Iarlaith Ní Fheorais is a curator and writer and the author of the free online resource Access Toolkit for Artworkers.
She is an Independent Producer at field:arts, working with artists Bridget O’Gorman, Ebun Sodipo and Lyónn Wolf. She was the curator of 21st edition of TULCA Festival of Visual Art and curated Speech Sounds as Curator-in-Residence of VISUAL Carlow. As a writer she has written for publications including frieze magazine, Burlington Contemporary, Viscose Journal and Girls Like Us. She regularly contributes towards public programmes and lectures including at Somerset House, Rietveld Academie, KW Institute, Konstfack University, and Arts and Disability Ireland. She has sat on numerous selection panels including EVA Platform Commision 2025, Unlimited International Open Award and Edinburgh Arts Festival Platform 2023.
image:credits
1. honey, milk and salt in a seashell before sunrise, TULCA Festival of Visual Art, TULCA Gallery. Philipp Gufler: ‘Quilt #47 (Charlotte Wolff)’, 2022; Jamila Prowse, Crip Quilt, 2023; Paul Roy, various works, 2023. Photo credit: Ros Kavanagh
2. Miraculous Thirst how to get get off in days, exhibition by Lyónn Wolf and Eimear Walsh, supported by Basic Space, at Galway Arts Centre. Photo credit: Tom Flanagan (2018)
3. Speech Sounds, ARTWORKS 2022, VISUAL Carlow. Bridget O’Gorman, Non-Verbal 1, 2, 3, 2022; Jenny Brady, Receiver, 2019. Photo credit: Ros Kavanagh.
4. OH – INFAMY – WE EAT ELECTRIC LIGHT, Ulysses. 2.2., Oonagh Young Gallery. Lyónn Wolf Haugh and Iarlaith Ní Fheorais, 2022. Photo credit: Louis Haugh.
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Access Toolkit for Artworker
In recent years Iarlaith Ní Fheorais has curated exhibitions which radically reconsider how an audience can [be] invited to gather… In bringing together this festival she has opened up spaces that necessarily and genuinely make art accessible to wider and diverse communities. This festival continues her rigorous practice of manifesting urgent and innovative approaches to curating.
— Frank Wasser, RTÉ Culture; Cure and Care in Galway – the TULCA Visual Arts Festival reviewed
Writing, film, sound, storytelling, and experiential works all have a strong presence in the programme, bridging the gap between archival research and more immersive, haptic, and sensory experiences. This is a valuable way to shine a light on stories that have been previously confined to archives.
— Rosa Abbott, Paper Visual Art; TULCA 2023: honey, milk and salt in a seashell before sunrise, multiple venues, Galway, 3–19 November 2023
…by referencing the life of Beegan as a symbol for others who have been denied agency, and by contextualizing this discussion within the troubled legacy of institutionalization in Ireland and elsewhere, the festival draws a link between the politics of the body and the production of art.
— Chris Hayes, Texte Zur Kunst; The Paucity of Care Chris Hayes on TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Galway.
Repurposing tools of display and presentation is not only seen in multiple works within the show but also in TULCA’s exhibition design. Access tools, which are often regarded as merely functional and in opposition to aesthetic, curatorial, and artistic decisions, seem to merge effortlessly into the exhibition architecture and contest ableist display standards.
— Theresa Zwerschke, Arts of the Working Class; On the Medical Condition of a Landscape.
Portfolio of Artists: