Temple Bar Gallery + Studios is delighted to announce that artist Aisling McCoy has been awarded a residency in Paris as part of the Cité Internationale des Arts programme. Aisling was nominated for the residency by TBG+S.

More than 60 artists from around the world will be in residence in 2019 at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris.

The Cité internationale des arts programme is open to foreign artists, who wish to develop a project of research in Paris during a period of three or six months. These artists may be identified by the Institut français, Alliances françaises, cultural services of the French Embassies or French and foreign cultural organisations.

During their residency, the laureates develop a project of research and creation. The Residency Department of the Institut français coaches them to widen their professional network and encourages collaborations with other artists and cultural organisations in France.

Aisling will work from a studio in Paris for three months (April - July) in 2019. During her residency, Aisling will make a new body of work exploring the condition of exile in Paris, both as a real location and an ideological space, contrasting the work of Irish emigré writers in Paris during the 20th century with contemporary Paris and the experience of refugees today. In this work she will build upon themes carried through from previous works on utopia, inhabitation and exile, engaging with both the physical landscape of Paris and the imagined city.

Aisling McCoy is an Irish artist whose work looks at how we inhabit space. Her background as an architect is central to her practice, which investigates the conflict between architecture as an intellectual concept - created through images - and it’s translation into built form. She’s particularly interested in the ideological aspect of inhabitation and the role of both architecture and photography in constructing the ideal. Over the past year her art and teaching practice has focused on the physicality of the photograph; both as a method of translating space, and an object which generates its own space of meaning.

A graduate of the MFA Photography programme at the Belfast School of Art, Aisling’s work has been exhibited internationally. In 2017 she was a selected artist for PhotoIreland New Irish Works, was awarded the Seen Fifteen/Belfast Exposed Futures Exhibition Award, and is the recipient of the Arts Council Next Generation Award.

For more information Cité Internationale des Arts winners 2019 please click here.