Temple Bar Gallery + Studios announce the recipient of the TBG+S/HIAP International Residency Exchange 2027

The TBG+S/HIAP International Residency Exchange gives an Irish or Ireland-based artist the opportunity to spend three months at HIAP - Helsinki International Artist Programme. The selected artist has access to production facilities, visiting curators and an international network of artists. In return, TBG+S hosts a Finnish or Finland-based artist in Dublin for two months, kindly funded by the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland.

In 2027, Laura Fitzgerald will travel to Helsinki for her awarded residency. Fitzgerald's practice looks at aspects of everyday experience in late capital, exploring time, archaeology, occupation and place. Cited often in a remote context, she uses conduits such as vernacular buildings, machinery, mountains, rocks, stones, to explore aspects of human fragility and emotion. She is interested in fields having character, or characters who own fields, and fields that are turning into property – which is different than a field being just a piece of land. Fitzgerald states, "Property is epic and property is the essential part of late capital that is eating each of us alive." Land and place are often a container for multiple stories to coexist in her work. These stories whisper and shout, agree and contradict each other. Fitzgerald’s work is often placed within an administrative apparatus, to further explore ideas of humour and absurdity, both of which she finds ever more essential in an increasingly fraught and conflicted world.

Recent solo shows include: The Gecker Ones, Lismore Castle Arts (2025), and Strange Weather, Ormston House, Limerick (2023). Recent group shows include; Labour of Love, Glucksman Museum (2025) and BogSkin, RHA Gallery (2025). In 2025, she completed a large-scale multidisciplinary project Community Spirits in collaboration with the experimental band Trá Pháidín. The project was produced and curated by Niamh Brown. Community Spirits was made possible through a Visual Arts Project Award.

Laura Fitzgerald was the recipient of the 2026 RHA Áras Éanna Residency and has previously been on residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, USA, (2023) the Fire Station Artists’ Studios, Dublin (2017–2020) and The Lucian Freud Residency, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (2017). Laura received the Markievicz Award in 2025 to work with the archive of animator and filmmaker Flora Kerrgian. Her practice is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.