Young Art Writers workshop with Gustav Parker Hibbett

Over two gallery-based sessions, participants will craft poetry in response to the current exhibition, The Last Balkan Cowboy, exploring writing as a way of engaging with visual art. These intimate workshops offer an informal and generative environment set in the gallery surrounded by the work of artist Dragana Jurišić.

Using examples of ekphrastic work (a way of vividly describing a work of visual art to bring it to life through words) for reference and inspiration, participants will be encouraged to explore poetry’s capacity to capture and create experience. How, for example, does a poet move beyond simple description and tune, instead, into the heart of a work of art? How can a poem capture not just the art but the poet’s experience of it?

Young Art Writers is designed for anyone age 18–25 with an interest in art and writing, or who would like to be introduced to this area. Led by writers, artists and curators with a writing practice, this is an opportunity to explore different aspects of writing in relation to visual art. The workshops adopt a shared learning and explorative approach as opposed to taught or critique-based sessions.

Spaces are limited and kept to a small group and so we ask that participants are fully committed to attending both sessions. No experience is necessary (just interest and enthusiasm!) and all levels of writing ability are welcome.

Gustav Parker Hibbett is a Black poet, essayist, and MFA dropout. They grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico and are in the final stages of a PhD in Literary Practice at Trinity College Dublin. Their debut poetry collection, High Jump as Icarus Story (Banshee Press), won the 2025 John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the 2024 T.S. Eliot Prize, among other honours. As TBG+S Commissioned Writer 2025, Hibbett produced a series of written responses to the exhibitions at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios.

Dragana Jurišić's works predominantly through the medium of photography, film and installation. Born in former Yugoslavia, she has been living and working in Dublin since 1999. Her work has recently been included in Kutxa Fundazioa Tabakalera, San Sebastián (2025); IMMA, Dublin (2023); Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (2022); Zurich Portrait Prize, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (2021); Slavonski Brod (2021); Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin (2020).

Event location information: This event will take place in the gallery where the exhibition is installed. The group will gather in an informal seated circle. For further accessibility information please contact Learning + Public Engagement Curator Órla Goodwin.