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Artist–Led
Visual Artists' News Sheet | March – April 2021
Aideen Farrell, Untitled sculptural arrangement, 2020; image courtesy the artist and Sample-Studios.
THE PAST YEAR has been an exceptional one for artists. It has been dif-
The Space Between JENNIFER REDMOND CONSIDERS VARIOUS ARTWORKS IN ‘CAHOOTS’ – AN ARTIST-LED DIGITAL EXHIBITION.
ficult to make work and problematic to find ways and places to show it. Critical opinions as to the merits of creations are usually formed in the physical presence of artworks. Yet here we are, at the mercy of online viewing tools, trying to make judgements on compositions in spaces that are notional. ‘Cahoots: The Space Between’ (18 December 2020 – 28 February 2021) was a collaboration between A4 Sounds (Dublin) Sample Studios (Cork) and Engage Art Studios (Galway). The curator, Nicola Anthony1, used the online platform artsteps.com to show the artworks. Selected through an open call, the exhibiting artists were Paul Malone, Brigid Mulligan, Noelle Gallagher, Aoife Claffey, Kim-Ling Morris, Seiko Hayase, Kathryn Kelly, Aideen Farrell, Alisha Doody, Megan Scott and Vivienne Molloy. The digital exhibition was supported by Cork City Council and by Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture and was bolstered by a series of video interviews with the artists, which were released weekly until the end of February on TACTIC Sample-Studios’ YouTube channel. In her curatorial statement, Nicola Anthony claims that as a result of COVID-19, the boundaries of our personal realms have shifted – we now inhabit more ambiguous spaces. The artworks in this digital exhibition were chosen because they explore a ‘transitional period’. They contain messages and traces of histories embedded within objects and spaces, explorations of aphasia2, anxiety, loss and death. They are markers of place and time, of language barriers and of otherness. The collected works invite viewers to see the world from an intangible and permeable place. Guided by these thoughts, I open the link to the artsteps website, where
