FSAS 2025 Summer Studio: Ultimology Summer School

Devised and facilitated by Fiona Hallinan and Kate Strain, and developed in collaboration with Kunstverein Aughrim and the Department of Ultimology.

Fire Station Artists’ Studios annual Summer Studio provides international curatorial research and networking opportunities to Irish artists and curators, with a concentrated programme of lectures, critique and site visits customised to the chosen theme for the year.

For 2025, this 3-day (28-30 May) intensive workshop onsite at FSAS invites participants to delve into Ultimology: the study of endings. Through readings, field trips, hands-on activities, seminars and guest presentations, the group will draw on research into practices proximate to death, to imagine how paying attention to endings might shape approaches to artistic knowledge production.

We are living in a period of environmental crises that has been deemed a “sixth mass extinction” for the extent of biodiversity and species loss wrought by human-led activity. In this context, Ultimology considers ways of paying attention to vulnerability, obsolescence, redundancy and death, asking how might we navigate loss and consider endings at a time when many rituals, species, relationships and ways of being are at risk of extinction? Ultimology considers how we attend to the loss of life, that most significant of endings, to inform our approach to thinking about other endings and the urgencies of the present. 

The three-day programme will be delivered by Fiona Hallinan and Kate Strain of the Department of Ultimology, in collaboration with invited guest contributors: Marie Farrington, Maïa Nunes and Staci Bu Shea. Artist Marie Farrington will lead a hands-on clay workshop during a session of deep introductions. Artist and sound therapist Maïa Nunes will lead a site-specific Voice Bath as part of our field trip to Kunstverein Aughrim. Curator Staci Bu Shea will lead a workshop and share a presentation on their research into the practice of Dying Livingly, drawing on their holistic experience as a death doula to speak to the aesthetic and poetic experience of living life led by death.

Schedule
Day 1: Deep Introductions
Facilitators and participants share introductions to their research and artistic practices, during a hands-on clay workshop led by artist Marie Farrington.

Day 2: Field Trip
A coach takes participants from Dublin to south county Wicklow, to visit an exhibition at Kunstverein Aughrim. Pit stops along the way include a Voice Bath by artist and sound therapist Maïa Nunes.

Day 3: Dying Livingly
Readings and an intimate workshop with our invited contributor Staci Bu Shea, followed by a public presentation and launch of Bu Shea’s newest publication Dying Livingly (2025).

About the contributors:

Fiona Hallinan is an artist, researcher, filmmaker and, alongside curator Kate Strain, co-founder of the Department of Ultimology, based between Brussels, Belgium and Cork, Ireland. Her doctoral research at LUCA School of Arts, KU Leuven explores the coming-into-being of Ultimology as a tool for transformative discourse. This project involves instigating gatherings around “ruptures” as case studies; the closure of a canteen, the demolition of a church, the extinction of a plant. This research is informed by gathering knowledge related to rituals of mourning, supported by a monthly reading group On Death. She is interested in themes of hospitality, traces, thresholds, care and critical pedagogy and often works with food as part of her practice, cooking and organising meals. She has presented work in a number of international contexts, including at IMMA, VISUAL Carlow, Kerlin Gallery, the John Nicholas Brown Centre for Public Humanities at Brown University and Grazer Kunstverein. Her film and installation work, We Turn Towards an Ending and Pay Attention, is currently on exhibition at Kunsthal Ghent, Belgium, until June 2025.

Kate Strain is a curator of contemporary art and the founding director of Kunstverein Aughrim. From 2016–2021 she was Artistic Director of Grazer Kunstverein, Austria, where she commissioned a rolling programme of seasonal solo exhibitions and collaborative projects by major international artists. In close collaboration with artist Fiona Hallinan, Strain is co-founder of the Department of Ultimology, a research body dedicated to the study of endings. Working alongside Rachael Gilbourne, Strain makes up one half of the paired curatorial practice RGKSKSRG, commissioning, presenting and contextualising contemporary art. Strain previously worked as Acting Curator at Project Arts Centre, a multidisciplinary art centre in Dublin. She is a member of IKT, the international association of curators of contemporary art, and regularly lectures in curatorial practice, art history and contemporary art.

Staci Bu Shea (b. Miami, 1988) is a curator, writer and death doula based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Broadly, they focus on aesthetic and poetic practices of social reproduction and care work, as well as its manifestations in interpersonal relationships and daily life, community organizing and institutional practice. Bu Shea’s latest publication Solution 305: Dying Livingly (Sternberg Press, 2025) is a collection of short essays written in the first few years of the author’s holistic deathcare research and practice. With a focus on the truth of impermanence and the material cultures of death and dying, the writing reaches toward a future of compassionate, community-centered deathcare. Bu Shea was curator at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons (Utrecht, 2017-2022). With Carmel Curtis, they co-curated Barbara Hammer: Evidentiary Bodies at Leslie Lohman Museum of Art (New York City, 2017). Bu Shea holds an MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (2016).

Marie Farrington is an artist whose practice reflects on the act of making through geological and archaeological lenses. Using casting, carving and other sculptural processes, she engages with memory through situated encounters with landscape and architecture. Her work makes formal reference to field sampling, built heritage and histories of display. She holds a Three-Year Membership Studio at Temple Bar Gallery & Studios and is a part-time lecturer at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Her work is held in the permanent collections of The Arts Council of Ireland, Trinity Centre for the Environment, and the Office of Public Works. Supported by The Arts Council of Ireland.

Maïa Nunes is an Irish-Trinidadian transdisciplinary artist & sound therapist whose artwork weaves with voice, cloth, movement, sound and the land to create immersive and multi-textural performance worlds in the form of films, audio-sculptural installations and live performances. Theirs is a liberation practice; a live process of re-membering the self in dialogue with the ancestral past. It unravels and re-imagines, using a transpersonal approach to usher catharsis and transformation. A core focus of the FSAS Summer Studio is to support the development of a more inclusive professional visual arts sector that includes curators and writers along with artists. Those who participate in the programme are curators, artists and writers who show an interest in exploring together selected themes relevant to their current practice. The application process is competitive and participants are required to submit short written proposals concerning their desire to participate in the course. More details on the application process will be available here soon.

The FSAS Summer Studio programme is currently entering its tenth year. Each year’s theme reflects a different dimension highlighting contemporary curatorial practices. Themes include Performative Curating (2016), Gonzo Curating (2017), Curating in the 21st Century (2018), Live Free or Die (2019), Productive Work (2020), Workplaces and Their Future Stories (2021), The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art (2022), Eating Fast and Slow (2023), and Taking Care (2024).

How to apply:

Participants will have an active and demonstrable practice in the arts, and an interest in ideas around death, endings, extinction, loss, preservation, ecology, education, practices of care, feminist new materialism, death studies, wake work. 

To apply, please send the following: 

1) a selected CV (2 pages maximum) 

2) an expression of interest stating how participating in the Ultimology Summer School would be of benefit to your practice. Please refer to previous work or projects that demonstrate your interest in the theme of endings (1 page max + up to 3 images or audio/video files) 

Please send all these documents in 1 PDF file by email to apply@firestation.ie with the subject line FSAS Summer Studio 2025. 

Please note: selection is competitive as numbers are restricted to 10 and a fee of €150 is payable. The closing date for receipt of completed application is Wednesday, 26 March at 5pm. For queries, contact programme@firestation.ie. 

FSAS Summer Studio 2024: Taking Care with Siobhán Forshaw

Calling artists, curators, writers & thinkers interested in ‘care’ and artistic practice.   

Increasingly palpable, need for care, provision of care, exploration of what care means in work, at home and in society seems to come to everyone.  What are the strategies, the practices, the implications around Care in the context of art practice that can be articulated and applied? 

For Summer Studio 2024, Fire Station Artists’ Studios presents: 

Taking Care, a three-day summer studio devised and hosted by London based curator Siobhán Forshaw and guest contributors. 

Fire Station Artists’ Studios (FSAS) invite expressions of interest for Summer Studio 2024, Taking Care, to take place in FSAS on 10, 11 & 12 July. 

Details of the Summer Studio
Dates:              10 – 12 July 2024
Time:               10am – 5pm
Venue:             Project Space, Fire Station Artists’ Studios, 9-11 Lower Buckingham Street, Dublin 1
Price:               €150 for the three days, lunch included. 

The Summer Studio will focus on ‘Care’. With contributions from peers (to be announced), the participants will explore the different ways care can manifest in their practices as artists, cultural workers and organisations.  

As well as using this time to connect, listen and reflect, participants will use Summer Studio time to embody ideas and strategies around Care, from the programme contributors.  

The questions that guide the FSAS Summer Studio 2024 are: 

  • What do we need from our work structures to nourish our practice, to stay connected, to remain sustainable as artists and cultural workers? 
  • How can we root principles of care in work with communities and artists? 
  • How do we safeguard our spaces and practices from burnout and exhaustion?  What role does resistance and refusal have in this? 
  • How can organisations remain open to the challenges of conflict and criticism, avoiding fragility and defensiveness? 

About Siobhán Forshaw: 

Siobhán Forshaw is a curator and researcher. Her interests include contested cultural memory and identity, the relationships between care and labour, human and non-human community systems, and in power devolution and access in the art world, particularly concerning class and disability.  Siobhan has participated in the International Curators Programme at FSAS.  

Accessibility:
We want our event to be accessible to anyone who is interested in attending. If you have access related questions, please contact Julia at programme@firestation.ie 

  • This event will take place in person at Fire Station Artists’ Studios (Fire Station Artists’ Studios, 9-11 Lower Buckingham Street, Dublin 1) – bus stop ‘Portland Row’ on Amiens Street. The closest wheelchair-accessible station is Connolly Station. To the best of our knowledge, there are no planned disruptions to local transport on the date of this event. 
  • FSAS can facilitate wheelchair users. Please be aware the courtyard is made partly of cobblestones. Weather permitting, we will hold parts of this event outside. 
  • Lunch will be provided each day which will include GF, Vegan and Vegetarian options. Please get in touch with any additional dietary requirements. 
  • Covid/masking: we will not require guests or speakers to wear masks for this event, however we will provide masks.
  • With 3 weeks’ notice, we can provide ISL interpretation for this event. If you require ISL interpretation, please get in touch as soon as possible to allow us enough time to book an interpreter.  

How to apply
Participants will have an active and demonstrable practice in this area. 

To apply, please send the following: 

1) a selected CV (2 pages maximum) 

2) an expression of interest stating how participating to Taking Care will benefit your practice and referring to projects that demonstrate the socially engaged or collaborative nature of your practice (1 page max + up to 3 images or audio/video files) 

Please send all these documents in 1 PDF file by email to apply@firestation.ie with the subject line Summer Studio.  

Please note: selection is competitive as numbers are restricted to 12 and a fee of €150 is payable. The closing date for receipt of completed application is Friday, 31 May at 5pm. 

For queries, contact programme@firestation.ie

Chronic Connections: Networking for sick and disabled artists

[Download easy to read file here]

Fire Station Artists’ Studios are collaborating with Chronic Collective for Chronic Connections: a series of networking and mentoring events for sick and disabled artists.

Disabled and chronically ill artists often cannot network in the same way as their peers, this programme tries to bridge the gap and invites curators and programmers to have a conversation with disabled and chronically ill artists about their work.

This programme involves two events, the first is a ‘speed curating’ networking event  (artists will have 15 minutes with each of our curators to introduce themselves and their practice) and the second event will be a one-to-one studio visit or meeting with a selected curator. 

After the initial networking event, the artists will share feedback on the networking event and will be matched with the most suitable curator for their needs. The artists will then be able to avail of one scheduled studio visit/meeting as part of this programme, with the curator they are matched with.

Throughout the programme, Chronic Collective and FSAS will be checking in and available for support and advice.

This programme aims to build capacity for sick and disabled artists to enable dialogue and networking opportunities with curators invested in inclusive practices.

Chronic Collective and FSAS have gathered a panel of nationally recognised curators who have a close interest and practice in inclusion and access to participate in Chronic Connections Network Programme with up to 8 visual artists with disabilities/chronic illnesses in 2023. 

The 2023 Networking Programme curators are:

  • Lisa Crowne
  • Michael Hill
  • Sara Muthi 
  • Roisín Power Hackett

What is speed curating?

You will meet with each of the four curators for 15 mins each. It is a fast-paced but relaxed environment. Don’t worry we will have lots of breaks! You can share examples of your work from your online portfolio, website, Instagram, or printed files. You can also simply chat about your practice. We will have a spare laptop and iPad available. We can also print files/images prior to the event. To make the best use of your time, please have the files or web pages ready so you can share during your meeting. 

The speed curating meetings are usually an initial introduction between the artist and curator, but also can be useful to reconnect with someone if you have made new work. The curator will also introduce themselves and what they do. A meeting like this can be a way to build a more long-term relationship with the curator. It can sometimes take several years between an initial meeting and an exhibition opportunity. 

What is a studio visit?

The purpose of the studio visit/meeting is for artists and curators to have a conversation about the artist’s work and discuss areas of the artist’s practice. This first conversation could lead to building a relationship over time.

Studio visits are meetings between artists and curators that are focused on the artist’s practice, their work and interests.

In the studio visit the conversation may address themes of the artist’s work, works in progress, ideas around potential exhibition opportunities, audiences for future work, introducing references by other artists, professional development opportunities and critical responses.

This can happen at the artist’s studio, online or in a meeting room. In advance the curator will research the artist and the artist will choose what artworks they’d like to show the curator and be prepared to discuss their work more in detail. All of this preparation is a starting point for a conversation.

What to expect from the Networking Programme?

Each of the successful artists will participate in a speed curating event with the four curators of the panel on 28 September (2-5pm) and a studio visit/meeting with one of the curators on our panel between October and December 2023. Successful artists will receive a fee of €200. Curators will also receive a fee. After the programme is complete, each artist and curator will submit a one-page report /3min video or audio file on their experience of the networking programme. 

Who is eligible to apply?

Visual artists at all stages of their careers are welcome to apply.

To be eligible you must be:

  • a visual artist who is disabled, D/deaf, chronically ill and/or neurodiverse
  • a practicing artist
  • living in the Republic of Ireland
  • over 18 years of age

Application Process

Artists are asked to submit an application email to apply@firestation.ie with the following information:

  • A one-page letter of interest or a 3 minute video/sound file explaining why you would benefit from the Networking programme: max 500 words (.doc or .pdf)
  • CV: max 2 pages (.doc or .pdf)
  • Examples of previous work: max 10 images/works (.jpg, .wav, .mp3, .mp4, .pdf, .doc)
  • If you have any access requirements to participate in the Chronic Connections please outline these in your email.

Deadline for applications is Tuesday, 12 September at 5pm. Please email us if you have any questions about your application!

Accessibility

All events and workshops seek to care for participants by asking that folks wear high quality masks and by providing ventilation, HEPA filter, comfortable seating, snacks and water.  

There will be options available for artists to take part virtually, either partly or for the whole programme, if required. 

The networking event will take place at Fire Station Artists’ Studios in Dublin 1. This is an indoor/outdoor space. The space is step free. There is a small door lip at two entrance doors to the space. Lighting is adjustable. A section of the courtyard entrance way has cobblestones. There is a spacious toilet with safety handles in the event space with a standard width door. Images and measurements of the building and event space can be sent to enquiring applicants. 

These are relaxed spaces and you can come and go as you please, make noise, stand and move around! 

We have a limited amount of access funding available to provide things like transport costs, masks, captioning and printing. We will communicate with all selected artists and curators about their access needs and do our best to meet them.

We are aware that many people are working with limited energy so we are open to flexibility in the running of this programme. 

About Chronic Collective

Chronic Collective is a multidisciplinary art collective with a strong focus on accessibility in the arts.

The collective is run by two queer and chronically ill artists, Tara Carroll and Áine O’Hara. They work to create spaces, events and opportunities for sick and disabled artists and audiences to engage in art and culture in Ireland as well as working alongside cultural organisations and venues to improve their physical and structural barriers.

They have been funded by the arts council and have worked with venues and organisations like Pallas Projects, A4 Sounds Studios, Project Arts Centre and the Museum of Everyone.

Image description: Pink and Orange soft gradient background with two big pink and orange squiggles. Text reads: ‘Chronic Connections’

FSAS Summer Studio 2023

Calling artists, curators, writers & thinkers interested in our food systems and artistic practice.

In its Summer Studio 2023, Fire Station Artists’ Studios presents:

Eating Fast & Slow, devised and hosted by Genomic Gastronomy with guest lecturers.

Fire Station Artists’ Studios (FSAS) are accepting expressions of interests for the Summer Studio 2023, Eating Fast & Slow, which will be hosted by Genomic Gastronomy in FSAS on 26, 27 and 28 July.

There is a mismatch between the speed needed to address the climate emergency, and the patience needed to cultivate adaptive agroecosystems, re-establish healthy soils and rebuild regional food networks. In this 3-day summer session, participants will investigate the topic of artistic practice and food system change. Each day of the workshop will include presentations by practitioners and site visits to sites of food production and consumption. We will discuss and imagine the scale, speed and stakes of engaging with food at the scales of kitchens, farms and even bioregions. The workshop will conclude with a collaborative meal, using ingredients from our site visits that will be presented to a larger public.

This Summer Studio will be of interest to anyone in the creative sector who has an interest in food, farming or environmental health.

About Genomic Gastronomy:

The CENTER FOR GENOMIC GASTRONOMY is an artist-led think tank launched in 2010 by Cathrine Kramer (NO) and Zack Denfeld (US) that studies the organisms and environments manipulated by human food cultures.

Our mission is:

* to map food controversies
* to prototype alternative culinary futures
* to imagine a more just, biodiverse & beautiful food system.

The Center presents its research through public lectures, research publications, meals and exhibitions. Since 2010, the Center has conducted research and exhibited in Europe, Asia and North America. We collaborate with scientists, chefs, hackers and farmers.

Details of the Summer Studio

Dates:              26, 27, 28 July 2023

Time:               10am – 5pm

Venue:             Project Space, Fire Station Artists’ Studios, 9-11 Lower Buckingham Street, Dublin 1

Price:               €150 for the three days, lunch included.

How to apply

Participants will have an active and demonstrable practice in this area.

To apply, please send the following:

1) a selected CV (2 pages maximum)

2) an expression of interest stating how participating to Eating Fast & Slow will benefit your practice and referring to projects that demonstrate the socially engaged or collaborative nature of your practice (1 page max + up to 3 images or audio/video files)

Please send all these documents in 1 PDF file by email to apply@firestation.ie with the subject line Summer Studio.

Please note: selection is competitive as numbers are restricted to 12 and a fee of €150 is payable. The closing date for receipt of completed application is Friday 2 June at 5pm.

For queries, contact programme@firestation.ie.

Mentoring with Melanie Pocock

(Applications closed)

21/23 March 2022
Follow up sessions will place in late summer or early autumn 2022
Please note sessions are one-hour long
Maximum 10 participants, by application
Cost: €60

Melanie Pocock is Curator at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham where she is responsible for exhibitions, off-site projects and publications. Recent exhibitions include THE END OF FUN! (2020) by Krištof Kintera, and Dreamworld (2021), the first solo exhibition in Europe by leading Thai artist Mit Jai Inn. She is currently working on Horror in the Modernist Block (2022–23), a group exhibition which explores the relationship between the aesthetics of architectural modernism and horror. Prior to Ikon, she was Assistant Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (2014–19), where she organised more than 60 exhibitions with Southeast Asian and international artists. As a writer she regularly contributes to exhibition catalogues and artists’ monographs, and has written essays, articles and reviews for ArtAsiaPacific, Art Monthly, Frieze, Kaleidoscope, LEAP, Ocula, The Financial Times, Journal of Curatorial Studies, Di’van | A Journal of Accounts and Third Text. In 2014, she edited and co-wrote the first monograph on the work of Malaysian artist Shooshie Sulaiman, published by Kerber Verlag.

 

One-to-one Mentoring is open to curators and artists who wish to develop their understanding of contemporary curatorial methodologies, in relation to their own practice. During two sessions, critical feedback is given on specific projects that are currently in progress. In addition, general guidance, a frame of relevant references, developmental advice and sample approaches to planning will be discussed in detail, to be picked up upon again at a second session with each individual in later in 2022.

One-to-One Mentoring

Each year, we invite a prominent curator to provide one-to-one mentoring and participants are invited to apply.

One-to-one Mentoring is available to curators and artists who wish to develop their understanding of contemporary curatorial methodologies relevant to their practice.

During two sessions, critical feedback is given on specific projects that are currently in progress. In addition, general guidance, a frame of relevant references, developmental advice and sample approaches to planning are discussed in detail and revisited during a follow-up session with each curator.

I have learned that artists living/working in Ireland (especially Dublin) need all the help and support that they can get, otherwise many will leave and this energetic and dynamic range of practices that I have seen and spoken with will diminish.

Huib Haye van der Werf

Curators that we have recently worked with include: Melanie Pocock, Huib Haye Van der Werf, Padraic E. Moore, Kate Strain, Livia Paldi, Linda Shevlin, Val Connor, Aisling Prior, Sarah Searson and Karen Downey.

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