2025
Exhibition Residencies
Fiona Woods is an artist who has a commitment to the idea of public as something that must be activated or claimed, rather than a given. She describes her work as an attempt to open or to generate modest spaces within which it might be possible to question how things are or how they could be.
Her commitment to the idea of public as an active mode means that she often works with other people, from all disciplines and walks of life, trying to create conditions of co-authorship within the framework of a given idea or proposal.
In addition to this, Woods is trying to reimagine her own situation as a human in relation to the rest of the non-human world, and to propose an extension of the 'rights' inherent in an idea of public-ness to species beyond the human. For that reason she often refers to the notion and practice of the Commons, as an alternative to the ownership model of being in the world.
Woods anticipates that all of these endeavours are probably doomed to failure, but no less valuable for that.
Fiona Woods is a visual artist based in Ireland. Her practice includes making, writing, curating and teaching. She has spent a number of years considering the rural as a site for socio-spatial practices and productions, and has carried out a number of public art commissions, both in Ireland and abroad. Recent works and projects include Walking Silvermines (2011); The Translocal Condition (2011); collection of minds (2010 – 11) and Common? (2010). She devised and directed Ground Up, (2003 - 2008), a programme of temporary public art in rural contexts for Clare County Council. Woods has an MA from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and her work has received support from the Arts Council of Ireland.
Past Residencies