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Members
Our Members Area gives information on how to join VAI, the benefits, as well as access to your Membership account, including renewals, members’ galleries, webinars archive, and access to our discount scheme and discounted members’ events.
Resources
Our Resource section is full of helpful advice on the wide range of topics that constitute an artist’s career and practice. As well as information on best practice, we offer details on our advocacy areas and guides, as well as an online Payments Calculator.
Publications
Our publications section includes subscribing to our weekly eBulletins, as well as information on our bi-monthly Visual Artists News Sheet, our online archive, and how to advertise in the eBulletin and The Visual Artists News Sheet.
Visual Artists Ireland
Vision: We dare to dream of a time when visual artists will live in a world of opportunities.
Mission: Our Mission is to create a trusted space where visual artists are valued and have access to supports and knowledge that enable them to develop at all stages of their professional career.
COVID-19 VAI Status
Our physical offices are closed in Dublin and Belfast, but we are continuing to delivery our Advocacy, Advice, Lifelong Learning, and Information Provision online, by email, or in the case of the Visual Artists News Sheet either online or delivered by post to all members.
Our mainline number can be used to make contact as normal, and all of our email addresses and online forms are still being monitored and responded to. We recommend compliance at all times to Government advice and continue to be the voice of artists to the government and funding bodies during this time. You can find out more about our online events in the VAI Events section, and through the eBulletins which are still operating twice weekly. We are delivering regular networking and information events as part of our wider learning and skills programme. These also include online Help Desks which are supported by our Help Line which is still operating.
Latest Updates
Latest news, events, and jobs and opportunities, click headings to view all.
Visual Artists Help Desk with Shelly McDonnell (16 April)
Do you have an area in your practice you need help with or would just like some advice on where to go next? Artists can book a Help Desk session that will be held online. These Help Desks will be free of charge for Members and Non Members for the duration of the current crisis.…
Residency | Who Cares? Huarte, Spain
In the framework of the European project Who Cares? Centro Huarte offers an international residency program for two or more artists that will take place from September 1 to October 24, 2021. Who Cares? is a program supported by Creative Europe focusing on care practices, seeking to permeate through the participating organisations’ infrastructure and programmes.…
Online Residency | What Stays – Archiving Care, transmediale festival, Berlin, Germany
transmediale festival in cooperation with the JUNGE AKADEMIE of Akademie der Künste, Berlin, and the Goethe-Institut Slovakia are pleased to announce What Stays – Archiving Care. This year-long project will explore digital counter-archives and the role of technology in opening up alternative histories and memories, and launches with an open call for three digital residencies…
Open Call | Call for Artists and Mentors for LOOK UP 2021 (UK and Germany)
LOOK UP 2021, produced by ArtReach, will be a collaborative visual arts mentorship programme, hosted by Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, United Kingdom, and coculture, Berlin, Germany. Four European-based artists from sanctuary-seeking backgrounds will be mentored by established arts professionals to create new visual artworks for the public realm. The artists will develop new work which will…
Visual Artists Help Desk with Shelly McDonnell (16 April)
Do you have an area in your practice you need help with or would just like some advice on where to go next? Artists can book a Help Desk session that will be held online. These Help Desks will be free of charge for Members and Non Members for the duration of the current crisis.…
Visual Artists Help Desk with Shelly McDonnell (30 April)
Do you have an area in your practice you need help with or would just like some advice on where to go next? Artists can book a Help Desk session that will be held online. These Help Desks are free of charge for all artists, Members and Non Members. Help Desks can be on any…
VAI Webinar | Working with Curators (14 April)
It is extremely beneficial for artists to have their work seen by curators. Outside of the potential for exhibitions, there is also the valuable opportunity to engage in a critical discussion of their practice. The webinar will give you an insight into how curators may engage with your work and interpret it differently to your…
Visual Artists’ Café | Show & Tell (Focus: Co. Mayo/Co. Sligo based artists) (21 April)
This Visual Artists’ Café will put our Co. Mayo & Co. Sligo based members in the spotlight in a ‘Show & tell’ format. Featured will be 6 artists giving 6 different snapshots of the Mayo/Sligo based Visual Artist in 2020 and beyond; work, motivations, challenges and acclimation. What we experienced. What we learned. We hope…
Online Artist Talk | Brian Duggan at Glucksman
21/04/2021 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – Join artists from our forthcoming exhibition Home: Being and Belonging in Contemporary Ireland to discover more about their work and artistic practice in this free, online series of talks. Dublin-based artist Brian Duggan investigates the physical limitations of the immediate environment on the individual. Ideas of control and where we stand, how we are tied and what binds us, […]
Online Exhibition | Dara McGrath: For Those That Tell No Tales at Crawford Art Gallery
24/04/2021 – 29/08/2021 @ – The War of Independence was a defining moment in Ireland’s history. Between 1919 and 1921, approximately 1,400 people died in the struggle for an independent Irish republic. Cork city and county saw the bloodiest of the fighting. In total, 528 people of all backgrounds – including members of the public, Irish Volunteers, and British Forces – lost […]
Online Exhibition | Rule Driven by John Macormac at Platform Arts
10/04/2021 – 01/05/2021 @ – The exhibition is the latest manifestation of an ongoing exploration of sonic and visual pattern, informed by mathematics, geometry and the natural world. Each component enacts a set of carefully formulated, self-determined rules, influenced greatly by instructions for works written by Sol LeWitt. Densely worked drawings of repeated forms echo those present in nature gathering […]
Online Exhibition | 30 Years of Making, Signal Arts Centre
29/03/2021 – 24/04/2021 @ – Signal Arts Centre is celebrating over 30 years in existence with an exhibition in both Signal and Mermaid Arts Centres. The exhibition, entitled “Signal Arts Centre – 30 Years of Making” will open on Monday 29th March and will run until 24th April. Although the work will be hung in both galleries, the exhibition will be made […]
April 13, 2021
Minister Martin announces Markievicz Award recipients for 2021
The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin TD, today announced the 10 new recipients of the Decade of Centenaries Markievicz Award bursary scheme for artists. The Markievicz Award is intended to support artists to develop their craft and ultimately produce great art that recognises and commemorates the role of women…
April 9, 2021
IMMA announces its 30th Birthday Programme
A new programme, IMMA Outdoors, that activates the grounds with artist commissions, events, collaborations, social distanced spaces and cafés, creating a new radically public space for visitors to safely engage with IMMA, is part of a rich and extensive 30th Birthday programme at IMMA, announced today (Thursday 8 April 2021). IMMA’s 2021 programme also presents…
April 6, 2021
Winners of the 2021 Golden Fleece Award Announced
The Trustees are delighted to announce the winners of the 2021 Golden Fleece Award are Aideen Barry, Bassam Al-Sabah, Maria McKinney, Lorna Donlon, Laura Fitzgerald and Sinéad O’Dwyer. The announcement was made in a special video presentation celebrating twenty years of the Golden Fleece Trust and includes wonderful interviews with the artists: view here. Each…
April 1, 2021
Centre Culturel Irlandais Residency Recipients Announced
Nora Hickey M’Sichili, director of the Centre Culturel Irlandais, is delighted to announce the recipients of residencies for the Centre’s 2021-2022 programme. “In these times of uncertainty, CCI is more committed than ever to supporting Irish artists and welcoming them to Paris. Together with offering precious time to concentrate wholly on their work, our residencies…