Anna Macleod
Co. Leitrim, Ireland
2026
Anna Macleod is a Scottish / Irish visual artist, researcher and educator based in the North West of Ireland. Her work mediates complex ideas associated with contemporary, historical and cultural understandings of land and water through a variety of visual art media.
‘Water Conversations’ is the overarching title for an evolving series of works, projects, public actions and installations developed through a critical engagement with archival material, fieldwork and community collaboration. The site- responsive works involve collaboration with a broad spectrum of human and non-human participants: materials, histories, landscapes, ecologies, cultural objects and meteorological phenomenon.
The intention is to build multi-layered projects that are socially inclusive and can activate positive cooperative action. Interdisciplinary in approach the sculptures, drawings, posters, public interventions, installations, photographs, videos, sound works and performative actions articulated during the process seek to tease out playful potential and speculative futures for our understanding of physical and cultural landscapes.
Anna has been awarded numerous International residencies, most recently in 2026, the Jon Schueler Scholarship at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Scotland and International Atlantic Artist Residency Exchange, CRUX and Artlink. Her current solo show Tír Breac / Speckled Land at The Dock, Carrick on Shannon, Ireland runs till 30th May 2026. https://www.thedock.ie/exhibitions/tír-breac-speckled-land
@annamacleodartist www.annamacleod.com
Christine MacKey
Co. Leitrim, Ireland
2025
Christine MacKeys interdisciplinary artistic practice is one of profound stewardship, observation and care for the environment, and is deeply rooted in site-specific land and marine-based work. Seasonal processes range from collecting seeds, to weaving floating islands, to nourishing native tree saplings, to the cultivation of waste ground. Current work resonates with urgent issues of biodiversity loss, species extinction, energy crises, and habitat destruction, while at the same time highlighting positive themes of renewal, awareness, and change.
Brendan Farren
Greencastle, Co. Donegal Ireland
2025
Brendan Farren calls his art practice Big Green Art, and since 1992 he has been creating art which uses natural materials, or has an environmental focus. This work includes weaving willow and hazel rods into sculptures and baskets, carving wood and stone with natural themes such as animals, illustrating magazines and publications with pen and ink drawings, painting murals of nature, and building shelter using natural materials. Brendan has worked often as a community artist with a wide variety of groups. Brendan’s home is a hand- built, breathable, carbon-neutral house made from hemp, lime and timber.
Shane Finan
Co. Leitrim, Ireland
2024
Shane Finan assembles artworks from interactive contemporary technologies, found objects and traditional artistic media. His work is based in rural environments and examines technologies in human and nonhuman entanglements.
He always collaborates. Most recently working with lichen, artists, epidemiologists, historians, gorse and fungi. As part of his practice he organizes and runs collaborative projects with artists and researchers.
Shane has been awarded Artist In Residency in Ireland, Austria, the UK and Canada. He has co-founded the art collective and workspace ^ in Manorhamilton, IRE in 2022 for experimental collaboration and research around art, landscape and technology. Shane has received an Arts Council of Ireland Bursary Award, and Agility Awards and has been funded by Culture Ireland, Creative Europe, Wicklow Arts Office, Leitrim Arts Office and the Irish Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media: Decade of Centenaries.
Shane was invited by Crux Arts and part supported by Artlink, Fort Dunree to carry out artistic research. He traveled to Newfoundland in September 2024 for a 3 week research residency. He spent time investigating the place and history of the first few transatlantic telegraph cables laid in the 1850s and the current fiber optic ones that carry internet signal. He spent time with our beaches, our lichen and meeting key members of our community.
During his research, Shane visited the cable landing site and museum at Heart's Content where he began work on a video installation about subsea communications infrastructure.
Photos: Curtesy of the artist, Shane Finan
