Sinéad Curran

My visual arts research is based primarily on photographic-based practice that uses temporal sculptural object-based interventions. My research encompasses history, mythology, language, indigenous traditions, engaged research, fieldwork, and the exploration of the ecology of native species and place. I utilise deep mapping, time, biomimicry, magic, folklore, healing, & feminist theory, explorations of human and nonhuman interconnections. As a member of the Roots for the Future collective, we are working to build a Climate Art Assembly, the research for this was supported by the Invitation to Collaborate award from the Arts Council of Ireland (2024). I am a recipient of the Villa Lena (Italy) residency Award (2023), Banff Arts Center (2017) residency awards, amongst other. I am a recipient of the Arts Council Artist Bursary Award and Agility Awards (2021,2022,2023. I've exhibited at PhotoIreland (2022, 2023), with solo exhibitions at Rua Red Gallery (Dublin), LinenHall Arts Centre (Mayo).

Breathnú Draíochta / 2024 - 2026 - Cavan Arts Office Project residency award - this project engages with the local community over time, exploring wetland ecology in Cavan Geopark.

Central to artist Sinéad Curran's Cavan Burren and UNESCO Global Geopark residency is exploring this web of wetlands through our relationship to place over time and the veins of influence that shape its ecological challenges today.  Through shared knowledge, creativity, and socially engaged practice, Breathnú Draíochta seeks to rediscover the lost knowledge and wisdom that is echoed in the wetlands of Upper Lough MacNean alongside today's scientific understandings of the Climate-Action agenda relevant to these valuable ecosystems. 

The artist, together with community groups and subject experts, undertakes this exploration through a series of focused field trips and creative workshops, out of which a photographic technique emerged that helped bring about a cohesive understanding of the complex veins of influence impacting this ecosystem. By co-creating with the locale, the ecosystem was further understood within the social context of an area where the plantation of Ulster brought significant changes, resulting in the displacement of indigenous communities and agricultural practices that had once shaped the cultural and social landscape of the area.  

Using various creative processes, care, celebration and scientific discovery, Breathnú Draíochta untangles the complex influences that shape our landscapes bringing about a better awareness and connection between place and community, one of the main aims and outcomes being the cocreation of methodologies and processes reflecting the artists belief that, in this time of ecological crisis, that the site of exhibition is shifting to place and community.