Artist Kevin Mooney discusses his major solo exhibition 'Mutators' in conversation with Curator Sarah Kelleher. This conversation was recorded with a live audience in St. Luke's Crypt, Cork City, to mark the conclusion of this exhibition in May 2022.

About the Artist: Kevin Mooney is an Irish artist based in Sample-Studios, Cork. He recently presented a solo exhibition, The Erlish Tide, in the Excel Gallery, Tipperary in 2021, supported by The Arts Council of Ireland Commissions Award. Previous exhibitions include Pines Eye, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, 2020, EVA International, Limerick, 2018, The Law Is a White Dog, Tulca Festival, Galway, 2020, Fragments of San Borondon, Triskel Arts Centre, 2019, (Solo), Everything Is In Everything, Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, 2019, Apparition, Sternview Gallery, 2018, (Solo), Seeing Things, Artbox Projects, Dublin, 2017,(Solo), Twilight Head Cult, Ormston House, Limerick, 2016, (Solo), What Is and What Might Be, Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, 2015, Making Familiar, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, 2012, and Wave, Pallas Projects, 2014, (Solo). Kevin holds an MFA from NCAD. His work is held in various collections including Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, The OPW, The Arts Council of Ireland and Galway City Council.

About the Curator: Sarah Kelleher is an arts writer and a Government of Ireland Scholar. Sarah is an experienced programmer, having worked as part of the programming team of the National Sculpture Factory and managed the Vangard Gallery, Cork. Sarah has published widely, writing for the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Paper Visual Art Journal, Enclave Review, and The VAI Visual Artists News Sheet. She has an independent curatorial practice and has co-curated the exhibitions Affective Entities in collaboration with MAKE 2016 and This is not my voice speaking (2015) at the Wandesford Quay Gallery. Formed in 2014 by Sarah Kelleher and Rachel Warriner, Pluck Projects are Curators in Residnce at Cork Midsummer Festival.

Sample-Studios Graduate Studio Resident Kayleigh Maimaran discusses her new solo exhibition and shares insights around sustaining her practice after college with Graduate Curatorial Resident Kate McSharry. ‘Beyond Liminal’ is presented by Sample-Studios in The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion on from April 28th - May 21st 2022. Open daily: Wednesday to Saturday, 11am-4pm.

‘Beyond Liminal’ explores a luminous psychological space through an immersive light landscape, where the viewer is encouraged to engage with their own mind space, and move into a transcendent place far off from our fast-paced everyday environment.

Kayleigh Maimaran is a Cork-based visual artist from Hamburg, Germany. On graduating from Crawford College of Art and Design in 2021 with a BA in Fine Art, she received the Graduate Studio Residency Award from Sample-Studios and The Arts Council Artist Bursary Award. Kayleigh’s current practice visualises psychological space with an aim to immerse the viewer within the surrounding environment. Her work ‘Under the Surface’ has been selected for multiple film festivals. Upcoming exhibitions include K-Fest in Killorglin, Kerry.

Kate McSharry graduated with First Class Honours and the Academic Achievement Award in Contemporary Art from GMIT in 2021. She was shortlisted for the RDS Visual Art Awards and received a Graduate Curatorial Residency Award with Sample-Studios. Kate is an Education Officer at TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, was recently appointed as a Design Ambassador for Architecture at the Edge, and will work as an Exhibition Mediator in the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Upcoming exhibitions include K-Fest in Killorglin, Kerry and a two-person exhibition in Gallery Asna, Clonakilty, Cork.

Shadow Forests is an exhibition by artist Angela Gilmour and writer Beth Jones in The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, Cork City, presented by Sample-Studios, which focuses on the intersections of deep time, climate change and the expansive life and death of forests.

Contributors:

Barbara Moran is an environmental editor at WBUR, in Boston, Massachusetts. She focuses on climate science and climate solutions, but has covered public health, environmental justice and the intersection of science and society over 25 years as a science journalist. She has written for The New York Times, New Scientist, Technology Review and the Boston Globe Magazine and produced PBS documentaries. She was a Knight Fellow at MIT and was awarded the National Association of Science Writers’ highest honour, the Science in Society Award.

Beth Jones is an American author, journalist, digital storyteller and educator based in Boston. Her digital stories explore human engagement with extreme situations and environments including the climate crisis and trauma. She has written for the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Scientific American, and many other outlets. She published an award-winning book with Little, Brown & Co. Inc.

Wendy Derjue-Holzer is the Harvard Museum of Natural History Education Director at the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture. She delights in creating opportunities for youth and adult audiences to engage in close observation and playful exploration of the natural world. Prior to Harvard, Wendy worked at the Exploratorium, an iconic science museum in San Francisco, and taught high school science in the New York City Public Schools.

Leah Sobsey is an artist and Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of North Carolina. She works in 19th-century photographic processes combined with digital technology. She has exhibited in The Center For Fine Art Photography, The Weatherspoon Art Museum in and 21C Hotel Museum, North Carolina and Rayko Photo Gallery, California.

Artist Emma O' Hara is joined by Assistant Curator in Crawford Art Gallery Cork, Dr. Michael Waldron in conversation about her current solo exhibition, 'The Sun Casts a Shadow'. This exhibition is open in The Lord Mayor's Pavilion, Fitzgerald's Park Cork until March 9th 2022. Open Daily from Wednesdays to Saturdays, 11am-4pm.

Emma O’Hara is a visual artist based in Cork City, Ireland. She graduated with a BA majoring in Printmaking in Contemporary Practice from the Limerick School of Art and Design (2016). She was awarded the Cork Printmakers 12-month Bursary (2016) where she has continued to hone & expand her visual practice. She has exhibited in numerous national and international exhibitions and her work is held in a number of private and public collections including the OPW. She was also the recipient of the 2021 Arts Council Agility Award. Her most recent solo exhibition, ‘One who walks the clouds’ took place in Hang Tough Contemporary Dublin in August 2021.

Dr Michael Waldron is a curator, educator, and researcher based in Cork, Ireland with an interdisciplinary background in literary criticism and art history. He is presently Assistant Curator of Collections & Special Projects at Crawford Art Gallery. He has previously lectured in English, Irish Studies, European Art History, and History of Art at University College Cork. He holds a PhD in English literature and has published on Irish artists John Hogan, Samuel Forde, Patrick Hennessy, John Noel Smith, Joseph Heffernan, John Rainey, and writer Elizabeth Bowen. He is the curator of Deep Maps: West Cork Coastal Cultures (2017) at The Glucksman and several further exhibitions at Crawford Art Gallery, including Recasting Canova (2019-2022). He joined the Board of Sample-Studios in August 2021.

Artist Sian Costello discusses her solo exhibition 'Rapture of the Sisters' in The Lord Mayor's Pavilion, Fitzgerald's Park, Cork City, with art writer and sculptor Theo Hynan-Ratcliffe.

Sian Costello is a multidisciplinary artist and studio-based member of Wickham Street Studios, Limerick City. Since graduating in 2020 with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art painting from Limerick School of Art and Design, Costello has exhibited widely in group exhibitions in Limerick, Galway and Roscommon, along with recent solo shows at the Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, Co. Clare, and internationally with Flat Octopus at Detroit Stockholm, Sweden. Her current studio practice explores issues pertaining to femininity, corporeality, perception and the female image within the art historical canon.

Theo Hynan-Ratcliffe studied Sculpture & Combined Media in Limerick School of Art & Design and since then has practiced as a critical and creative writer and works as Co Founder and Director of Miscreating Sculpture Studios. She is also currently undertaking a Masters in Art Writing with Glasgow School of Art.

'Rapture of the Sisters' is presented in The Lord Mayor's Pavilion until January 29th 2022, as part of Connect 5, a partnership initiative between GOMA Gallery Waterford, Wickham Street Studios Limerick, Engage Art Studios Galway, BKB Studios Dublin and Sample-Studios Cork which will present a series of five solo exhibitions of selected studio members, in venues across Ireland in 2022.

Artist Studio Managers from Cork, Dublin and Waterford, Ireland, reflect on 2021 - the challenges of studio closure, the highlights of finding new ways of working and supporting artists, as well as key lessons for 2022.

Aoibhie McCarthy, Artistic Director of Sample-Studios Cork is joined by:

Garter Lane Arts Centre is a vibrant and thriving venue for visual arts, theatre, dance, comedy, music, film, and literature in the heart of Waterford City. Sandra Kelly manages gallery exhibitions, studios for 7 artists and an education and outreach programme. Her outreach programme includes a diverse range of creative activities for babies, toddlers, children and their families, young people, senior citizens and artistic practitioners. Sandra holds a BA in Visual Art and a MA in Arts and Heritage Management and has recently completed a year-long course with NODE in International Curatorial Studies.

BKB Visual Arts Studio was founded in July 2019 by Emily Brennan, Gemma Brown and Bianca Kennedy, following their graduation from Dublin Institute of Technology BA in Fine Art in 2018. They have developed the studios and visual arts programme through difficult months of Covid-19 responsive closures to build a thriving visual arts community of practitioners in Glasnevin, Dublin.

Sample-Studios is one of Ireland's largest artist studios, based in Churchfield, Cork City. It provides affordable artist studios, professional development, mentorship and residencies for professional visual artists. Sample-Studios presents a year-round programme of exhibitions and events in The Lord Mayor's Pavilion and St. Luke's Crypt in Cork City and delivers five education and community outreach programmes.

Sample-Studios’ Graduate Curatorial Resident, Ava Hayes, hosts The Radical Institute at Studios of Sanctuary residents, Jerome Jefferson Kiyemba, Seiko Hayase, Neo Gilson and Catarina Araújo, to discuss their individual artistic practices, as they embark on this unique residency programme.

The Radical Institute at Studios of Sanctuary is a new mentorship-led residency programme based at Sample-Studios, one of Ireland’s largest artist studios and is led by Dr. Eve Olney and Dr. Krini Kafiris of The Radical Institute, a Cork-based, transnational initiative that employs the arts and cultural practice to promote and sustain radical social and ecological change. The programme is supported by the Cork Arts Fund at The Community Foundation of Ireland. It was established to support arts practitioners from an asylum seeker, refugee and migrant background, with a socially engaged and community collaborative art practice. The 15 month programme supports each of the four residents with their own studio spaces in Sample-Studios, access to expert mentorship with The Radical Institute, access to a Summer School programme, an exhibition opportunity in The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion and bursaries to support their work.

Neo Gilson is a South African writer, singer, storyteller and Corcadorca’s current writer in residence. Jerome Jefferson Kiyemba is a Waterford-based Tanzanian-born emerging documentary filmmaker and activist. Seiko Hayase is a Cork County-based Japanese visual artist and recent Artist in Residence in Uilinn West Cork Arts Centre. Catarina Araújo is a Cork City-based Portuguese visual artist and recent graduate of the MA in Art and Process in Crawford College of Art and Design.

Deirdre Frost presents the culmination of her Sample-Studios Graduate Studio Residency in St. Luke’s Crypt and her Backwater Artists Group Residency in Studio 12 in a two-venue exhibition trail in Cork City of new immersive painting and sculptural work, ‘In Habitat, In Transition’ from September 9 - October 8 2021.

St. Luke’s Crypt features an installation artwork titled Áitreabh (Habitation), made of birch panels, oil and acrylic paint, with this musical response composed by Paul Frost and recorded by Mia Cooper, violin (Leader RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Esposito Quartet). A map is provided in both St. Luke's Crypt and Studio 12 which outlines the buildings and sites that have inspired Deirdre’s work. We invite you to listen to the music in the spaces and as you travel from one venue to the next, and view these sites of inspiration along your journey in Cork City.

About the Artist

Deirdre Frost is a Cork-based visual artist. She completed a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at the Crawford College of Art & Design Cork in 2020. In 2021, she had solo exhibitions in The Lavit Gallery and the Joan Clancy Gallery. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the CCAD Class of 2020 Valerie Gleeson Development Bursary, Joan Clancy Gallery Annual Exhibition Award, Lavit Gallery Student of the Year, Ciarán Langford Memorial Bursary – Backwater Artists Group, CCAD Graduate Residency Award and the Sample-Studios Graduate Studio Residency Award.

Sample-Studios' Graduate Artist in Residence, Elinor O' Donovan, discusses her solo exhibition 'Brain Worms' in The Lord Mayor's Pavilion, Cork City, with Kaitlynn Webster of 126 Gallery, Galway.

Elinor O'Donovan is a Cork-based visual artist. She studied Intermedia at Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 2019. With her colourful digital collages and prints, Elinor explores artefacts of internet culture, such as memes and stock photos, visualising the porousness of the so-called 'digital divide'. She is currently a Graduate Studio Resident at Sample-Studios, Cork. She is the recipient of The Arts Council of Ireland Visual Artist Bursary, Cork City Council Bursary and the Cork International Film Festival Commission Award. Her first major solo exhibition is presented in The Lord Mayor's Pavilion, Cork City, until September 11th 2021.

Kaitlynn Webster is a multidisciplinary visual artist from California, based in Galway. She received her BA with Honours from California State University, Fresno and her MFA from the Burren College of Art/ NUIG. She is currently on the Board of 126 Gallery in Galway which will host Elinor O' Donovan's next solo exhibition.

This episode hears from three artists, Catherine Outram, Lindy Furby and Lesley Logue about the exhibition 'Mouth of a Shark', an exhibition by Cork Printmakers and Edinburgh Printmakers at Sample-Studios, Lord Mayors Pavilion, Fitzgerald Park, Cork City.

The exhibition runs from the 8-31 July 2021 and explores the concepts of home and displacement with artists selected through an open call exhibited in both Edinburgh and Cork. Hosted by Cork Printmakers Director, Aideen Quirke, this episode hears about the ideas behind the work of the artists and how they responded to the open call from Edinburgh Printmakers and Cork Printmakers in 2019. The first instalment of the exhibition was hosted at Edinburgh Printmakers in December 2019 to January 2020 featuring Cork Printmakers artists Angela Gilmour, Fiona Kelly and David Lilburn, and Edinburgh Printmakers artist Anna York. For this Irish instalment of “Mouth of a Shark”, we see work by Edinburgh Printmakers artists Catherine Outram, Lindy Furby and Lesley Logue, and Cork Printmakers artist Diane Keating.

“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark”

New figures from UNHCR show a record 70.8 million displaced people in the world – more than the population of the UK. Around 44,400 people leave their homes every day – driven to the unknown by fear, persecution, economics and the simple need to escape – and drawn by hope for a better future for themselves and their families.