The Childrenâs Biennial Group led by Ender Açar develops participatory art projects with and for young people, positioning children as co-authors of artistic processes rather than passive audiences. Its work operates at the intersection of curation, education and community practice, often in collaboration with schools, museums and neighbourhood initiatives. Through workshops, site-specific installations and long-term artistic research, the group creates spaces in which children can experiment with visual and performative languages, articulate their own perspectives and critically question social realities and power structures.
Alex Arteaga is an artist researcher who hybridizes sensitive, enactivist and phenomenological research practices through an inquiry into embodiments, environments and sensitive sense-making. He studied organized music and architecture in Barcelona and Berlin, and received a PhD in philosophy at the Humboldt University Berlin. Currently, he is senior researcher at the University of the Arts Helsinki where he carries on the artistic research project The Sense of Common Self in the framework of How to live together in sound? Towards sonic democracy. Former artistic research projects are, among others, Architecture of Embodiment (www.architecture-embodiment.org) and Contingent Agencies (www.contingentagencies.net).
Alex Arteaga is an artist researcher who hybridizes sensitive, enactivist and phenomenological research practices through an inquiry into embodiments, environments and sensitive sense-making. He studied organized music and architecture in Barcelona and Berlin, and received a PhD in philosophy at the Humboldt University Berlin. Currently, he is senior researcher at the University of the Arts Helsinki where he carries on the artistic research project The Sense of Common Self in the framework of How to live together in sound? Towards sonic democracy. Former artistic research projects are, among others, Architecture of Embodiment (www.architecture-embodiment.org) and Contingent Agencies (www.contingentagencies.net).
Costanza Julia Bani is a filmmaker and producer working internationally. Her practice is rooted in documentary across multiple formats, with an increasing focus on immersive media. She is Assistant Professor in Film and Media Production at Stockholm University of the Arts, a researcher at NAVET, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), and Course Manager of the ISFF Berlin Producer Program. She is an EAVE graduate, a Cannes Producers Network participant, TorinoFilmLab and Circle alumna, as well as a Sundance Grantee. 2023 she has joined the Stockholm-based production company Fellonica Film.
Angela Bartram is Professor of Contemporary Art and Head of Research for the School of Arts at University of Derby, where she leads the Digital and Material Artistic Research Centre (DMARC). She is a fine artist and artistic researcher working with objects, sound, video, print, performance event, and published text. The research concerns thresholds of the human body, gallery or museum, definitions of the human and animal as companion species, and strategies for documenting the ephemeral. Bartram has a PhD in Fine Art from Middlesex University. Angela Bartram is elected as a SAR board member for the period from 2018 to 2024.
Rebecca Braun joined the University of Galway in 2021 to take up the position of Executive Dean of the College of Arts, Social Sciences & Celtic Studies. Before then, she was Professor of Modern Languages & Creative Futures at Lancaster University in the UK, where she was also Co-Director of the Institute for Social Futures from 2017-2020. She has held further lectureships and research fellowships at the Universities of Liverpool, Manchester and Oxford in the UK and at the Freie UniversitÀt Berlin. She grew up in West Cork and Tipperary and likes nothing better than a good long run outdoors.
Professor David Burn is President of University of Galway. He became the 14th President of Ollscoil na Gaillimhe - University of Galway in September 2025. Previously, Professor Burn served as Pro-Vice Chancellor of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University since 2017 where he led transformative change initiatives to restructure faculty, accelerate research performance, advance equality, diversity and inclusion and drive internationalisation. Until July 2025, David was also Professor of Movement Disorders Neurology and Honorary Consultant Neurologist for Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust. Professor Burn served as Director of an Academic Health Science Centre, the Newcastle Health Research Partnership, which works to deliver improvements to health and wellbeing for the over 3 million people living in the Northeast of England and North Cumbria. Professor Burn serves as the President of the International Parkinson & Movement Disorder Society for the 2025-2027 term.
Janaina Carrer is an artist-researcher and professor who develops her work in the field of dance/performance, with a focus on artistic research methodologies and relational practices. Currently she have a Postdoctoral Fellow at Unicamp (FAPESP Scholarship); she holds a PhD in Arts from the Universidad Castilla-La Mancha, Spain (CAPES Scholarship) and dual Masterâs degrees: one in Performing Arts and Visual Culture from the Museo Reina SofĂa/Artea (Spain) and another in Performing Arts from Unicamp (FAPESP Scholarship). Her research explores ways of displacing hegemonic and colonial practices in our modes of being and relating to others and the world. https://cargocollective.com/janainacarrer
Vince McCarthy is an Irish creative entrepreneur, strategist, and executive who operates at the intersection of science, art, design, and public engagement. As Co-Founder & Director of Curiosity Studio (alongside Ellen Byrne), he leads Curiosity Studio, a Dublin-based creative agency and media production hub that creates immersive public experiences, international films, and cultural campaigns. Since 2013, he has directed The Festival of Curiosity, Dublin's flagship annual international festival celebrating science, art, design, and technology, welcoming over 45,000 to 60,000 attendees each year. He is Assistant Director of the MacGill Summer School: He helps manage the MacGill Summer School, one of Irelandâs premier forums for public policy, politics, and social issues.
Dermot became CEO of the Industry Research & Development Group (IRDG) in January 2022. Over his career heâs ranged from investing and supporting deep technology companies in NDRC, as COO growing Storyful from 2 to 35 staff and over a decade in technical and management roles in GE. Dermot has been an adjunct lecturer at the UCD Smurfit Graduate Business School and is a Director of the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) and was a Director of the Festival of Curiosity.
Deidre Cavazzi is the Honors Chair and a Professor of Dance at Saddleback College. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Dominican University and an MFA in Dance from the University of California at Irvine. She has been an artist-in-residence with The Arctic Circle in Svalbard and both the Fish Factory Creative Centre and NES in Iceland. Her ecopoetry chapbook, carapace, root & feather, was published in Fall 2025 by Bottlecap Press. Her work as a choreographer and artistic director explores STEM themes through performance, often involving interdisciplinary collaborations and opportunities for further engagement through educational partnerships.
Marianne Kennedy is a Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at the University of Galway, as well as a theatre director and producer of 25 years. Her research interests include Irish language theatre and performance, multilingual theatre, the decolonisation of Irish theatre, Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA), Arts Management, Theatre Producing and Business and the intersection of Creative Technologies and theatre. Kennedy is the Creative Director of the O' Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance since its opening in 2016, as well as Artistic Director and convenor of the University of Galway's âArts in Actionâ, a flagship arts and arts research programme on the University campus across architecture, circus, theatre, music, film, literature dance and VR. She is the founder of the Irish language theatre performance and research collective Giorria Theatre, and convenor of Ceangal | Cwlwm, an annual research and performance initiative and symposium bringing together those involved in theatre-making in Scottish Gaelic, Irish and Welsh. She is a team member member of the research project âImmersive Empathy: Co-Creating Immersive Narratives on Home and Homelessnessâ project, which set out to capture and convey aspects of the experience of homelessness through the creation of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) immersive experiences in collaboration with clients from the Galway Simon Community, was recently awarded an ENLIGHT Impact Award. Kennedy has many directing credits including for Giorria Theatre Collective, Abbey Theatre, An Taibhdhearc and GIAF and indeed the discipline of Drama and Theatre Studies. Prior to entering the Academy she has served as CEO of Siamsa TĂre Theatre, Arts Centre and the National Folk Theatre of Ireland, as well as leading the National Theatre of the Irish language as General Manager of An Taibhdhearc. She currently sits on the board of Galway Theatre Festival, Macnas, and regularly sits on peer review panels for the Arts Council and EalaĂon na Gaeltachta.
Dr. SĂle Denvir is an interdisciplinary scholar, sean-nĂłs singer, and harpist from IndreabhĂĄn in the Connemara Gaeltacht, and Senior Lecturer in Irish in Dublin City University. She is a leading expert on the Irish-language song tradition, and has published books on Connemara song-composers Tom aâ tSeoighe: AmhrĂĄin (ClĂł Iar-Chonnacht 202) and CiarĂĄn Ă FĂĄtharta: AmhrĂĄin (ClĂł Iar-Chonnacht 2008), in addition to numerous articles and chapters and various aspects of sean-nĂłs singing and song repertoire. She is an award-winning performer, including the prestigious TG4 Singer of the Year award 2023, and her release the same year of her sola album, Anamnesis, to great critical acclaim. Her pioneering artistic research collaborations with young Gaeltacht artists have been celebrated in the BlĂĄth na hĂige documentary and award-winning album, and in multiple high-profile performances and engagements. SĂle is a passionate advocate for Irish-language artistic research.
Lea Farrell is a PhD student at Burren College of Art. She holds a Diploma in Fine Art Painting Techniques and a BA (Hons) in Animation. Her work experiments with drawing, installations and video, with gesture drawing and expressive, motion-driven mark-making forming the structural core of her practice. Through large-scale, process-driven works, Lea examines domestic life as a site of repetition and care amid growing digital stimuli. Combining theoretical research with studio practice, her work explores domestic routine and care as affective and temporal conditions in dialogue with the growing omnipresence of Artificial Intelligence. Drawing on philosophy, psychology, cultural theory, and critical technology studies, her research investigates how AI and digital systems reshape intimacy, family life, and lived experience within the contemporary home.
https://leafarrell.squarespace.com/about
Annie Fletcher is the Director of IMMA. A noted International Curator, Annie joined IMMA from the Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands where she was Chief Curator.
Annie Fletcher has extensive leadership experience in the contemporary arts. In addition to her role as Chief Curator at Van Abbemuseum she is a tutor at de Appel, Amsterdam, the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) and the Design Academy Eindhoven, and regularly worked with art institutions around the world including the SALT Istanbul, New Museum, New York, and LâInternationale network and De Appel Art Centre, Amsterdam. In 2012 she was Curator of Irelandâs Contemporary Art biennale EVA International and is regularly called upon to sit on major International juries, including the Turner Prize in 2014 and the selection committee for the Irish Pavilion at Venice in 2016.
Born in Ireland Fletcher studied in Trinity College Dublin and started her career in the Douglas Hyde Gallery in 1994. She was Acting Head of Exhibitions in IMMA in 2001-2002 where she produced, among other projects, the seminal performance art weekend Marking the Territory. Curated by Marina Abramovic this three day event attracted capacity audiences to the museum. She partnered with IMMA, and then Director Sarah Glennie, on several exhibitions over the past five years, including solo presentations of Duncan Campbell and Sheela Gowda and most recently co-curated the 2016 IMMA group exhibition El Lissitzky: the Artist and the State with work from Rosella Biscotti, Nuria Guell, Alice Milligan, Sarah Pierce and Hito Steyerl, and is very much looking forward to returning to IMMA to lead the museum into its next phase. As a curator she is particular interested in how an encounter with art can generate a shared civic space and how, in todayâs world, contemporary art can address complex ideas of time, space and participation in order to achieve resonance with the public.
Sharon is a successful hybrid academic with 30 years of experience working in higher education in Ireland. From 2022 to 2025, she was the National Coordinator of the ambitious N-TUTORR programme, an innovative collaboration across the Technological Higher Education sector to transform the student experience, funded to âŹ40m through the European Union. Between 2019 and 2022, she was project manager of the Enhancing Digital Teaching and Learning (EDTL) project, working with senior academic leaders across seven universities in the Irish Universities Association. Before joining the IUA she was the Assistant Director at the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the University of Galway (previously NUI Galway), where she focused on academic staff development and lead a team of learning technologists. Sharon is a Trustee of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT). She started her academic career as a lecturer in the Discipline of Information Technology at the University of Galway.
Galway City Council is the local authority for the City of Galway
Galway City Council is the local authority for the City of Galway
Mag. Art SĂĄra Gottsteinova, call them self SĂĄro Gottstein finished their Master of Arts at the A...kademie der bildenden KĂŒnste Wien, under Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Marina Grzinic. They are currently studying for a doctorate in Fine Art at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava under doc. Mgr. Mgr. art. Jana KapelovĂĄ, ArtD and MA. Mauricio Ianes de Moraes. In the past, Gottstein worked with Tereza KlÄovĂĄ as the artistic duo GORGON*URBAN. Examples of their projects could be seen at the art and activist festival WIEN WOCHE in Vienna, or exhibition about industrial labour from a feminist perspective Around the Clock, in Pragovka, Prague
Link to portfolio: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/633dbf71e2.html
Benjamin Helmer is a composer, lecturer in music theory and aural training, and research assistant at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama (HfMT). Artistically, he focuses on microtonality and counterpoint in form of âmicrochromaticismâ in acoustic and electro-acoustic music. He coordinates the ARTILACS graduate program and works at the ligeti center in the Artistic Research Lab, where he oversees project funding for doctoral students in the field of artistic research. He is currently completing his dissertation at the HfMT in the Dr. sc. mus. (doctor scientiae musicae) doctoral program.
Blanka Kolegar is Vice Dean for Development and associate professor at the Theatre Faculty, Janacek Academy of Performing Arts, Brno, Czech Republic. Her academic and research activities focus on the area of culture policy and theatre and festival management. Blanka leads the Theatre Management and Stage Technology Department and is supervisor of doctoral students. She is one of the founding members of the Registry of Artistic Performance, whose mission is to achieve equality of artistic and scientific knowledge and research.
Dr Sarah Kordecki (PhD, Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF) has been working at Film University since 2023: first as the managing director of the Institute for Artistic Research, now as a research assistant in the research project ILLUME on artistic research. Before, she was in charge of press and digital communication for PotsdamÂŽs orchestra. While working for several TV production companies in Cologne, Berlin and Potsdam and as a freelance drama teacher, she did her doctorate in film studies focussing on the mutual interferences between the societal development in Germany and popular film.
Dr Sarah Kordecki (PhD, Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF) has been working at Film University since 2023: first as the managing director of the Institute for Artistic Research, now as a research assistant in the research project ILLUME on artistic research. Before, she was in charge of press and digital communication for PotsdamÂŽs orchestra. While working for several TV production companies in Cologne, Berlin and Potsdam and as a freelance drama teacher, she did her doctorate in film studies focussing on the mutual interferences between the societal development in Germany and popular film.
Papattaranan (Pla) Kunphunsup holds a PhD in Visual Arts and Design from Burapha University, an MA in Communication Arts from New York Institute of Technology, and a B. Arch in Architecture from Chulalongkorn University. Currently, she is a lecturer at the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Burapha University. She works in the form of academic research, articles, drawings, graphic design projects, animation, and short documentary films. Her interdisciplinary practice explores grief, memory, and creative self-disclosure through participatory and post-studio approaches. She focuses on artmaking as a form of agency, especially under social, emotional, or material constraint.
Papattaranan (Pla) Kunphunsup holds a PhD in Visual Arts and Design from Burapha University, an MA in Communication Arts from New York Institute of Technology, and a B. Arch in Architecture from Chulalongkorn University. Currently, she is a lecturer at the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Burapha University. She works in the form of academic research, articles, drawings, graphic design projects, animation, and short documentary films. Her interdisciplinary practice explores grief, memory, and creative self-disclosure through participatory and post-studio approaches. She focuses on artmaking as a form of agency, especially under social, emotional, or material constraint.
Linnea Langfjord Kristensen is the Communication Officer for the Society for Artistic Research. She is also the Science Communication Coordinator of the COST Action Artistic Intelligence. In her artistic practice she works between performance, text, and film supported by scenographic installations and her work has been shown and published internationally including AIKUK (UK), The Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Cockpit Theatre (London), Martin AsbĂŠk Gallery and Teater FĂ„r302 (Copenhagen).
Linnea Langfjord Kristensen is the Communication Officer for the Society for Artistic Research. She is also the Science Communication Coordinator of the COST Action Artistic Intelligence. In her artistic practice she works between performance, text, and film supported by scenographic installations and her work has been shown and published internationally including AIKUK (UK), The Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Cockpit Theatre (London), Martin AsbĂŠk Gallery and Teater FĂ„r302 (Copenhagen).
Dr. Johanna Leissner, trained as a chemist and material scientist, has been managing cultural heritage research for over 20 years. She focuses on the climate change impact on cultural heritage, environmental monitoring of cultural property, and fostering the green transition by implementing sustainability concepts for Green Museums and heritage buildings.
Dr. Leissner chairs the EU OMC expert group Strengthening Cultural Heritage Resilience for Climate Change and is a member of the EU Commissionâs Cultural Heritage Forum, founded in 2019. Since March 2024, she has been a Supervisory Board member of the EIT Culture & Creativity programme (2022-2029). She coordinated the German research project KERES (2020-2023), which aimed to protect cultural heritage from extreme climate events and increase resilience, and the EU project Climate for Culture (2009-2014). She is a partner in the Austrian Academy of Science project on future climate change impacts on museum pests and fungi (2021-2024) and the German project on damage prevention for cultural assets in times of climate change (2022-2024).
Dr. Leissner is the German delegate for the Council of Europeâs Strategy âEuropean Cultural Heritage in the 21st Centuryâ (2018) and a member of the UNESCO World Heritage Expert Group on climate change impacts (2017). Since 2005, she has represented the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft at the European Union in Brussels. She co-founded the German Research Alliance for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in 2008 and the Fraunhofer Sustainability Network. From 2001 to 2005, she was the National Expert for âTechnologies for the Protection of European Cultural Heritageâ at the European Commission in Brussels.
Nicole Monahan is an MPhil student at Burren College of Art researching how land and humans may exchange small bits of perceptual information that could be made visible through a co-created pattern language. Monahan earned her MFA in Sculpture from The Ohio State University. She has shown nationally and internationally and served as an artist-in-residence in the US, Japan, and Ireland. Her extensive professional background includes teaching, leading experiential learning partnerships and career services, managing large-scale artist productions, developing curatorial projects, and directing educational media strategy. Monahan is also a fellow of the US-Japan Leadership Program.
https://www.nicolemonahanart.com/
Kathleen Morris is a maker, researcher, and educator whose work explores emerging discourses in craft, repair culture, and craft pedagogy. From 2005 to 2022, Morris was a faculty member in the Textiles Studio at OCAD University, where she also served as a Faculty Association Director and Faculty Senator. She is currently President of the Canadian Crafts Federation, a board member of CultureWorks Canada, a workshop leader with Repair Café Toronto, and a Collaborator on Thinking Through Craft and the Digital Turn.
Vannie Gama is a Brazilian visual artist, writer, and interdisciplinary researcher working across expanded painting, installations, ecology, technology, and contemporary art theory. Author of O Cultivar das Imagens, Organic Manifesto, Sociedade TecnolĂłgica, and ''LeĂŁo e o UnicĂłrnio'', they have joined residencies in the UK and Paris, exhibited at the Montenegro Fine Art Nude Biennial, and develop work in ecoâqueer surrealism. Gama studies ecofuturism in the semiotics PhD program at UQAM .Their last art-and-sciences project was "Atras do Tempo" at CEPID Neuromat - Centro de Pesquisa, Inovação de DifusĂŁo em NeuromatemĂĄtica e EstatĂstica (2025). He is currently working at the "AstropoĂ©tica" (2025-2027) art series.
Martin Potter is an academic, multi-award-winning creative director, and producer specialising in transmedia and participatory media. He is president of EngageMedia, director of the Big Stories Co. and Associate Professor at Deakin University, where he leads the MotionLab. As a creative practice-based researcher, Potter designs large-scale transmedia works and participatory models that drive sustained engagement across diverse communities. His acclaimed projects have attracted over $12 million AUD in funding, and he has produced more than 30 hours of commissioned documentaries for international broadcasters. He has published widely on participatory and transmedia practice, bridging scholarly inquiry and high-impact creative production.
Martin Potter is an academic, multi-award-winning creative director, and producer specialising in transmedia and participatory media. He is president of EngageMedia, director of the Big Stories Co. and Associate Professor at Deakin University, where he leads the MotionLab. As a creative practice-based researcher, Potter designs large-scale transmedia works and participatory models that drive sustained engagement across diverse communities. His acclaimed projects have attracted over $12 million AUD in funding, and he has produced more than 30 hours of commissioned documentaries for international broadcasters. He has published widely on participatory and transmedia practice, bridging scholarly inquiry and high-impact creative production.
Martina Raponi is a writer and an artist researching noise and the unheard. She is the author of âPsofotopias. Noise: Sounding Out the Unheard,â in 2025. Martina is part of the Noise Research Union, teaches at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, and is a PhD candidate at ASCA (UvA).
Mari Sanden is an artist and researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) where she is exploring how international research frameworks and programmes can challenge and change the conditions for cross-disciplinary research in ways that opens up for artistic forms of knowledge production. Since 2024 she is project manager of the Horizon Europe-funded research project PACESETTERS. PACESETTERS explores how arts and culture, creativity and cultural heritage can adapt to, contribute to and ultimately push the pace of the climate transition. Sanden has been investigating the challenges and opportunities for artistic research in various contexts, such as CYANOTYPES a skills alliance for the Cultural and Creative Industries, as guest associate editor of the European Journal of Cultural Management and Policy, and as Young and Early Career Researcher Coordinator for the COST Action Artistic Intelligence.
Mari Sanden is an artist and researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) where she is exploring how international research frameworks and programmes can challenge and change the conditions for cross-disciplinary research in ways that opens up for artistic forms of knowledge production. Since 2024 she is project manager of the Horizon Europe-funded research project PACESETTERS. PACESETTERS explores how arts and culture, creativity and cultural heritage can adapt to, contribute to and ultimately push the pace of the climate transition. Sanden has been investigating the challenges and opportunities for artistic research in various contexts, such as CYANOTYPES a skills alliance for the Cultural and Creative Industries, as guest associate editor of the European Journal of Cultural Management and Policy, and as Young and Early Career Researcher Coordinator for the COST Action Artistic Intelligence.
Mari Sanden is an artist and researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) where she is exploring how international research frameworks and programmes can challenge and change the conditions for cross-disciplinary research in ways that opens up for artistic forms of knowledge production. Since 2024 she is project manager of the Horizon Europe-funded research project PACESETTERS. PACESETTERS explores how arts and culture, creativity and cultural heritage can adapt to, contribute to and ultimately push the pace of the climate transition. Sanden has been investigating the challenges and opportunities for artistic research in various contexts, such as CYANOTYPES a skills alliance for the Cultural and Creative Industries, as guest associate editor of the European Journal of Cultural Management and Policy, and as Young and Early Career Researcher Coordinator for the COST Action Artistic Intelligence.
Jan Schacher is Professor for Music and Technology at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. He holds a PhD in Arts from the Royal Conservatoire and University of Antwerp. As an artist-researcher and educator performing on stage and other environments he works with and through sound and presence. Trained as an instrumentalist, composer and digital artists, both his practice and research focus on the body as central site of action, perception, and culture.
Florian Schneider is the founding director of the Institute for Creativity, a new research institute at the University of Galway, where he holds a full professorship. He is also Visiting Professor of Art Theory and Documentary Practices at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where he has been teaching and conducting research since 2013. He has more than 25 years of experience in artistic practice, creative entrepreneurship, higher education teaching and academic leadership. As an artist, filmmaker and curator he has been involved in projects at all scales to rethink the impact and value of documentary practices in creative sectors and artistic disciplines. Since 2022, he has been President of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR), a network that promotes and disseminates artistic research practices and findings across disciplines and contexts. Since March 2024, he has been the scientific coordinator of PACESETTERS, a Horizon Europe-funded research initiative exploring how arts and culture can not only adapt to the climate crisis, but also drive the transition towards sustainable and regenerative economies.
Dr. Rita JĂșlia SebestyĂ©n is a theatre maker, researcher, and educator specialising in performance, multilingualism, and artistic research. She founded Embodied Artistic Researchâą and co-founded the intercultural theatre periodical JĂĄtĂ©ktĂ©r / Playing Area. She has taught higher education courses in Denmark, Hungary, and Romania, and led several EU-funded arts and social inclusion projects across eight countries. Her work has received research and artistic awards in the EU and UK, and her publications appear internationally.
TrĂona NĂ ShĂochĂĄin is Head of the School of English, Media, and Creative Arts and Established Professor of Music and Performing Arts at the University of Galway. She formerly held the positions of Professor of Modern Irish and Performing Arts and Head of the School of Celtic Studies at Maynooth University, prior to which she was Head of the Department of Music at UCC, where she lectured in Irish Traditional Music. An interdisciplinary scholar of Music and Irish, and a whistle-player, sean-nĂłs singer, and set-dancer, she specialises in oral theory, performance theory, Irish traditional music, song, and dance, and women oral composers from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Her current research focuses on Irish-language artistic research, creative practice, Irish-language feminist and gender studies, hidden histories of womens thought and subjugated knowledges in song and lament, and the symbiosis between embodiment, vocality, and style in Irish traditional music. She is author of Singing Ideas: Performance, Politics and Oral Poetry (Berghahn 2018, 2021) and BlĂĄth s Craobh na nĂdar: AmhrĂĄin MhĂĄire BhuĂ (CoiscĂ©im 2012), and co-edited LĂ©achtaĂ Cholm Cille 53: LĂ©ann Feimineach agus Inscne na Gaeilge (Irish-language feminist and gender studies) (An Sagart 2023) with Prof. MĂĄire NĂ AnnrachĂĄin. TrĂona is a member of the steering committee of IMBAS an Irish Forum for Arts Practice Researchers and Artists.
TrĂona NĂ ShĂochĂĄin is Head of the School of English, Media, and Creative Arts and Established Professor of Music and Performing Arts at the University of Galway. She formerly held the positions of Professor of Modern Irish and Performing Arts and Head of the School of Celtic Studies at Maynooth University, prior to which she was Head of the Department of Music at UCC, where she lectured in Irish Traditional Music. An interdisciplinary scholar of Music and Irish, and a whistle-player, sean-nĂłs singer, and set-dancer, she specialises in oral theory, performance theory, Irish traditional music, song, and dance, and women oral composers from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Her current research focuses on Irish-language artistic research, creative practice, Irish-language feminist and gender studies, hidden histories of womens thought and subjugated knowledges in song and lament, and the symbiosis between embodiment, vocality, and style in Irish traditional music. She is author of Singing Ideas: Performance, Politics and Oral Poetry (Berghahn 2018, 2021) and BlĂĄth s Craobh na nĂdar: AmhrĂĄin MhĂĄire BhuĂ (CoiscĂ©im 2012), and co-edited LĂ©achtaĂ Cholm Cille 53: LĂ©ann Feimineach agus Inscne na Gaeilge (Irish-language feminist and gender studies) (An Sagart 2023) with Prof. MĂĄire NĂ AnnrachĂĄin. TrĂona is a member of the steering committee of IMBAS an Irish Forum for Arts Practice Researchers and Artists.
TomĂĄs Ă SĂochĂĄin is PrĂomhfheidhmeannach | CEO of ĂdarĂĄs na Gaeltachta [udaras.ie], the state agency that supports and develops Irish as the spoken language in the Gaeltacht region across seven counties of Ireland. ĂdarĂĄs supports communities and enterprise to sustain the region, language and its unique global heritage.
TomĂĄs was, until 2022, CEO of the Western Development Commission, an Irish state agency supporting the development of Irelandâs Western Region along the Atlantic coast. Prior to that he held a number of senior roles in Ollscoil na hĂireann | University of Galway and was a broadcast journalist, producer and editor with Irish national broadcasters RTĂ and TG4 between 1998 and 2013. A law graduate, he holds an MBA, a Higher Diploma in Applied Communications and is a non-executive director of GrowRemote and Future Mobility Campus Ireland.
He is Chair of the Advisory Board for the University of Galway Cairnes School of Business and Economics, a member of the National Hubs Network Steering Group and the National Remote Work Strategy Implementation Group. Formerly, he was the inaugural Chair of the Regional Skills Forum West, Chair of the WDC Whitaker Institute Remote Work Expert Group and an External Assessor for the Broadcast Authority of Irelandâs Sound and Vision Fund.
TomĂĄs Ă SĂochĂĄin is PrĂomhfheidhmeannach | CEO of ĂdarĂĄs na Gaeltachta [udaras.ie], the state agency that supports and develops Irish as the spoken language in the Gaeltacht region across seven counties of Ireland. ĂdarĂĄs supports communities and enterprise to sustain the region, language and its unique global heritage.
TomĂĄs was, until 2022, CEO of the Western Development Commission, an Irish state agency supporting the development of Irelandâs Western Region along the Atlantic coast. Prior to that he held a number of senior roles in Ollscoil na hĂireann | University of Galway and was a broadcast journalist, producer and editor with Irish national broadcasters RTĂ and TG4 between 1998 and 2013. A law graduate, he holds an MBA, a Higher Diploma in Applied Communications and is a non-executive director of GrowRemote and Future Mobility Campus Ireland.
He is Chair of the Advisory Board for the University of Galway Cairnes School of Business and Economics, a member of the National Hubs Network Steering Group and the National Remote Work Strategy Implementation Group. Formerly, he was the inaugural Chair of the Regional Skills Forum West, Chair of the WDC Whitaker Institute Remote Work Expert Group and an External Assessor for the Broadcast Authority of Irelandâs Sound and Vision Fund.
Doris Sommer is Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies. She is founder of "Cultural Agents," an Initiative at harvard and an NGO dedicated to reviving the civic mission of the Humanities. Her academic and outreach work promotes development through arts and humanities, specifically through âPre-Textsâ in Boston Public Schools, throughout Latin America and beyond. Pre-Texts is an arts-based training program for teachers of literacy, critical thinking, and citizenship. Among her books are Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (1991) about novels that helped to consolidate new republics; Proceed with Caution when Engaged by Minority Literature (1999) on a rhetoric of particularism; Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education (2004) for our times of contested immigration; and The Work of Art in the World: Civic Agency and Public Humanities (2014). Sommer has enjoyed and is dedicated to developing good public school education. She has a B.A. from New Jersey's Douglass College for Women, and Ph.D. from Rutgers University.
Doris Sommer is Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies. She is founder of "Cultural Agents," an Initiative at harvard and an NGO dedicated to reviving the civic mission of the Humanities. Her academic and outreach work promotes development through arts and humanities, specifically through âPre-Textsâ in Boston Public Schools, throughout Latin America and beyond. Pre-Texts is an arts-based training program for teachers of literacy, critical thinking, and citizenship. Among her books are Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (1991) about novels that helped to consolidate new republics; Proceed with Caution when Engaged by Minority Literature (1999) on a rhetoric of particularism; Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education (2004) for our times of contested immigration; and The Work of Art in the World: Civic Agency and Public Humanities (2014). Sommer has enjoyed and is dedicated to developing good public school education. She has a B.A. from New Jersey's Douglass College for Women, and Ph.D. from Rutgers University.
Tommie Soro is an artist and researcher. Through installation, performance, video and print, he explores a spectrum of cultural and political ideas. He was an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at TU Dublin, where he examined how hierarchies emerge through our language and the technologies we use. Since December 2025, he has been a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Galway's Institute for Creativity.
Ari Turalba is an emerging interdisciplinary artist whose work moves across photography, film, graphic design, fashion and jewelry design. Trained in film production, she maintains an open and evolving practice shaped by experimentation, collaboration, and project-based making. Her work does not follow a single fixed medium, but develops through different visual forms depending on the needs of each project.
She works closely with her mother, Josephine Turalba on a range of artistic research projects, contributing through visual development, photography, design, and production support. Alongside this collaborative work, her current independent research focuses on nightlife, urban youth culture, and gendered spectatorship in Poblacion, Makati, explored through photography and curatorial research toward a future photobook. Her Masterâs dissertation examined Philippine film distribution infrastructure and questions of national identity in cinema, reflecting a broader investment in the future of the local film industry.
ĂdarĂĄs na Gaeltachta covers all seven Gaeltacht regions offering a range of support services at local, regional and national levels and implementing the organisationâs functions in enterprise development and job creation, promotion of the Irish language and culture, and community development.
Merel Visse (www.merelvisse.com) is a scholar, visual artist, editor, and educator whose interdisciplinary work is grounded in apophatic thought, artistic research, and political care ethics. She serves as faculty at Drew University, where she chairs a Graduate Program, and worked at the University of Humanistic Studies for over a decade. Merel is the co-editor of Visual Arts Research and co-founded the Meaningful Artistic Research Ph.D. Program in the Netherlands, and co-chairs the Art & Care Platform Series. Merel is one of the initiators of the apophatic.art initiative. Ryan Woodring (ryanwoodring.com) is compelled by a bilateral relationship with invisibility wrought by chronic illness and a decade+ of visual effects experience making things disappear. Woodring (he/they) serves as Assistant Teaching Professor of Digital Media at Drew University. He has exhibited and spoken internationally in various contexts such as The Museum of the Moving Image, New York, Rochester Art Center, Minnesota, Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts and elsewhere. He founded the Soft Data/Base curatorial project and is a member of Blockbusters New Media and Video Collective. Ryan is one of the initiators of the apophatic.art initiative.
Merel Visse (www.merelvisse.com) is a scholar, visual artist, editor, and educator whose interdisciplinary work is grounded in apophatic thought, artistic research, and political care ethics. She serves as faculty at Drew University, where she chairs a Graduate Program, and worked at the University of Humanistic Studies for over a decade. Merel is the co-editor of Visual Arts Research and co-founded the Meaningful Artistic Research Ph.D. Program in the Netherlands, and co-chairs the Art & Care Platform Series. Merel is one of the initiators of the apophatic.art initiative. Ryan Woodring (ryanwoodring.com) is compelled by a bilateral relationship with invisibility wrought by chronic illness and a decade+ of visual effects experience making things disappear. Woodring (he/they) serves as Assistant Teaching Professor of Digital Media at Drew University. He has exhibited and spoken internationally in various contexts such as The Museum of the Moving Image, New York, Rochester Art Center, Minnesota, Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts and elsewhere. He founded the Soft Data/Base curatorial project and is a member of Blockbusters New Media and Video Collective. Ryan is one of the initiators of the apophatic.art initiative.
Nina Vroemen makes interdisciplinary work about ecology that is speculative and embodied. They live in TiohtiĂĄ:ke (Montreal), on the traditional territory of the KanienâkehĂ :ka. They are a MFA graduate from Sculpture and Ceramics at Concordia University, where they will begin an Interdisciplinary Humanities PhD in Fall 2026. Vroemen is a collaborator in three interdisciplinary performance projects (Horizon Factory + water%holding + HEaD) centered on awe and ecological justice. They are also an educator facilitating workshops and have taught in studio arts at Concordia University. interested in how art can activate an ecological way of thinking where intimate narratives seep through complex entanglements and unimaginable timescales.
Ryan Woodring (ryanwoodring.com) is compelled by a bilateral relationship with invisibility wrought by chronic illness and a decade+ of visual effects experience making things disappear. Woodring (he/they) serves as Assistant Teaching Professor of Digital Media at Drew University. He has exhibited and spoken internationally in various contexts such as The Museum of the Moving Image, New York, Rochester Art Center, Minnesota, Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts and elsewhere. He founded the Soft Data/Base curatorial project and is a member of Blockbusters New Media and Video Collective. Ryan is one of the initiators of the apophatic.art initiative.
Ryan Woodring (ryanwoodring.com) is compelled by a bilateral relationship with invisibility wrought by chronic illness and a decade+ of visual effects experience making things disappear. Woodring (he/they) serves as Assistant Teaching Professor of Digital Media at Drew University. He has exhibited and spoken internationally in various contexts such as The Museum of the Moving Image, New York, Rochester Art Center, Minnesota, Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts and elsewhere. He founded the Soft Data/Base curatorial project and is a member of Blockbusters New Media and Video Collective. Ryan is one of the initiators of the apophatic.art initiative.