Open Call: Chronic Connections: Networking for sick and disabled artists

About the Open Call

Fire Station Artists’ Studios are collaborating with Chronic Collective for the third year of Chronic Connections: Networking for sick and disabled artists. Disabled and chronically ill artists often cannot network in the same way as their peers; this programme tries to bridge the gap and invites curators and programmers to have a conversation with disabled and chronically ill artists about their work. This programme involves two events, the first is a ‘speed curating’ networking event (artists will have 15 minutes with each of our curators to introduce themselves and their practice) and the second event will be a one-to-one studio visit or meeting with a selected curator. After the initial networking event, the artists will share feedback on the networking event and will be matched with the most suitable curator for their needs. The artists will then be able to avail of one scheduled studio visit/meeting as part of this programme, with the curator they are matched with. Throughout the programme, Chronic Collective and FSAS will be checking in and available for support and advice. This programme aims to build capacity for sick and disabled artists to enable dialogue and networking opportunities with curators invested in inclusive practices. Chronic Collective and FSAS have gathered a panel of nationally recognised curators who have a close interest and practice in inclusion and access to participate in the Chronic Connections Network Programme with up to 8 visual artists with disabilities/chronic illnesses in 2025. The 2025 Networking Programme curators are: Diana Bamimeke, Eve Woods, Mark O’Gorman and Mary Conlon. What is speed curating? You will meet with each of the four curators for 15 mins each. It is a fast-paced but relaxed environment. Don’t worry we will have lots of breaks! You can share examples of your work from your online portfolio, website, Instagram, or printed files. You can also simply chat about your practice. We will have a spare laptop and iPad available. We can also print files/images prior to the event. To make the best use of your time, please have the files or web pages ready so you can share during your meeting. The speed curating meetings are usually an initial introduction between the artist and curator, but also can be useful to reconnect with someone if you have made new work. The curator will also introduce themselves and what they do. A meeting like this can be a way to build a more long-term relationship with the curator. It can sometimes take several years between an initial meeting and an exhibition opportunity. What is a studio visit? The purpose of the studio visit/meeting is for artists and curators to have a conversation about the artist’s work and discuss areas of the artist’s practice. This first conversation could lead to building a relationship over time. Studio visits are meetings between artists and curators that are focused on the artist’s practice, their work and interests. In the studio visit the conversation may address themes of the artist’s work, works in progress, ideas around potential exhibition opportunities, audiences for future work, introducing references by other artists, professional development opportunities and critical responses. This can happen at the artist’s studio, online or in a meeting room. In advance the curator will research the artist and the artist will choose what artworks they’d like to show the curator and be prepared to discuss their work more in detail. All of this preparation is a starting point for a conversation. What to expect from Chronic Connections? Each of the successful artists will participate in a speed curating event with the four curators of the panel on 16 September 2025, 1-5pm, and a studio visit/meeting with one of the curators on our panel in the following weeks/months. Successful artists will receive a fee of €200. Curators will also receive a fee. After the programme is complete, each artist and curator will submit a one-page report /3min video or audio file on their experience of the networking programme. About the Curators: Diana Bamimeke is an independent curator, art writer & transdisciplinary artist from Dublin via Nigeria, primarily interested in curating and creating socially engaged art. Their practice encompasses text, exhibition-making, performance, pedagogy and other artistic interventions in contemporary Irish contexts. Informed by critical and political frameworks including anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggles, ecocriticism, Black feminist thought and others, Bamimeke is interested in how people become political subjects, processes of abjectification, and their presence in Bamimeke’s own lived experience. Eve Woods is an artist, researcher and curator/programme producer at Pallas Projects/Studios. She is interested in politics of space, power structures and soft ways of interrupting and interrogating these systems. She leads on the Artist-Initiated Projects and special projects including: Artists for Artists Residency Network (2024), Staring at the Sea: Land art and reflection symposium and associated publication Traces in the Landscape, (2023), Chronic Collective (2022), ‘Dubliners Reel’, 6th Biennial of Painting, Zagreb (2021); Ark Life workshop programme & exhibition Commission with artist Celina Muldoon (2021); Nasty Women Dublin (2017). She has also worked as Visiting Lecturer Dun Laoghaire Institute Of Art Design + Technology since 2021; Producer at Science Gallery Dublin (SGD) 2020; and gallery manager at Green on Red Gallery Dublin, 2017. BSc. Digital Technology & Design Dublin Institute of Technology/Digital Skills Academy, MA Visual Arts Practices, Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology, 2014 and BA. (Hons) Fine Art (Painting) ATU Galway City, 2012. Mark O’Gorman (b. Dublin) is the inaugural curator and producer of visual art at The Complex, a multi-disciplinary arts centre in Dublin’s north inner city, since 2018. The exhibition programme focuses on commissioning site-specific work with a prolonged developmental process and conversational approach with artists, who are carefully brought together in relation to one another. Mark has presented exhibitions and events at The Complex featuring artists including Jeremy Deller, Vivienne Dick, Aleana Egan, Jaki Irvine, Sean Lynch, Dennis McNulty, and Locky Morris. He consistently guest lectures at the National College of Art & Design, Technological University Dublin, and the Institute of Art, Design and Technology. His writing has appeared in Paper Visual Art and The Visual Artists’ News Sheet. Mary Conlon is the Director of The Dock in Leitrim. She sits on the Board of Pallas Projects and Studios, and is the Co-Chair of the Cultural Transformation Movement at Trans Europe Halles, a network of 160+ arts and cultural centres. She is a jury member for the 2025 Leopold Bloom Prize for contemporary art in Hungary. She was the founding Director of Ormston House in Limerick from 2011 to 2023. About Chronic Collective: Chronic Collective is a multidisciplinary art collective with a strong focus on accessibility in the arts. The collective is run by two queer and chronically ill artists, Tara Carroll and Áine O’Hara. They work to create spaces, events and opportunities for sick and disabled artists and audiences to engage in art and culture in Ireland as well as working alongside cultural organisations and venues to improve their physical and structural barriers. They have been funded by the Arts Council and have worked with venues and organisations like Pallas Projects, A4 Sounds Studios, Project Arts Centre, Rua Red, Create and the Museum of Everyone. Image description: Áine and Tara from Chronic Collective sitting in front of a projector screen in the Digital Media studio at Fire Station Artists’ Studios.

What is Offered

Successful artists will receive a fee of €200.

Requirements

To be eligible you must: have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory barriers which prevent you from engaging or accessing the art world in the same way as your peers; be a practising artist; live on the island of Ireland; be over 18 years of age. You are ineligible to apply if you took part in Chronic Connections in the last two years.

How to Apply

Artists are asked to submit an application email to apply@firestation.ie with the following information: A one-page letter of interest (max 500 words; .doc or .pdf) or a 3-minute video/sound file, responding to the following prompts: Tell us about your art practice and your experience; Tell us how this programme will benefit you and your practice; Tell us why this is an important time for you to engage in a programme like this; Artist Statement (optional); CV or Biog: max 2 pages (.doc or .pdf); Examples of previous work: between 3 and 10 images/works, captioned with title, medium/materials and 1 or 2 sentences about the work (.jpg, .wav, .mp3, .mp4, .pdf, .doc). If you have any access requirements to participate in the Chronic Connections, please outline these in your email.