Dr. Áine Phillips
Research activities
Socially engaged practice with East Galway communities, based at ARD Family Resource Centre, artist-consultant helping develop the new initiative East Galway Arts Festival.
European Performance Art histories and current practices see Performing Identity https://perform-id.eu/
Performance video and artists film, activist art, artist-led projects and curation.
Current work
A Decade of Centenaries project, Reflections was commissioned by Galway City Council, Galway Public Libraries, and Galway City Museum, a multi-part community focused project commemorating and celebrating Irish women 1923 – 2025. A trilogy of large scale banners were created from the commission and were exhibited at Thoor Ballylee Yeates Museum in June and acquisitioned by the Galway City Museum.
A live performance of Bishop Brigid as Grand Marshall of the 2024 inaugural Brigit Festival Parade in Dublin was commissioned by Dublin City Council.
Socially engaged community collaborations continue with local women and youth groups in Doughiska, Galway to create a series of multi-cultural legacy banners.
A touring show Domestic Bodies, Áine Phillips and collaborators was presented at Linenhall Arts Centre Castlebar in 2025 and 126 Artist-Run Gallery Galway in 2024.
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Museum exhibitions and screenings
Decade of Centenaries Reflections Banners at Galway City Museum 2025.
ACREA Eye Banners and Procession at The Narrow Gate of the Here and Now: Protest & Conflict IMMA Dublin 2022.
La Criée Centre d’Art Contemporain, France and Kunsthaus Rhenania, Cologne 2019.
Double Exposures with Manuel Vason at TATE Britain 2016.
The Lost Runway at Kyoto Art Centre 2010. In 2013 Red Weight was produced as a public performance and sculptural exhibition at Muzeum Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow, Poland.
Older performances at major art institutions include Art of love war at Wolfsberg Castle Austria 2006, Harness at Tanzquartier Vienna 2007, sex, birth & death at MOCA USA 2003,
Major international gallery exhibition and screenings
Tender Morsels video & prints at Stockholm Independent Art Fair.
Redress in the Robing Room at Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris curated by Rosetta Beaugendre 2022, ACREA Eye Banners at Talbot Rice Gallery Edinburgh 2018. Book of Invisible Stains, Imaginary Archive, curated by Gregory Scholette, Visual Culture Research Centre Kiev 2014.
The Lost Runway at Stanley Picker Gallery & Labour 11 Irish Women Artists at Performance Space London 2012. Art of love war at Mozovia Art Centre Warsaw Poland 2007 and Judith Wright Centre for Art Brisbane Australia 2008.
In Parallel was screened at Moving Image Gallery and The Kitchen New York 1999.
Major visual arts festivals and biennales
The Secret at Tulca Visual Arts Festival Galway 2024.
ACREA Eye banners and Procession at EVA Limerick 2002 curated by Inti Guerrero 2018.
Redress in the Robing Room at Kilkenny Arts Festival curated by Josephine Kelliher 2012. Emotional labour at TROUBLE Les Halles Brussels curated by Antoine Pickels 2012.
Multiple works were presented at various festivals of performance such as City of Women Ljubljana 2011, NON Festival Bergen 2011, National Review of Live Art Glasgow 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2009. My performance Immaculate Make Over was selected for EVA in 2001, curated by Apinan Poshyananda. Previous Tulca Festival inclusions were Tulca Live 2005 and 2006, curated by Helen Carey in 2009 and curated by Gregory Scholette in 2011.
Exhibitions and performances in Ireland
Domestic Bodies, Áine Phillips and collaborators at Linenhall Arts Centre Castlebar in 2025 and 126 Artist-Run Gallery Galway in 2024.
Bag Lady, Rua Red Re-Rooting Tallaght Performance Art Festival, Dublin 2024.
A Very Hard Border at Galway Arts Centre with the Array Collective 2022.
Buttered Up solo show at MART 2019. Invisible Knowledge solo show at Galway Arts Centre (solo show) in 2013 included multiple international collaborators including Manuel Vason (Italy) and Nada Zgank (Slovenia).
Redress, video and photographic collaborations with Vivienne Dick, nag gallery, Dublin in 2014.
Ardent Shelters solo show at Limerick City Gallery in 2004.
In Northern Ireland group shows include Emotional Labour at The Void Derry 2012 and Art of Love(war) at Golden Thread Belfast 2010
Film screenings at juried festivals
The Secret, FemLink Screenings at Athens Digital Arts Festival (ADAF) Greece
In the Robing Room, FemLink Screenings at Fundacio de Arte Medinaceli, Soria Spain
and at The Art Center, Dover, New Hampshire USA in 2024.Coming Full Circle at New Wave Munich and Indie Cork and Art(its) Film Cork 2022, Roma Italy and Toronto Multicultural Film Festival 2021. Buttered Up was shown at Alchemy Scottish Borders 2020, DUMBO New York and Cucalorus NC USA 2019, Galway Film Fleadh, Dingle Film Festival, Hamburg Shorts and BF Artists Film Festival London 2018.
Group video collages with FemArt include Dak’art, Senegal and Corrientes Centro Cultural, Argentina, Mobius Boston in 2017 and Panorama Festival Rio de Janeiro 2011.
Curation of performance events in Ireland and the UK
Performing Ecologies at Interface Connemara 2022. In 2018, Future States, Irish performance at Border Patrollers LADA London and Fierce! Festivals funded by Culture Ireland GB18.
From 2007 – 2009 Phillips curated the Irish section of the National Review of Live Art in the UK at Glasgow’s Arches and Tramway.
In Galway, Tulca Live from 2005 – 2007 and Live@8 performance and screenings 2009 – 2013. As part of the Arts Council National 1916 Programme ART:2016, Future Histories was co-curated with Niamh Murphy.
Writing extensively on visual art and performance
Published by Intellect Books, Palgrave, Taylor&Frances Group London, Methuen Bloomsbury and academic journals and art magazines including Performance Art Journal NYC and Scene Magazine UK. In Ireland she is a regular contributor to the VAI News Sheet and online magazines including Circa. in 2020 she co-edited Scene 8: Special Issue 2020 Performance and Ireland, with Dr Siobhan O’Gorman (IADT) and Dr Marie Kelly (UCC), Intellect Journals UK.
Articles include An Incomplete History of Performance Art in Ireland, in Irish Drama and Theatre since 1950, ed. Patrick Lonergan, Methuen Drama Bloomsbury 2018.
In 2015 Phillips authored and edited Performance Art in Ireland: A History (Live Art Development Agency and Intellect Books UK), the first survey to chart the development of live art and performance in Ireland since the 1970s.
Reviews and features on her work have appeared in VAI News Sheet since the late 80s, including among many others Solemn and Bedazzling by Lisa Godson 2017, Labour Intensive review by Liz Burns, 2012 and The Art of Love, review by Michelle Browne 2010.
In Circa her work was featured as Artists Pages in 2004 Her work with Artists Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment 2018 has been reviewed and featured in The Guardian, Art Newspaper, Frieze Magazine, Aesthetica among others.
Her performance work has been reviewed and featured in Performance Art Journal New York, Performance Research Journal UK, A-N Magazine UK, Circa, The Irish Times, Sunday Tribune and the VAI News Sheet since the early 2000s.
Live Autobiography, a DVD of selected works was published by the Live Art Development Agency London 2010.
Awards and grants
Numerous Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland and local Authority grants 1990 – 2025. She won a European Commission Art Award in 2003 and a recent Erasmus+ Partnership project award with European collaborators in 2022, funding performance art training programmes across Europe until 2024.
Her films have won screening awards at international film festivals including 3rd Jury Prize at Hamburg Shorts Film Festival Klapp-Auf! in 2018.
Panels and talks
Regular webinars with Visual Artists Ireland on Socially Engaged Practice since 2022.
Panels include ISTR Conference at IADT Dublin, The End(s) of Empire: Place, Politics, Performance in 2025.
Catalytic Intersections Project Arts Centre Dublin 2021: Voices of Change online seminar, Solas Nua Washington DC 2021: Female Commissioning Scheme NCH and Sounding The Feminists 2018.
Phillips was a keynote speaker at Double Exposures project with Manuel Vason, Tate Britain 2016, MAKE Conference, Crawford College of Art & Design MTU, and for Research in Real Time ODC for Drama, Theatre & Performance NUI Galway 2017.
A US Book Tour & public presentations of Performance Art in Ireland: A History in Boston, NYC, Baltimore, Chicago, San Francisco and Portland was funded by Culture Ireland, part of Culture Ireland International 2016 programme.
Selection Panels
Regional selector for Annual AICA Exhibition Award in Ireland
Peer Review selection panel member for Arts Council Visual Art Bursary awards in 2016 and 2007.
Academic accreditation
PhD from NCAD Dublin in performance art, 2009, MA by Research LSAD Limerick 2001, BA in Fine Art Sculpture NCAD Dublin 1988.
Head of Sculpture at Burren College of Art since 1999 and Honorary Academic Adjunct Faculty Research Supervisor MTU Crawford College of Art & Design, Cork since 2022.
External Examiner at Doctoral Level, Fine Art, University of Ulster in 2023 and 2025
Teaching Philosophy
My aim in teaching is to enable the expression and cultivation of individuality, creative activity and the acquisition of skills as a means to deliver concrete and vital end projects – art works that communicate ideas. Art is a way of thinking through images, objects, actions and I call on my students to situate their visual art practice, sculpture and performance art in the world of culture, politics, the environment and centrally, in the life experience of the individual. Relating the personal to the political was a core concept of the feminist movement in the 1960’s that I espouse and I encourage my students to find ways to universalize their individual knowledge, background and insight. I believe art has the potential to influence and enable positive change to happen in the world and as artists we can aim to generate a better world through an engaged art practice that produces the culture around us. Culture in turn produces the society we live in, so we have a responsibility (and a joyful task) to make the world a better, more artistic and wonderful place!