fiona hallinan

Got to spend a short time in Venice for the Biennale launch with friends old new and familiar, incredible and life affirming art, necessary protest and abundant artichokes. The group exhibition In Minor Keys was stunning, mesmerising and densely packed with beauty and connected threads. I felt the wonder of the vision of Koyo Kouoh in her curatorial legacy and saw so much love of her in delicate mémorials. Gabrielle Goliath’s work was stunning and offered space for some of the ubiquitous grief of our times. Well done to Isabel Nolan, Georgina Jackson and Cian O’Brien for the beautiful Ireland at Venice presentation. The @angalliance strike and protest for Palestine was so powerful and important and it was hopeful to join in it’s vibrancy on the heaving streets and bridges. I hope the inspiring works of this biennale that have been so carefully crafted by artists and curators and the strength of conviction of the protesting arts workers can spread their tendrils beyond the island and realise the power and magic potential of art in the world. Pictures: Artichokes Yto Barrada textile and light work and sticks plants at French Pavilion Remembering how to hold a baby at Ei Arakawa-Nash, Grass Babies Moon Babies at the Japanese Pavilion Hair recurring in the work of Wangechi Mutu and Alice Maher Lawrence Abu Hamdan at Canicula, group show of film work at Fondazione In Between Art Gabrielle Goliath’s installation Elegy at Chiesa di Sant’Antonin

▪️◾◼️An ending is a slippery idea. Does anything come indisputably to an end?◼️◾▪️ Follow the link in our bio to find documentation of the FSAS 2025 Summer Studio: Ultimology Summer School, devised and facilitated by @fink_ and Kate Strain, and developed in collaboration with @kunstverein_aughrim and the Department of Ultimology With @mariefarrington @maia.nu.nes @staci.bushea The Ultimology Summer School drew on research into practices proximate to death, and invited participants to imagine how paying attention to endings might shape or alter our present approaches to artistic knowledge production. Films by @roskavanagh ; score Davy Keogh FSAS Summer Studio produced by @jujubmouss

✨Making Dust is now available to stream from ANYWHERE on the IFI at Home platform @irishfilminstitute , via both its Irish and international channels . I’m thrilled that this film can now be disseminated this way. It’s been screening since it’s premiere in many different contexts, and one of those that I’m most excited about is its continued educational use in classrooms, conferences and lecture halls to provoke ongoing and urgent discussion around issues of demolition and re-use as well as new materialism, the sacred and the profane. It was a joy to create this work alongside a brilliant team; including of course architectural historian Ellen Rowley, whose essay underpins the film. Thanks to all the crew, the IFI, @aemi_ie for their wonderful support throughout and the Arts Council for funding the project. Making Dust is part of the Arts Council collection @artscouncilireland where it can be borrowed for institutional exhibition. Images here are stills from the film and photography by Faolán Carey, @faolancares one of the five cinematographers who worked on the project, as well as Tadhg O’Sullivan, Jamie Goldrick @jamjgo , Francis O’Mahoney and Johnny Lyons @johnielyons . It was edited by Michael Barwise @michaelbarwise , with sound design by Brendan Jenkinson and original organ composition by Davy Kehoe. Upcoming international screenings of the film include as part of a DOCOMOMO event in St. Anna Ten Drieenkerk, Antwerp, Belgium on February 28 2026 docomomo.be and at the conference Neglected Times of Architecture / Les Temps Négligés de l’Architecture in Brussels March 17/18 2026. See my website for more details.

Some pictures from my PhD defence for @luca.schoolofarts held @kunsthalgent on Tuesday November 4th. Thank you to all who came and supported the project, my jury and Advisory Committee, Kunsthal Gent for hosting and to everyone who helped make the event happen. The banquet reception was by Pauline Lemberger @paulinelemberger @bouchee.double and included towers of sauerkraut - fermentation is one way of making beginnings from endings- and pumpkins baked whole- the last of the season’s harvest from Pauline’s home in Alsace, an enormous pot of onion soup, tapenades and pestos, chocolate stuffed dates and rice pudding. Photographs by Isaac Ponseele @isaac.ponseele

The exhi­bi­ti­on 𝗪𝗲 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗧𝗼𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗘𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗮𝘆 𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻­𝘁𝗶­𝗼𝗻 by artist, researcher and film­ma­ker 𝗙𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮 𝗛𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻 @fink_ is part of her PhD research at the LUCA School of Arts of KU Leu­ven @luca.schoolofarts con­cerning Ultimo­lo­gy. It ini­ti­a­tes a gathering around a rup­tu­re, in this case the dem­o­li­ti­on of what was once Ireland’s second lar­gest Catho­lic church. On Tuesday Novem­ber 4th (17:00) she will defend her doc­to­ral research in the arts at Kunsthal Gent, tit­led:  “A Table and a Body: Dis­clo­sing Ulti­mo­lo­gy, a Prac­ti­ce of Paying Atten­ti­on to Endings”. 

••• The 𝗱𝗼𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗻­𝘀𝗲 is free and open to the public ••• You can reser­ve free tic­kets via our website (link in bio)

Gathering images in preparation for my PhD defense on Tuesday November 4th from 17:00 at @kunsthalgent : these are some images from my artistic research project @luca.research A Table and a Body: Disclosing Ultimology, A Practice of Paying Attention to Endings. The defense will be a moment of public presentation and examination by the project’s jury with a reception at the end and I hope it will offer a chance to thank some of those who supported and followed the project along the way. I would be honoured to see you there; if you are coming please register your attendance at luca-artoffice.be/project/43774 . The public defense at 17:00 will be followed by a reception by @bouchee.double Pauline Lemberger. The project, which takes the demolition of a church in Ireland as its primary case study, comprises a sculptural table, an essay film and written thesis. Understanding the notion of an “ending” as in metonymic relation to the process of dying, the project has been informed by ongoing research on practices of attending to death and has come to look to the wake as a guiding resource. Image 1 : Breaking Bread event at Kunsthal Gent, a gathering on the table Fragment Mediation, photography by @isaac.ponseele 2025 Image 2 : Mediating a Rupture, symposium @visual_carlow , a mediation session for participants with different perspectives on the demolition of the Church of the Annunciation in Dublin, photography by @louishaugh 2023 Image 3 : Canteen Pending, the project’s first case study of an ending, interviewing participants about the closure of the Majolica canteen at Viernulvier. This process resulted in a sound piece encased in a pillow for the new canteen, sound design by @dianaduta_ . 2021/2022 Image 4 : Sewing circle held at manoeuvre, a series of sessions where participants sewed with me while we shared knowledge of different practices of attending to death 2021 Image 5 : Notes as diagrams from the On Death reading group 2021

A good feeling in my hands My printed thesis, A Table and a Body, arrived yesterday, thanks to the careful design work of the brilliant Alex Synge, @thefirst47 . This pocketbook is the result of four years of research at LUCA School of Arts KU Leuven, supervised by Nancy Vansieleghem @nvsieleg and co-supervised by Mick Wilson, and will be presented, alongside the film Making Dust and table Fragment Mediation, as part of my doctoral defense on November 4th @kunsthalgent The book includes two essays, one on what I’ve come to understand about endings and the other on how practices of attending to death might inform the method of Ultimology, a way of paying attention to things in decline, redundancy or otherwise ending processes. The writing draws on ideas from Hannah Arendt, Nina Lykke, Rosi Braidotti among many others. It also includes appendices that document and detail the years of research activities I undertook, from the On Death reading group and sewing circle to recent projects including the making of the film Making Dust alongside my collaborators Ellen Rowley and Kate Strain @kunstverein_aughrim With huge thanks to all the institutions, interlocutors and individuals who aided and accompanied this process. 📸 inside the book by @roskavanagh of installation work A Window @visual_carlow 2023

Goodbye to you our beautiful friend Manchán, little monk. We will long be unribboning the many gifts you left us, love and giddy delight san teanga in Irish language, desire for and forging of connection across worlds, fun and surefooted love. As you showed us good ways to live you and those around you also beautifully shared an approach to the end of life that is vital. It felt like you balanced gentle mischief with serious care and work, saintly integrity with responsiveness and flexibility, in ways that we all need to look to. Here you are having frites late one summer night after your packed out show Arán agus Im and on the other hand a picture of the van load of produce you grew and so generously presented with Ais for myself and Barry’s tiny wedding in 2020. Love and gratitude to you, your family and all those touched by you.

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MAKING DUST is a powerful portrait of the demolition in 2021 of the Church of the Annunciation in Finglas, once the second-largest Catholic Church in Ireland. The film is structured around a fascinating and deeply insightful essay by architectural historian Ellen Rowley. Followed by a conversation, with director Fiona Hallinan (@fink_ ), Ellen Rowley, and poet Paula Meehan who came of age in Finglas, moderated by @emmett_scanlon (Director, @irisharchitecturefoundation ). 📆 MON 23RD ⏰ 18.30 🎟️ LINK IN BIO

dust, lead, compost, granite, ice and water We closed our FSAS 2025 Summer Studio: Ultimology Summer School on Friday with a workshop and public talk by Staci Bu Shea, launching their beautiful book of essays, Dying Livingly, at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios. The Summer School was a three day workshop with selected participants hosted by Fire Stations Artists’ Studios and Kunstverein Aughrim, where we delved into Ultimology, the practice of paying attention to endings. Through a combination of readings, exercises, exhibition visits, a forest sound bath, picnic and hands-on activities we thought through how modes of attending to death could inform curatorial and artistic approaches as well as our ways of being in the world. Our guest practitioners included Maïa Nunes ( whose hands and arrangement are pictured ) who led a walk and sound bath at Devil’s Glen woods, Marie Farrington who instructed a clay workshop and Staci Bu Shea who shared their experiences as a holistic deathcare worker and curator in a workshop and talk. We had lunch every day by the cafe at the Hugh Lane and visited work there by Ailbhe Ní Bhriain. We also visited Kunstverein Aughrim where we heard from Kate Strain and saw the work of Marie Farrington and throughout the three days I shared recent writing I’ve been working on as part of doctoral research at LUCA School of Art KU Leuven. Thanks to all our participants, Julia Moustacchi and @firestationartistsstudios , @tlp_says @templebargalleryandstudios @roskavanagh @kunstverein_aughrim @luca.research @thehughlane @maia.nu.nes @mariefarrington

In Paris for the last day of this hugely significant and well researched exhibition by Laia Abril @laia_abril at Le Bal, which lays out incidences of reported mass hysteria across different contexts and suggests links between these and acts of protest. The video work at the end depicts protests, mostly by women, at different times and places across the world. It was incredibly moving to see the momentary elation and relief of the repeal movement in Ireland juxtaposed with other collective actions where women are being oppressed in many cases and often violently. Such an important gathering of material, and testimony of the continued necessity of protest and the recurring oppression of women.