘awakening’, presenting work that aimed to both wake and ‘waken’ the land and ourselves. 

In ‘Waking The Land’, Áit collective honoured symbolic, spiritual, and poetic relations as much as material, ecological, and political ones. Our practice and discourse are shaped by this plurality, opening space for gestures that are not about solving or mastering, but about living-with, un-learning, and attuning to the more-than-human in all its complexity. The work was informed and led by encounters with Benbo Mountain, the meadow (five small meadow patches that we each tended and observed over the last nine months), and plant material from these different sites. 

The main plant material used was Yellow Flag Iris, feileastram. Once used for fodder, bedding, dyeing and medicinal purposes, it is now relegated to the category of ‘weed’. It both thrives on and creates water-logged ground and reproduces quickly.

All of the materials used in the exhibition were found, collected or were already at hand. Wool was collected from the barbed wire fences; old bed sheets and a worn woollen blanket were dyed with yellow flag iris root, dock root, and iron. A found piece of silk was presented as a mutable framing for the rhizome that dyed it. Hazel and Sally rods, a cow skull, rocks, seeds, plants, bones and other found entities accompanied us into the gallery space. The stitches in the banner bale covers follow the guidance of the materials themselves; the threaded paths are intuitive and purposely untethered from formal cartographic systems. In these gestures, land is reimagined as relationship rather than cartography, unfolding through tending and attention, as opposed to measuring and territory.

The outside world was invited inside to inhabit the former courthouse, a building once bound to order and judgement, now reimagined as a site of porous encounter. In this assemblage, we actively juxtaposed the building’s previous and current uses, co-locating histories of colonial order and classification with chaotic immediacy and unpredictable encounter. 

An ‘opening ritual’ procession for ‘Waking the Land’ – acknowledged the potential loss of our beloved Benbo Mountain while also celebrating the reawakening of the vast life it breathes into our land. 

The ÁIT Collective is based in Manorhamilton, County Leitrim.

@wakingtheland

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CCA Derry ~ Londonderry

17 January – 14 March 2026

As I explored the group exhibition, ‘IT’S NOT CLEAR FROM HERE’ at CCA Derry ~ Londonderry, I experienced a peculiar sense of nostalgia. It stemmed from seeing old technologies that were familiar from my childhood and early adulthood – such as overhead projectors, TV monitors, and slide carousels – installed in the gallery space. This sensation is not surprising when we consider research on the phenomenon of ‘tech-nostalgia’, which involves a fondness or longing for outdated technology. 

Curated by Ashleigh Wilson, ‘IT’S NOT CLEAR FROM HERE’ features Thomas Hunter, Sabi Nicholson and Lucy Tevlin, whose work is presented across all three gallery spaces at CCA. The exhibition taps into shared associations with outmoded devices, while the artists’ adaption of archival and found materials creates subjective, often autobiographical, narrative threads. Through lens-based media, they explore the precarity of images, which are shaped by time, technology and the act of looking. Each artist brings analogue technologies to our attention by reanimating them within the gallery setting, which begins to function more like a testing laboratory. Wall-based artworks and film projections share the space with installations of TV monitors on metal shelves. In many contemporary exhibitions, the mechanisms and means of display are often hidden away; however, here, these devices assume a sculptural dimension, becoming a visible and active component of the art. 

Thomas Hunter presents a two-screen installation that combines his own footage with archival newsreel footage from the later years of The Troubles. The artist grew up in Belgium, so his experience of Ireland was largely mediated through family trips and news reportage of conflict. His projections feature idyllic imagery of rural landscapes in Sligo and Connemara, layered with news material from the North of Ireland. For example, a bright vista of Benbulben mountain is interrupted by the changing imagery of a press conference. A series of small monitors on shelves, positioned centrally in the gallery, features archival reference material, accompanied by a singular screen of flickering static, placed at a low level. Through our experience of the installation, we become active participants in distorted understandings of history and memory. 

Sabi Nicholson’s dynamic installation addresses the ecological crisis at Lough Neagh. Nicholson’s projection is akin to a large-scale science experiment in which warped imagery (sourced from archival fishing documentaries) is projected onto the gallery wall through a suspended glass vessel, containing contaminated lough water. The visual and sound effects echo that of an ultrasound, with nature treated as a patient requiring urgent medical intervention. Lumen prints, made using local flora, are also shown. 

Lucy Tevlin’s projected acetates feature works titled ‘The structure of a second’. These are texts which the artist writes after she has ordered 8mm film online, and while anticipating its arrival, to chart her sense of expectation. These are poetically charged staccato phrases and short sentences, designed to activate our visual awareness; they are numbered 1 to 24 to signify the standard of 24 frames within a filmed second. “Light falls over buildings in the distance/ Cascading/ Cascading/ Cascading/ An arrangement/ An expansion/ Cracks of white snow/ Dark clouds…” Alongside these text works, Tevlin presents the unopened rolls of film, which are exhibited as a finished artwork, and serve to perpetuate the mystique of the analogue process. 

‘IT’S NOT CLEAR FROM HERE’ transforms the gallery into a space of shifting personal and collective narratives. Across photography and film, the presented works harness dislocated and elusive imagery to address shifting technologies and environmental crisis.

Dr Marianne O’Kane Boal is a critic and curator based in Donegal. She is President of AICA Ireland. 

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Mermaid Arts Centre

17 January – 28 February 2026

An archive often results from fortuitous luck, foresight, or both, and its true value tends to emerge with time. Happily for posterity, a comprehensive collection of documents and ephemera relating to the Women Artists Action Group (1987 – 1991) is held at the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL). It was donated by chair and founding member of WAAG, Pauline Cummins. A selection of this material, which includes correspondence, newsletters, a draft constitution, catalogues, and media clippings, was recently on display for the exhibition ‘WAAG: An Archive’ at Mermaid Arts Centre. Its curator Helena Tobin commented, this material facilitates an understanding of “what happened, how it happened, who was involved” and gives “a sense of the time, the context, and the labour.”¹

Formed in 1987, around a farmhouse table in Clonmel, County Tipperary, the group – made up of artists, art historians, critics and curators, including Breeda Mooney, Veronica Bolay, Jenny Haughton, Patricia Hurl, Patricia McKenna, Louise Walsh, Alice Maher, and Kathy Prendergast – was outraged by the hostile environment for women practitioners. Their bold determination and unshackled ambition were bolstered by a backdrop of growing feminist and queer activism in Ireland and overseas in the late 80s.

Encouraged by Medb Ruane at the Arts Council, the group’s first task was to assemble a slide library to show the extent and range of women artists in Ireland. In July of that year, 91 artists were represented in a slide exhibition at Project Arts Centre, as part of the Third International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Dublin. ‘WAAG: An Archive’ is a fresh iteration of an exhibition last year at South Tipperary Arts Centre (2 May – 21 June 2025), organised in partnership with NIVAL. 

The exhibition curators, Helena Tobin and Iris Vos, attended the launch at Mermaid Arts Centre alongside core WAAG members. The opening took place on a cold and wet January evening but was enthusiastically attended. As with archives, activism also resonates through time, often with contemporary and far-reaching impacts. Among the crowd that gathered were diverse generations for whom the notion of a small collective taking on an obstructive establishment was inspiring and, in some cases, emotional. 

WAAG members’ testimonies and the material on view recall an era when typewriters and photocopiers were the height of technology. But, more forcefully, they revisit what Pauline Cummins considers “a decade of horror” in which tragedies such as the ‘Kerry babies’ case, and Ann Lovett’s death had occurred.² It was a time when, all too often, the responsibility – and the blame – for reproduction was foisted on women within a repressive patriarchal regime. 

For older visitors, the exhibition was an occasion for reminiscing. One woman commented that it acted as a bridge to a different past. Veronica Heywood took part in the inaugural WAAG show at the Guinness Hop Store in 1987. [‘WAAG II: Art Beyond Barriers’ was held at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in 1989]. She recalled having the chilling realisation that a Dublin gallery willing to show the work of a female artist was the exception at that time. It was indignation at this kind of mindset, she said, that sparked a movement that burned very bright for its duration.

Incredulity at the scale of WAAG’s actions was tangible at the launch. Alannah Henry, who was using the collective as a case study in feminist action for a teaching placement, was delighted to be attending an event that highlighted the group’s tireless work and accomplishments. Summing up its legacy, she and a companion noted how much more accessible the art world is for women now, while stressing the need for ongoing vigilance and responsiveness to ever-changing times. 

The group’s activity culminated with ‘Women Artists and the Environment’, an ambitious WAAG event in June 1991, hosted in partnership with the International Association of Women in the Arts (IAWA) to celebrate Dublin as European City of Culture. It included site-responsive works by artists from abroad and a symposium at IMMA that was opened by President Mary Robinson, with a keynote speech by renowned American art activists, the Guerrilla Girls.

From small beginnings, WAAG developed as an entity with international reach. With NIWAG as its Northern Irish branch, membership of IAWA since 1988, and links within the US, work was also shown and events held overseas. By the time the collective ceased activity in 1991, its primary aims had been achieved.

Susan Campbell is a visual arts writer, art historian and artist.

¹ WAAG Symposium, Part 1: WAAG Legacy, Dr Sarah Kelleher in conversation with artists Pauline Cummins and Louise Walsh, South Tipperary Arts Centre,10 May 2025, youtube.com.

² Ibid.

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