RACHAEL GILBOURNE INTERVIEWS ALBERTA WHITTLE ABOUT HER TWO-PERSON EXHIBITION WITH CAMILLE SOUTER CURRENTLY SHOWING AT IMMA.

Rachael Gilbourne: When we first met in 2019, we spoke about our shared experiences of caregiving, and the difference between empathy and compassion. Your work carries this too – a deep sense of healing and hope in a brutal world. How do you speak about trauma and violence through your practice without it sinking into despair?

Alberta Whittle: Thinking of that time reminds me how lonesome being an artist can be, but also how global crises can bring people together in affinity and hope. My heart was sore then, and I was trying to figure out my voice. I was disturbed by the grief and rage of that socio-political landscape, which in hindsight, seems much calmer than today. I am the child of two trade unionists, and I’ve learned that community is what stops me from sinking into despair. Community can come from kith and kin, or from the chosen family I am lucky to work with. Isolation can narrow one’s thinking, and we need people to remind us of what is at stake when we lose touch with our individual softness. Togetherness keeps us intentional. 

RG: You’ve previously mentioned that you think of yourself as a self-taught artist. How do you reconcile academic achievement with your authentic, organic, and intuitive approaches to making? 

AW: Whilst I think art education is an indispensable place of thinking and community-building, I am a reluctant student. Academia and education in the UK, Europe, and North America is incredibly colonial, and insists on following conservative parameters of judgement and curricula that ignore and obfuscate the global majority’s experience. The systems of education I participated in rarely fit my needs. Coming from a family of excellent teachers and artists, I am aware of their tremendous role as pastoral caregivers, questioners, and educators. However, we still need to change the system itself. I look forward to reimagining arts education as a lecturer or teacher myself someday. For me, education has always been a foundational instructive space, but the important work can happen outside of these environments. 

RG: How representative is the selection of your works within ‘Fisherwoman, Fisherwoman’, your two-person exhibition at IMMA with Camille Souter (1929–2023)?

AW: I am always curious about what will unfold when working with a new curator and institution. I’m genuinely delighted with how you have brought works into conversation with one another for the first time. For instance, it’s exciting that the RESET installation sits alongside key watercolour suites. I think the exhibition gives a good flavour of my practice, while also speaking to Camille’s work. This is very much a two-person show, and it’s been intriguing to see how the pairings of our works complement and ask different questions. It speaks very clearly on our shared concerns of environmental catastrophe, whilst also thinking about grief, family, and other healing practices. 

RG: The works of key thinkers and philosophers have been significant in the development of your practice. Can you share some of those research influences with us? 

AW: Studying for my PhD was indispensable in encouraging me to balance my making practice with researching thinkers and philosophers like Edwidge Danticat, Kamau Brathwaite, Christina Sharpe, bell hooks, Maud Sulter, and Saidiya Hartman. Crucially, this taught me that the humanities are indispensable for imagining different futures and opened my eyes to my responsibility as an artist. For instance, reading Maya Goodfellow’s Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats (Verso Books, 2019), was important in understanding the fundamental structures of racism and anti-blackness that have continued to stoke the fires of British imperialism and fracture the safety of global majority folk. I see the traces of this book in my Autumn Equinox paintings and in the wateriness of my coil sculptures. 

RG: Your beaded works, referred to as ‘coils’, are woven hanging sculptures with cowrie shells, pearls, bells and other materials, streaming vertically from ceiling beams to the handcrafted frames of your paintings. In ‘Fisherwoman, Fisherwoman’, you’ve created your longest coil sculpture to date, at over 11 metres. Can you speak about coils as a recurring form in your practice? 

AW: I first began making coils as a response to the collective reading of Audre Lorde’s 1978 essay, ‘Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power’. I was part of a wonderful interdisciplinary group exhibition, ‘Sex Ecologies’ at Kunsthall Trondheim curated by Stefanie Hessler in 2022, and by reading Lorde, I found myself gravitating to the power of pleasure and inter-species love. It still feels like a massive change in direction to remember how this manifested. The coil is a way for me to think about intergenerational connections, but also interspecies relations. It is a naval string; a line from the land to the bottom of the ocean. It is a transmitter of intertidal knowledge as well as memory work. When I string the beads, I count them and order them in particular permutations linked to prime numbers. Threading these beads into a coil becomes an act of meditation and a way to remember. 

RG: This is the first time your work has been shown in Ireland. What has become apparent for you, in thinking about audiences here?

AW: Whenever I am invited to show my work in new contexts, I always try to imagine what existing conversations I am entering into, but also what knowledge might be missing for my audiences. I don’t take my audiences’ knowledge or instincts for granted and try to give them clues into my thinking. This is the first time I have been able to work with a curator to develop such a full-some timeline of my work. Some of these details are intensely personal, such as my parents’ reasoning to return to the Caribbean to raise their children family. Other details reveal the historical, social, and cultural issues I am drawn to in my work. I wonder whether audiences here will be interested in the interlinking colonial histories between the Caribbean and Ireland.

RG: Can you share your experience of working on ‘Fisherwoman, Fisherwoman’? 

AW: It has been an honour to get to know Camille’s two children, Tim and Natasha, who have shared time and personal stories with me. In particular, it was so special to visit her studio in Achill with you and Natasha, and to toast her with a wee whiskey. Since returning to my studio in Glasgow, I’ve kept thinking of Camille and her vigorous practice, pushing me on as part of a new generation. But one of the most special times, in preparation for this show, was working with Camille’s son, Tim Morris (and his assistant Gem) in his foundry, on Summoning Spirit – Experiments in Alchemy. There was something so magical about the process. We talked about so many things, from Benin bronzes to memories of Camille, to love and grief – it’s all present in those bronze sculptures. This making process became a bit of a rebirth for my practice, to try something completely different, while emphasising the presence of love, friendship, and labour in this collaborative work. I am forever changed. Thank you. 

Alberta Whittle is a Barbadian-Scottish multidisciplinary artist based in Glasgow.

albertawhittlestudio.com

Rachael Gilbourne is the curator of ‘Fisherwoman, Fisherwoman’ and Assistant Curator: Exhibitions – Projects & Partnerships at IMMA, where ‘Fisherwoman, Fisherwoman’ continues until 13 September.

imma.ie

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SÉAMUS MCCORMACK DISCUSSES THE UK-BASED ORGANISATION SUPPORTING EMERGING AND EARLY-CAREER ARTISTS FOR OVER SEVEN DECADES. 

At New Contemporaries, we believe that creating environments where artists feel supported from their first point of contact with the art world is essential to building a more diverse, inclusive and sustainable system. Founded in 1949, by and for artists, we continue that sprit today to be led by our values that artists change us, and that everything can be reinvented. 

Over the decades, our programme has included artists such as Ed Atkins, Monster Chetwynd, Phil Collins, Tacita Dean, Antony Gormley, Sophie von Hellermann, Mona Hatoum, David Hockney, John Hoyland, Isaac Julien, Anish Kapoor, Mark Leckey, Rachel Maclean, Haroon Mirza, Richard Mosse, Mike Nelson, Laure Prouvost, Paula Rego and Gillian Wearing, among many others. What connects these artists is not a shared style, but the moment at which they were supported, at a formative point before wider recognition.

During the 1970s and 1980s, our annual exhibition operated as an artist-led initiative, organised and selected by students and artists themselves. In 1988, we re-established as an independent organisation and registered charity, creating a more sustainable structure while retaining a commitment to artist-led selection, strengthening our role between art education, professional practice, and public institutions. We are a small core team of five staff, with a Board of Trustees, and are funded by Arts Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation. 

While formats and contexts continue to evolve, our purpose remains the same: to support artists at the point where new work, new thinking and new practices emerge. We co-curate an exhibition and public programme with leading London-based institutions including South London Gallery, ICA, and Camden Arts Centre, and nationally including most recently at Grundy Art Gallery (Blackpool), KARST (Plymouth), Humber Street Gallery (Hull), and upcoming at MIMA (Middlesborough) and Focal Point Gallery (Southend). By partnering with each of these institutions, we want to celebrate the particular art ecosystems in that locality. We build programmes to extend from the exhibition with artist-run spaces or other activities in each region. 

Artists are selected for participation through an annual open call, which is selected by a panel that includes our team and established artists. For 2026, this panel includes Joy Gregory, Florence Peake, and Abbas Zahedi, who represent an exciting cross section of contemporary practice. To apply, artists need to be based in the UK, be over 21 (with no upper age limit), and we actively encourage applications from artists who are underrepresented in the sector, including those who experience barriers linked to ethnicity, class, disability, gender and sexuality. 

Over the last few years, we have expanded our eligibility remit, which now is self-defined by artists wanting to participate in our programme as ‘emerging or early-career’ and have removed the need to have graduated from formal art education. This is in recognition of the variety of trajectories for artists to start or even maintain a practice. We have seen an increased growth in pathways for artists, including informal, non-accredited learning programmes such as Open School East, Syllabus, and the Turps Studio Programme, as well as artists returning to practice later in life. In response to this expanding and increasingly diverse landscape, we are keen to support artists who are developing their practice outside of traditional routes of education. 

Our work takes place across a year-round programme of artist development. This programme is shaped by the approaches, needs and ambitions of artists working today, and includes mentoring, workshops, talks, residencies, and commissions. Currently, we work with organisations such as FORMA and Hospitalfield to create opportunities for studio residencies, and this is something we are keen to grow, as access to studio provision becomes increasing challenging for artists. 

Our remit is to support artists across the four nations of the UK, and we are actively working to create stronger relationships and visibility for artists working in all areas of the country. We have recently received a curatorial grant from Art Fund to undertake some research with practitioners and organisations in both Belfast and Derry/Londonderry, as a way of understanding the needs of artists in the Northern Irish context. 

The UK, particularly the city hubs, still attract many Irish or Ireland-based artists to either study or practice. Over the last number of years, we have worked with artists from the island including Christopher Steenson and Aaron Alexander Smyth (2025); Síomha Harrington and Hazel O’Sullivan (2024); Alannah Cyan and Anne McCloy (2023); Aoibheann Greenan (2021); and Cáit and Éiméar McClay (2020). We have seen their individual practices benefit from inclusion, leading to more opportunities, visibility, and connecting with new networks. 

Artists can participate in our programme in two ways: either by applying through our annual open-call programme, which opens in the spring of each year; or through attending our online or in-person events, advertised on our website or social media channels, that address topics and issues to support the next generation of artists. What excites me about working at New Contemporaries is the variety of artists we get to collaborate with, along with the range of UK-based partners we programme with. Our programme is agile, adaptive, and able to create meaningful change by responding to artists’ needs, while remaining new and forward-looking.

Séamus McCormack is an Irish born London based curator and Senior Curator at New Contemporaries.

newcontemporaries.org.uk

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MAEVE CONNOLLY CONSIDERS THE VALUE AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF PALLAS PROJECTS/STUDIOS AS THE ORGANISATION CELEBRATES 30 YEARS. 

Pallas Projects/Studios (PP/S) is 30 years old this year. Established by artists Mark Cullen and Brian Duggan in 1996, with Gavin Murphy joining ten years later, its first home was the former Pallas Knitwear factory on Foley Street in Dublin. Since 1996, PP/S has moved many times, occupying 16 different premises around the city, and running off-site projects across multiple locations.¹ A long-term lease was finally secured on an old school building in Dublin 8 in 2012, where Cullen and Murphy now lead the organisation, with Eve Woods as curator. In addition to the gallery and studios in The Coombe, PP/S now encompasses studios in The Digital Hub and a community and workshop space in Newmarket Yards, due to open in early summer. 

In his introduction to Artist-Run Europe: Practice/Projects/Spaces, a collection of texts published to coincide with 20 years of Pallas, Gavin Murphy highlights the struggle for space in the counter-cultural movements of the 1960s and 70s. Arts organisations, he notes, “opted to locate themselves as groups in spaces: spaces for production, thought, exhibition, and debate, and spaces which lay outside commercial or cultural zones […] situating themselves in run-down inner-city areas […] largely ignored by commercial, cultural and political interests of the time.”² This history of run-down spaces repurposed by artists is also a history of profit accrued over time through land ownership, inaccessible to artists and other tenants. 

Exposed to the ebb and flow of public funding, artist-run organisations cannot always afford to ignore the temporality of capital investment and return. As observed by UK-based arts consultant Sarah Thelwall in 2011, small-scale visual art spaces often support the early practices of artists who go on to achieve career success, but the “artistic, social and societal value” generated by this investment is not realised until much later.³ Thelwall describes this delayed return as ‘deferred value’, a term used in financial reporting when profits fall outside reporting cycles, and she advocates a shift from annual comparisons to lifecycle assessments.⁴ While this might be transformative, it would require an ongoing commitment to tracking and reporting, alongside the demands of everyday operations.

Despite modest resources, PP/S excels at its everyday operations, with a programme that maximises the gallery’s potential for events and exhibitions. While larger institutions have extended the duration of their shows, Pallas maintains a brisk pace, especially in the case of the Artist Initiated Project (AIP) programme. But the rhythm of artist-run time at PP/S is more complex than the fortnightly turnover of high quality exhibitions. In fact, Cullen and Murphy work with time in ways that are complex and distinctive. In 2011, when the gallery was briefly housed in Dominick Street, Cullen and Murphy initiated the first instalment of what has become their annual ‘Periodical Review’. Generally selected with invited collaborators, each iteration reflects on the artistic output of the previous year, or an even longer time period, with a decade of practice reviewed in ‘PR X’ (2020). 

‘Periodical Review’ is an explicitly future-orientated project, described as a “discursive action, the gallery proposed as a journal, a magazine-like layout of images that speak, the field talking to itself.”⁵ This annual ‘discursive action’ is documented on the PP/S website, providing a useful resource for exhibition researchers.⁶ The website also includes details of ‘In the making’ (2015–ongoing) an almost annual presentation of work in progress by IADT BA in Art students. The form of ‘In the making’ has been revised to account both for lengthening commutes and changing patterns of social media use. In recent years, students have become more interested in the experience of being together in time and space, and apparently less interested in performing their sociality for platforms.

In her contribution to Artist-Run Europe, Valerie Connor analyses photographs of artists who appear to be at leisure but are actually at work. An image of Eve Hesse in the 1960s, featuring objects made by artist friends as well as Hesse herself, prefigures the sharing economy and the “instrumental use of down-time […] in adding value to oneself (through the curated consumption of digital media) and monetising of mass ‘browsing’ patterns.”⁷ Affective labour and the “work of enthusiasm” is performed by groups as well as individuals. This situation requires artist-run organisations to adopt carefully considered strategies of self-representation, and it also requires researchers to expand their analytical paradigms to include visual methodologies.⁸ 

How can the value of artist-run organisations be recognised and sustained without resorting to metrics determined by platform media and capital investment? I have focused here on relations between humans, but PP/S has also explored the ‘more-than-human’ world, most recently through ‘Entangled Life’, a series of events curated over seven months by Cristina Nicotra.⁹ The more-than-human ‘commons’ describes a complex of relations, emphasising continuities between the material and the immaterial, the natural and the social, which are clearly of relevance to artist-run organisations. But simply categorising the work of artist-run organisations as a kind of ‘commoning’, because this work involves complex relations of care, use and conflict, does not solve the problem of visibility. As noted by Patrick Bresnihan, it is precisely the “practical, situated nature of commoning that makes it hard to see”, to the extent that it might be “recognized and valued only after it has disappeared.”¹⁰ Hopefully, in deepening its ongoing engagement with time, through the exploration of what is more-than-human, PP/S can engage others in the shared work of recognising value beyond dominant metrics, and in the process, sustain its own survival.

Dr Maeve Connolly is a Dublin-based researcher, focused on changing cultures and economies of art and media practice. She is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Film, Art & Creative Technologies at IADT.

maeveconnolly.net

¹ For the full list of previous locations see pallasprojects.org and also Mark Cullen, ‘Zones of Contention – Two Decades in the life of Pallas’, in Artist-Run Europe, Practice/Projects/Spaces, edited by Gavin Murphy and Mark Cullen (Eindhoven: Onomatopee, 2016) pp56–71. 

² Murphy, ‘What makes artist-run spaces different? And why it’s important to have different art spaces’, Artist-Run Europe, p6 [italics in original]

³ Sarah Thelwall, Size Matters: Notes towards a Better Understanding of the Value, Operation and Potential of Small Visual Arts Organisations (London: Common Practice, 2011) p7. [Available at commonpractice.org.uk]

⁴ Thelwall, p35.

⁵ ‘PR X’ press release, 2020 [See pallasprojects.org] 

⁶ PP/S has also supported archive-focused projects. See Megs Morley, ‘The Artist-led Archive: Sustainable Activism and the Embrace of Flux’ in Artist-Run Europe, pp72–77.

⁷ Valerie Connor, ‘‘Brown Studies’ and Artist-Led Enthusiasm’, Artist-Run Europe, p49.

⁸ Connor, p53.

⁹ ‘Entangled Life’, 14 May to 18 December 2025 [See pallasprojects.org] 

¹⁰ Patrick Bresnihan, ‘The more-than-human commons: From commons to commoning’, in Space, Power and the Commons: The Struggle for Alterative Futures, edited by Samuel Kirwan, Leila Dawney and Julian Brigstocke (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016) p104.  

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Maeve Connolly considers the value and achievements of Pallas Projects/Studios as the organisation celebrates 30 years. Check it out now by clicking here! Image: John Smith, Hotel Diaries (2001–2007), Pallas Projects, Dominick Street, March 2011; photograph by Roya Miller, courtesy of the artist and Pallas Projects/Studios.

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Backwater Artists Group

13 March – 24 April 2026

The recent group exhibition, ‘MOTH’, at Studio 12 in Backwater Artists Group in Cork, uses the adaptive evolution of the moth, following the Industrial Revolution, as a case study to consider the impact of capitalist systems on human identity and behaviours. The exhibition is curated by Emma Quin, the second recipient of the Backwater Artists Emerging Curator Award, whose curatorial framework gathers artists Andrea Newman, Lynn-Marie Dennehy, and Pádraig Spillane, in precise and generative ways. 

Architectures of surveillance and imperial power structures are foregrounded in Lynn-Marie Dennehy’s sculptural installation, Eyes and ears are bad witnesses for barbarian souls (2026). Tape and paper combine to create an image of caryatid – an architectural support carved in the shape of a female figure – superimposed over a classical Ionic column. The wall-sized print extends, in part, across the ceiling and floor, its papery ephemerality parodying the idea of the monumental. The patchwork nature of Dennehy’s image making calls to mind Hussein Mitha’s essay ‘The Wretched of the City (An Excerpt)’ for Strange lands still bear common ground, the publication for the 23rd edition of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, curated by Beulah Ezeugo. They ask if the bodies depicted in caryatids have been ‘anthropomorphised’ or ‘petrified’, highlighting the very real human labour involved in their creation and in the upholding of our contemporary institutions and social structures. 

Dennehy’s greyscale caryatid, evoking a sense of a shadowy, even nefarious, influence, is suggestive of the unseen role of colonial artefacts in defining our current value systems. The artist is interested in the overlooked Ionic column as a metaphor for disregarded histories. The pale pink highlights that surround the figure and pillar made me think about the ‘gynaopetican’. This term, coined by theorist Alison Winch, is a gendered, neoliberal variation on Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon, that enacts perpetual surveillance, disciplinary power, and regulation by women upon the bodies of other women. This in turn prompts reflection on the complex behaviours that see women upholding aggressive capitalist power systems while simultaneously being oppressed by them. 

Pádraig Spillane’s grid of photographs, Image Notes (2026), is an immediate manifestation of perhaps the greatest panopticon of all: Instagram. Indeed, the images are a selection from the artist’s social media platform over the past ten years. The effect is, at first, mildly disorientating. The reality that 45 images – three rows of 15 – presented against a white wall, could disrupt my senses, seems absurd, considering how easily I scroll past thousands of images on my screen every day. Once I make a concerted effort to engage with each image individually, the rewards are endless: a curious image of a light fixture reflected in a window that frames a pink sky; a surreal image of a child’s toy car washed ashore; the tanning salon I pass daily, presented within a composition of technical excellence. The presentation draws into question modes of image circulation in a time of intense moral quandary regarding artificial intelligence. Interestingly, in spite of technological advancements, we still think of images in photographic terms – in fixed, framed moments. There is something quite poignant about Spillane’s ‘eye’ creating social and aesthetic connections that resist the ever-changing ratios of online formats.

One and Three Shutters (2024) by Andrea Newman also elicits strong emotion – this time, rage. In a nod to conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs (1965), Newman arranges a metal shutter alongside a photographic print of the object and its linguistic definition on separate sheets of aluminium. The latter cites a statistic relating to the high-cost Cork City Council have incurred in ‘shuttering’ vacant and derelict properties in recent years. Newman’s three objects combine to resemble a row of headstones – an apt metaphor for the dereliction and socio-economic impact that emerge from the state’s neglect of social housing. The artist also alludes to the role of language in denoting such hierarchies. 

In the context of the broader exhibition, it is interesting to consider the shutter more expansively, in relation to the class dynamics of classical architecture referenced in Dennehy’s work, and in the mechanics of photography explored by Spillane. Returning to Quin’s curatorial enquiry, which uses the adaptive behaviours of moths as an analogy for the self-surveillance we reinforce, reproduce and perform under capitalism, ‘MOTH’ is an exhibition that is at times poetic, often polymorphic, and deeply political. 

Sarah Long is an artist and writer based in Cork.

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Queen Street Studios + Gallery

12 March – 16 April 2026 

‘Watching a sunset, 8.49 pm’ is an exhibition at QSS in Belfast of new work by Sligo-based artist, Andy Parsons, created over the last two years. This is the first iteration of a touring exhibition that will change and adapt to six different venues around Ireland. The time in the exhibition title will gradually increase with each presentation, culminating early next year at Esker Arts Centre in Tullamore with ‘Watching a sunset, 8.54 pm’. The exhibition comprises nine paintings, mostly acrylic on canvas, all sharing the title Watching a sunset, as well as a large group of objects called Sculptures of watching figures. 

Watching a sunset (red quartet) shows four figures seated on the ground – striped forms indicating towels or picnic blankets – with knees drawn up or in various states of recline. Facial features are evoked in shades of cobalt blue, mixed wet on wet, with scarlet undertones. One figure smokes; another smiles. The figures seem at ease, all facing in one direction, as if waiting for something to take place – a ceremony, spectacle, or initiation. 

Watching a sunset (after Henry Moore) and Watching a sunset (through a phone) act as a pair; both are acrylic on canvas and are hemmed and fitted with eyelets. Each features a supine figure, with knees raised and legs crossed at the ankles. The Henry Moore reference could denote any of the sculptor’s reclining forms, yet it is the foreshortened body in Mantegna’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ (c.1480) that first springs to mind, despite details like shoelaces that indicate modernity. The figure opposite, painted almost entirely in yellow apart from the white trainers, holds up a smartphone that obscures the face, engrossed in the virtual world or in a mediated version of reality, while a yellow wax sculpture, one of the ‘watching figures’, mirrors the painting in miniature. In total there are 42 figures, striking every conceivable pose, and fabricated in multiple styles, using an impressive array of materials – from clay, plaster, and acrylic, to wire, wood, card, and 3D-printed elements.  

Watching a sunset (after Michelangelo) takes the voyeuristic theme of ‘red quartet’ to a monumental scale. Populating the upper half of the five-metre-wide canvas is a group of some ten figures seated on the ground, some only partially visible, alone or in groups, while several engage with mobile phones. They are delineated in earthy tones, blocked in with yellow, and outlined in darker greens, blues, and mauves. A lot is left to interpretation, the loose brushwork suggesting half remembered things. The lower section is an abstract swathe of washes and broad brushwork indicating a body of water. Again, the group has the air of relaxed expectancy of music festival goers waiting for a performance to begin. The work’s title references Michelangelo, and perhaps specifically his fresco for the Sistine Chapel, The Last Judgement (1536–1541), yet my thoughts also drift to the huddled coven of Goya’s Witches’ Sabbath (1798).

Watching a sunset (Love’s easy tears) (2026) is of a similar scale but employs a very different colour palette and composition. To the right, a large figure in silhouette raises a hand to screen their eyes to view the sunset. The rest of the unstretched canvas is filled with colour fields of orange, red, purple and yellow that conjure up a riverbend or natural amphitheatre. On closer inspection, this section reveals small groupings, reminiscent of the cavorting couples in the desert scene of Antonioni’s 1970 film, Zabriskie Point. In fact, there is something quite nostalgic about people gathering in nature, yet the appearance of smartphones grounds these works in the contemporary era.

Punta Cometa is a headland on Mexico’s Pacific coast where people gather to watch the sunset. I remember a person there beating a drum, the tempo slowly increasing as the sun dipped ever closer to the horizon. Parsons, speaking of the “human need for fellowship and beauty through interactions with the natural world,” sums up this memory for me perfectly. Even if elements of the modern experience of this simple activity might, due to the ubiquitous smartphone, lean towards the performative, or be mediated by screens, surely now, at a time of imminent environmental collapse, the communal act of celebrating a beautiful natural phenomenon, free and open to anyone, is worth commemorating. 

Jonathan Brennan is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Belfast.

jonathanbrennanart.com

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VAN May/June 2026 issue foregrounds visual art projects, events, and exhibitions taking place across Ireland and internationally. Among feature articles for this issue, Maeve Connolly considers the value and achievements of Pallas Projects/Studios, as the organisation celebrates 30 years, Séamus McCormack discusses New Contemporaries, a UK-based organisation supporting emerging and early-career artists for over seven decades, and Rachael Gilbourne interviews Alberta Whittle on the occasion of ‘Fisherwoman, Fisherwoman’, her two-person exhibition with Camille Souter at IMMA. Several columns for this issue foreground access, with Áine O’Hara outliningthe importance ofdigital access for those managing chronic illness, and Miguel Amado highlighting the need for inclusive curatorialmethods to work with disabled, D/deaf, and neurodivergent artists. In Focus explores the theme of Island Landscapes: Andrew Duggan, Sophie Fetokaki, and Seán Ó Dálaigh, report on their current project, Planetary Archipelagos; Mary Flanagan discusses a residency and exhibition undertaken by Jo Killalea on Inis Meáin; while Sinéad McCormick discussesthe evolution of the BAVA Programme on Sherkin Island. This issue also includes timely coverage of recent exhibitions nationwide: Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh at An Gailearaí in Donegal; Michael Corrigan at SO Fine Art Editions in Dublin; Andy Parsons at Queens Street Studios in Belfast; Helen O’Leary at The Dock in County Leitrim; Hilary Kinahan at Esker Arts Centre in Tullamore; ‘MOTH’, a group exhibition at Backwater Artists Studio in Cork; Lauren Gault’s ‘bone stone voice alone’ at Dundee Contemporary Arts; and Bryony Dunne’s ‘The trackmaker was a sluggish mover’ at the Irish Architectural Archive in Dublin. On The Cover: Alberta Whittle, Autumn Equinox – abolition invocation, 2023, acrylic on linen, painted wooden frame with fretwork, beads, cowrie shells and shackle, installation view, Irish Museum of Modern Art, March 2026; photograph by Ros Kavanagh, courtesy of the artist and IMMA. FIRST PAGES  6          Roundup. Exhibitions and events from the past two months. 8          News. The latest developments in the arts sector. COLUMNS 9          Péint Bheo. Cornelius Browne explores linguistic and environmental themes in the paintings of Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh. Theory of the Dot*Artists Andrea Francke and Matthew De Kersaint Giraudeau discuss an episode of their podcast, recently recorded at NCAD. 10        Digital Access. Áine O’Hara outlinesthe importance ofdigital access for those managing chronic illness. Inclusive Curating. Miguel Amado highlights the need for enhanced methods to work with disabled, D/deaf, and neurodivergent artists. 11        The Event Horizon. Matt Packer examines the curatorial rationale for an exhibition at IMMA in 1996. How Shall We Do This? Lian Bell reports on a recent symposium on shaping a feminist art resource centre in Ireland. 12        How to Build Your Legacy. Ruth Hallinan discusses NIVAL’s newtoolkit for artists’ archiving. Infrastructure As Armature. Aisling Murray considers some recent creative producer training in cork 13        Funding Advice. VAI Advocacy OfficerBrian Kieltoutlines funding advice and resources for visualartists. IN FOCUS: ISLAND LANDSCAPES   14        Planetary Archipelagos. Andrew Duggan, Sophie Fetokaki, and Seán Ó Dálaigh, report on their current project focusing on divided islands. 15        Mí an Mhárta. Mary Flanagan discusses a residency and exhibition undertaken by Jo Killalea on Inis Meáin, Aran Islands, County Galway. 16        Decentralised Integration. Sinéad McCormick discussesthe evolution of the BAVA Programme on Sherkin Island. ARTIST WORKSPACES 18        Guildhall Taphouse Studios. Cara Donaghey discusses a new artist-run studio space next to the historic Guildhall in Derry. Patrick Street Studios. Clodagh Kenny discusses a new artist workspace that she recently opened in Dún Laoghaire. CRITIQUE 19        Helen O’Leary, ‘Soft Spot’, installation view, The Dock. 20        Michael Corrigan at SO Fine Art Editions 21        Andy Parsons at Queens Street Studios 22        Helen O’Leary at The Dock 23        Hilary Kinahan at Esker Arts Centre 24        ‘MOTH’ at Backwater Artists Studio SOCIALLY ENGAGED PRACTICE 25        Yes, But Do You Care? Clodagh Assata Boyce reports on Marie Brett’s screening event at IMMA. EXHIBITION 26        Fisherwoman, Fisherwoman. Rachael Gilbourne interviews Alberta Whittle about her two-person exhibition with Camille Souter at IMMA. 28        Adaptation or Extinction? Michael Hill considers evolutionary and temporal connections across two recent exhibitions. INTERNATIONAL 30        New Contemporaries. Séamus McCormack discusses the UK-based organisation supporting emerging and early-career artists for over seven decades. ORGANISATION 32        Artist-Run Time. Maeve Connolly considers the value and achievements of Pallas Projects/Studios as they celebrate 30 years. MEMBER 35        Palimpsest. Joanna Hopkins discusses her art practice and a recent community ecology project at Nephin National Park. 36        A Brightness at the Edge of Things. Oisín Tozer discusses a recent project and its adaptation into a solo exhibition in Green on Red Gallery. 37        We Are Her Continuation. Aisling Coughlan discusses the evolution of her practice and her current exhibition at Axis Ballymun. LAST PAGES 38        Opportunities. Grants, awards, open calls, and commissions. 39        VAI Lifelong Learning. Helpdesks, cafés, and webinars.

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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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