Grounding Practice: Access Capacity with Iarlaith Ní Fheorais
Curator and writer Iarlaith Ní Fheorais shares tangible approaches to how access can shape artistic practice, collaboration and sustainability.
| Dates | Wed 25 Nov 2026 |
| Times | 6–7.30 pm |
| Space | Snooker Rooms, New Wing |
| Price | £5 |
Part of
This event is part of Grounding Practice
What can artists learn from access methodologies? Curator and writer Iarlaith Ní Fheorais draws on her experience working with artists and developing the Access Toolkit for Art Workers to share practical approaches to building access into practice, from planning and budgeting to collaborating with support workers, building teams and support structures.
Rather than treating access as something added to a project at the end, the session will consider what happens when access and support become part of an ongoing practice. We’ll consider how some of these approaches might be useful to artists more broadly, regardless of their career stage or artistic discipline, or whether access is a specific concern within their work.
Through case studies from previous projects, Iarlaith will reveal how these approaches have worked in practice, including what was involved, what worked well and what she might do differently. The session will also offer practical guidance around how to resource access costs. Leaving artists who attend with practical ideas they can apply to their own ways of working, as well as a broader understanding of how access can shape artistic practice, collaboration and sustainability.
About Iarlaith Ní Fheorais
About Iarlaith Ní Fheorais
Iarlaith Ní Fheorais (b. 1995) is a curator and writer based between Galway and London. As the curator of the 21st edition of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts she staged exhibitions, public programmes and a publication responding to the legacy of mass psychiatric incarceration in Ireland. She’s the author of There’s a Tunnel Under Ballybrit Business Park (2026), a critical examination of the Irish MedTech industry and is currently co-directing a film with artist Sarah Browne on art’s role in psychiatry, occupational therapy and confinement.
Ní Fheorais has written for publications such as frieze magazine, Burlington Contemporary, Viscose Journal, and Paper Visual Art, among others. She has contributed to public programmes at Paul Mellon Centre, Chelsea School of Art, Rietveld Academie, and the National College of Art and Design, Dublin on subjects ranging from curatorial practice, writing on disability and medicine and access in the visual arts. She has sat on selection panels including EVA’s 41st Platform Commission, Unlimited International Open Award and Edinburgh Arts Festival Platform Award 2023.
Her work is supported by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the creative production supports initiative field:arts through her role as Associate Producer.
Sean Burns is an editor and writer. He writes extensively on art and culture and has taught as a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London, and the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. In 2023, Tate Publishing released his book Death, which examines the relationship between grief and love in Tate’s collection. He has written major profiles of artists including Marlene Dumas and Sang Woo Kim; contributed essays to books and exhibition catalogues on figures such as Richard Maguire, Jack O’Brien and Jenkin Van Zyl; and conducted interviews with leading cultural figures including Adam Curtis, Jack Halberstam and Shirin Neshat. In 2024, he received a development grant from Montez Press, with whom he is developing his first novel, due for publication in 2027. He lives in London and is an associate editor at frieze.
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With thanks to the Garfield Weston Foundation and Paul Hamlyn Foundation
