EVA International is delighted to announce the full list of participating artists and partnerships for the 41st EVA International—Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art, opening across venues in Limerick from August 29 through to October 26, 2025.
Guest Programme: It Takes a Village
Curated by: Eszter Szakács in collaboration with the EVA team
(Matt Packer, Eimear Redmond, Ailbhe W. Drohan)
Titled It Takes a Village, the Guest Programme of the 41st EVA International is grounded in an approach of shared thinking, working, and doing. In line with the collaborative processes of curator Eszter Szakács and the EVA team, the programme prioritises ways of working with artists and partnerships to develop new projects and restaged presentations, attuned to the local social, political, and infrastructural context of regional Ireland.
The Guest Programme takes its title from the proverb “It takes a village to raise a child,” referring to the notion that the upbringing of children is a communal effort. The Guest Programme extends this idea, recognising that artworks and artistic projects are material expressions of visible and invisible ecosystems that connect people, beings, entities, and organisational structures.
Many of the featured projects and presentations are based on social and research collaboration, embedded within personal and political networks that extend locally and globally. Among them are artists that engage with communal alternatives for economy and property; others that use their practice to rethink routes of the past through the ruptures of history.
Presented across diverse venues in Limerick city, and through a number of local and international partnerships—from fishmongers, to family members, to other biennial organisations—It Takes a Village invites thinking, from many different perspectives, about the ways in which we might contribute to a more shared and equitable future.
It Takes a Village features works and commissions by: Noor Abuarafeh, Reza Afisina, Marwa Arsanios, Ana Bravo Pérez, Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty, Family Connection (Glenda Martinus, Rudsel Martinus, Jörgen Gario, and Quinsy Gario), damdam (a collective of collectives), Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh, Yazan Khalili, Anikó Loránt, Naeem Mohaiemen, Eoghan Ryan, and Eimear Walshe. Programme partnerships include: OFF-Biennale Budapest (Gypsy Criminals and Gideon Horváth) and Ormston House, Limerick (Bíodh Orm Anocht, feat. Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh, Laura Ni Fhlaibhín, Seán Hannan, and Keira O’Toole).
Platform commissions
Selected by Iarlaith Ní Fheorais and Roy Claire Potter
The 41st EVA International also includes new commissions developed through EVA’s Platform Commissions initiative, by Éireann and I (Joselle Ntumba and Beulah Ezeugo), Bridget O’Gorman, Colm Keady-Tabbal (in partnership with Beirut Art Center), Olivia Normile, and Lyónn Wolf (in partnership with El Reid Buckley and Dyke Nite). The proposals were selected by Iarlaith Ní Fheorais and Roy Claire Potter, following an open call process that invited artists to respond to ideas and definitions of access.
Acknowledgements
The 41st EVA International is funded by the Arts Council, Limerick City and County Council, Mondriaan Fund, Culture Ireland, and the British Council.
Press
For press information or interview requests please contact Kitty Malton (kitty [at] sam-talbot.com) at Sam Talbot.
