DABF25 Curator’s Talk: Of Human Flocks & Other Species

Join Selina Guinness in conversation Darran Anderson, Cathy Sweeney and Isabel Nolan about the complexities of their relationship with particular flocks, human, and other animals. How do other species instruct us in what counts as work and care? This panel will explore creative ambivalence about negotiating social and cultural habitats as shepherds and sheep, drawing on two exceptional works: Darran Anderson’s memoir, Inventory (2020), and Cathy Sweeney’s debut novel Breakdown (2024). The talk will explore how members of a flock fare when penned up individually – through forced confinement or chosen isolation. In short — the panel will take a hard look at flock dynamics and discuss how strays, scapegoats and other outcasts form new habitats.

DABF25 Guest Curator Dr. Selina Guinness presents her theme Flock through her Curator’s Programme including vibrant themed events and selection of books she has nominated, alongside her invited readers. Across the programme, Guinness examines all things pastoral: humans and beasts as herding creatures; the relational arts of shepherding; the impact of flocks on habitats; and how wary scapegoats too may flock to survive predation.

Darran Anderson is a London-based Irish essayist, journalist and memoirist. He writes on the intersections of culture, politics, urbanism, and technology for publications, including The Atlantic, frieze magazine, The Guardian, and The Times Literary Supplement. His first book, Imaginary Cities: A Tour of Dream Cities, Nightmare Cities, and Everywhere in Between (Influx / University of Chicago Press, 2015), is an analysis of real and imagined cities throughout history. Inventory (Chatto and Windus / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020) is a memoir of the passage of individual memory into community archive and myth in Derry.

Isabel Nolan’s work responds to big, often abstract, ideas with intimacy. Whether fixating on the knees of a C.17 sculpture, considering the status of a Neolithic artefact, or images of deep space, the work is part tribute, part critique of the fundamental ways humans bring the world into meaning. Working with a range of media, Nolan looks for ways to like, or even love, the complex human world we’ve made. In 2026, Nolan will represent Ireland at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. She is represented by Kerlin Gallery, Dublin and holds a Six Year Studio Membership at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios.

Cathy Sweeney’s fiction has been published in The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review and Granta, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In 2020, her collection of short stories, Modern Times, was published by The Stinging Fly Press, Dublin, and by W&N, London. Her debut novel Breakdown was published by W&N in January 2024. She is currently at work on a novel based on the months Oscar Wilde spent in Naples following his release from prison in 1897. Cathy has been funded by The Arts Council of Ireland.

Event location Information: This event will take place on the first floor accessible via lift and stairs. Seating will be theatre style. For further accessibility information please contact Learning + Public Engagement Curator Órla Goodwin.

Dublin Art Book Fair (4–14 December 2025) is a centre for contemporary artist books offering a wide selection of artist publications and titles from creative, small and independent publishers, both Irish or international, to browse or buy. In conjunction with the Fair, DABF presents an event programme of book launches, publishers talks, and workshops offering ways to engage and gain insight into contemporary independent and arts publishing.

DABF25 is proudly sponsored by Henry J Lyons and supported by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and RTÉ Supporting The Arts.