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 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.

How might we consider endings at a time when many rituals, species and ways of being are at risk of extinction? Might looking at how we attend to the loss of life, that most significant of endings, inform or alter our approach to the urgencies of the present?

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).