Artist and Curator Café: Co. Kerry – May 28th
Kerry Arts office in partnership with Visual Artists Ireland, invite you to the Artist and Curator Café. This intensive, one-day networking and professional development event is designed specifically for contemporary practitioners across the region.
The theme for this session is “Creating Your Own Exhibition Opportunities.” In an evolving arts landscape, the ability to self-organise, collaborate, and pitch effectively is more vital than ever. This event offers a unique platform to hear directly from industry experts and peers who are successfully navigating these paths.
What to Expect
- Curator Presentations: Gain insights from four guest curators—Alice Quinn Banville, Niamh Darling, Aoife Banks —as they discuss DIY spaces, freelance producing, and how to build professional relationships with curators and galleries.
- Networking & Dialogue: Meet fellow artists from neighbouring counties in a relaxed, café-style environment to spark new collaborations and share resources.
Whether you are an early-career artist or an established practitioner, this event provides the tools and connections to help you manifest your own creative projects.
Aoife Banks
Aoife Banks is an Irish contemporary visual art curator, writer, and researcher whose curatorial practice is rooted in the exploration of visual, social, and political cultures through a queer, decolonial lens. Aoife is currently the Curator and Programming Coordinator of Luan Gallery. Previously, Aoife has curated contemporary visual art exhibitions and managed public engagement programmes for galleries and cultural institutions across Ireland. She holds a joint BA in Fine Art and Visual Culture (2018) and an MA in Visual Culture, Art in the Contemporary World (2020) from the National College of Art and Design.
Niamh Harding
Niamh Darling is a Dublin-based early-career curator, currently working as an Assistant Curator at The Douglas Hyde Gallery of Contemporary Art and Ireland at Venice 2026. Niamh’s curatorial practice is concerned with how social norms are shaped and sustained in the precarious conditions of life under late capitalism. In her previous role as the 2024 Provost’s Fellow in Curating at The Douglas Hyde, Niamhcurated Living Conditions, an event exploring the precarity embedded in the built environment, featuring new and existing works by Avril Corroon, Evan Kelly and Eva Richardson McCrea. In 2025, Niamh was Production Assistant to Deirdre O’Mahony on her forthcoming major new performance and moving image work. Niamh has also co-produced live performances and events including Miss Powder Vacuum in 2025 at The Douglas Hyde and Fringe was Here for Dublin Fringe Festival 2024. She was editor of Worlding, a publication featuring commissioned work by the 2024 Student Forum, and her writing has been published by The Lab, Visual Artist’s Newspaper and Paper Visual Art. She was recipient of the 2025 Agility Award.
This event is supported by Kerry County Council