Martina O’Brien: draft fissure

Galway Bay opens out into the Atlantic Ocean: a fluid, unfathomable, paradoxical space of deep ocean currents and paths of maritime traversal, intricate and precarious ecosystems, increasingly mapped and monitored through emerging technologies.

Over that last number of years, O’Brien has participated in multiple marine expeditions off Galway’s coast, exploring scientific and industrial practices that are transforming our relationships with the ocean, from the extraction of the seabed through deep sea mining, to research into the effects of climate change on deep-water corals. The exhibition draft fissure brings together sound and visual installations, decommissioned materials, and archives of Irish scientific work that offers ways to map, understand, and vision the Atlantic.

draft fissure puts pressure on extractive imaginaries of ocean environments, and attunes to networked oceanic knowledges and communities navigating the intensified changes of climate emergency below the surface.

draft fissure was developed through a UCD Parity Studios Artist Residency with iCRAG and supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Kildare County Council.

Martina O’Brien is a visual artist based in Co. Kildare. She has participated in a number of significant exhibitions and artist residencies in Ireland, abroad and at sea. Over several years, she has collaborated with various experts in climate change and marine ecosystems. She is the recipient of several awards from arts organisations and research bodies including the Arts Council of Ireland, Creative Ireland, Create, the European Commission, the European Union and Goethe-Institut, Kildare Arts Service and DLR. Recent artist residencies include University of Oslo’s Marine Expedition, Oslofjord, aboard the RV Trygve Braarud (2024); ATU’s Marine Expedition, North East Atlantic Ocean, abroad the RV Celtic Explorer (2023); Artist Laboratory, Devenish Lands at Dowth, Solstice Arts Centre (2023); Landscape, Ecology & Environment Research Residency, Leitrim Sculpture Centre (2022); UCD Parity Studios inaugural Irish Centre for Research in Applied Geosciences Artist in Residence (2020- 2022); Science Gallery Dublin Rapid Residency (2020); and Temple Bar Gallery + Studios (2019/20). Upcoming and recent solo exhibitions include Galway Arts Centre (2024); Lexicon Municipal Gallery (2025); Highlanes Municipal Gallery (2023), Illuminations Gallery, Maynooth University (2020) and Butler Gallery (2018). Recent groups exhibitions include Holdings, Solstice Arts Centre (2023); LEER, Leitrim Sculpture Centre (2022); SHUL, STAC (2021); New Era, Solstice Arts Centre (2020); Datami, BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels; Datami, European Commission, Milan, (2019/20) and Tactical Magic, TULCA (2019). Recent publications include of ephemeral measure (2022) and Every Single Morning (2020). Recent awards include the Arts Council of Ireland Visual Arts Bursaries (2023/2022/2021/2019) and Visual Arts Project Awards (2024/ 2021/ 2017).