After a conversation with Cristín Leach during the week about lots of things but of note, her curatorial practice that spoke so much to me at Derek Hill’s House, Glebe Gallery during the 2019 Errigal International Youth Tour. The exhibition 21 Irish Art Works for the 21st Century had a significant impact on me. The curation wove a deep cultural narrative and its presence was significant. There were several pieces I was familiar with but it introduced me to artist like Geraldine O’Neill, whose work represents her own children and their art mixed with classical landscapes and still lives. The themes of motherhood, creativity and cultural context resonated deeply for me, in particular the painting Feidir Le Cat Schrodinger An Dá thrá A Fhreastal (2014) reflected something which I had not felt not seen in any work of art or gallery. It lead me to explore other works of art that explore motherhood as a theme.
Some how it linked to an experience of being shamed in Barcelona in 2012, when I was slated by a Dutch critic for promoting the ideas of women’s work using stitch and felt. I had presented ‘A stitch in time’ threaded stories making as part of a community development, social history and place making. It was a participatory arts commission that I was presenting to a group of Europeans as part an Erasmus course on Building Cultural Communities.
The other curatorial practices of note in an Irish context for me have been:
Dorothy Cross Trove – The mere act of selection reveals hidden narratives.
“The idea of Trove is to make new relationships between painting and object from collections that would rarely meet.”
Dorothy Cross
Fintan O’Toole’s 100 objects of Ireland
Roisin Markham 
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