Jess Franklin

Founder & Senior Engagement Officer, UCC

Jess Franklin is a public engagement professional and cross-disciplinary facilitator whose work bridges creative practice, public engagement, and the natural environment. She is the founder and co-ordinator of The Fold. In her current role as Communications and Development Support Manager at Backwater Artists Group she focuses on raising the organisation’s profile through strategic communications while also coordinating the Backwater Artists Network and delivering professional development programmes for over 100 artists. Working closely with the Studio Director, she supports members through talks, workshops, peer learning, exhibitions, and networking opportunities, helping to foster sustainable artistic practices and a strong, connected arts community. She has a PhD in Geology and ten years experience in the design, delivery and management of public events at local and national scale engaging a variety of audiences. Her artistic practice includes Source, an immersive sound installation and site-responsive workshop co-created with Kevin Sanderson, which draws on her doctoral research and combines geological storytelling with experimental sonic practice.

Carol Anne Connolly

Visual Artist

Carol Anne Connolly is a visual artist from the west of Ireland. A graduate of NCAD (BA Fine Art Sculpture, 2006) and NUIG (MA Arts Policy and Practice, 2011), she now lives and works in County Cork. Connolly's practice is primarily concerned with cultural and social ideas that relate to place in contemporary society. Through site-responsive enquiry, historical research, and community engagement, her work investigates how we relate to the environments we inhabit.

Fiona Kelly

Sculptor & Printmaker

Fiona Kelly makes sculptural objects and printed matter with an ever-expanding archive of foraged waste. Its natural and manmade constituents are arranged to narrate human interactions with land and the passing of time. Kelly holds an MA from Crawford College of Art & Design and is continuing her research into the contemporary narrative of land use as a PhD candidate at NCAD (2021-2026). Her current research is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland (2024).

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Brian Mac Domhnaill

Photographer & Director, Lavit Gallery

Brian Mac Domhnaill is a photographer, interdisciplinary artist, arts professional, and former archaeologist based in County Cork. He holds an MA in Art & Process (CIT Crawford College of Art & Design, 2014), an MSc in Palaeoecology (Queen's University Belfast, 2001), and a BA in Archaeology and Celtic Civilisation (University College Cork, 1997). Brian is Director of Lavit Gallery, Cork (2022-) and previously served as Programme & Operations Manager at Sirius Arts Centre and Studio Coordinator at Backwater Artists Group.

Kim-Ling Morris

Textile Artist & Facilitator

Kim-Ling Morris began her artistic journey alongside a 20-year career as a biochemical engineer, developing her practice across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Europe before settling in Cork. She studied sculpture in Leamington Spa and at Ecole Duperr in Paris, later completing a Fine Art Textiles Special Purpose Award at CIT Crawford College of Art & Design. Kim-Ling is a co-founding director of Sample-Studios, Treasurer of the Cork Textiles Network, and serves on the board of the Design and Craft Council of Ireland.

Kevin Sanderson

Sound Artist & Programmer

Kevin Sanderson is an experimental sound artist and programmer based in Cork. His practice is rooted in deep listening, field recording, and improvisation, building imagined soundscapes and live performances that respond to the natural world. Kevin often collaborates with Jess Franklin, most notably on Source, an immersive sound installation that merges geological storytelling with experimental sonic practice.

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Aoife Desmond

Artist

Aoife Desmond makes performance, film, and visual art for gallery, cinema, theatre, and off-site locations. Prioritising embodied knowledge, she explores materiality, site, and human and non-human relationships in response to environmental crisis and rupture.

Susie Walsh

Community Artist & Facilitator

Susie Walsh has worked as an artist in community settings since graduating from Crawford College of Art and Design in 1999. She specialises in empowering young people through creativity, teaches with Cork ETB and Foroige, and maintains her own art practice as a member of Cork Printmakers.

Helle Helsner

Sculptor

Danish-born Helle Helsner works through sculpture and drawing, exploring intuitive material understanding with a foundation in ancient processes. Casting bronzes by hand in her studio, she collaborates with archaeologists in Denmark and beyond.

Trevor Joyce

Poet & Publisher

Trevor Joyce co-founded New Writers' Press in 1967 and the SoundEye Festival in 1997. He makes work with words and light, primarily through poetry. His latest book, Conspiracy, was published in 2024.

Irene Murphy

Visual Artist

Irene Murphy works with sound, food, performance, multimedia, and durational installations. Her collaborative projects include The Domestic Godless, Ideal State Agency, and Strange Attractor. She is a founder member and co-curator of The Guesthouse Shandon in Cork.

Leah Murphy

Visual Artist & Facilitator

Leah Murphy's studio practice centres on painting alongside illustration, photography, and large-scale wall works. Collaboration and facilitation are integral to her projects, which often involve community-led workshops and collective making.

Peter Nash

Multi-disciplinary Artist

Peter Nash is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Cork. Informed by research into pre-internet knowledge systems, his practice spans drawing, printmaking, animation, and sculptural assemblage. He is a studio member of Backwater Artists Group and Cork Printmakers.

Inma Pavon

Multidisciplinary Artist & Choreographer

Inma Pavon is a Spanish multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, and a dance/art facilitator based in Cork. She holds a BA (Physical Education for Primary School, Granada), a MA (Contemporary Dance Performance, UL) and a MPhil (Creative Dance/Art Practice, UCC). She is a dance member at the International Dance Council UNESCO and a Contemporary Affiliate Dance Teacher Member of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance (UK). She is the director of InmaPavonDanceCo (adults Contemporary Dance classes/workshops) and a lecturer with id+Project and Theatre Studies (UCC).

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Jonathan Crean

Sound Artist, Performer & Researcher

Jonathan Crean is a sound artist, performer, and researcher based in Ballina, Co. Mayo. His work listens to the porous boundary between human and more-than-human worlds, exploring sound as a relational and material force. Through field recording, improvised performance, and the making of aural scores, he engages with natural materials and environments as collaborators rather than subjects. Holding an MA in Experimental Sound Practice from University College Cork, Jonathan's projects have unfolded across Ireland and Europe, including site-based performances, installations, and experimental radio works. His current research considers how acts of listening and resonance might open new ways of knowing and being with place.

Ed Jarvis

Lecturer, UCC BEES

Ed Jarvis is a geology lecturer based at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES) at University College Cork.

Pat Meere

Structural Geologist, UCC

Pat Meere is an academic structural geologist at UCC's School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences. His research focuses on the Munster region, and he has authored field guides to the geology of Ireland and Skellig Michael.

Hollie Bean

PhD Researcher, UCC

Hollie Bean is a PhD researcher at University College Cork examining fossil feather colour through melanosome pigment characteristics.

Richard Unitt

Petrography & Mineralogy Specialist

Dr Richard Unitt is a geologist at University College Cork specialising in petrography and mineralogy, with a strong interest in geoscience imaging and Raman spectroscopy.

Valentina Rossi

Post-doctoral Researcher & Palaeontologist

Valentina is a post-doctoral researcher and palaeontologist based at University College Cork. She works on the preservation of pigments and soft tissues like skin and internal organs in fossil vertebrates. With a bachelor and master degree in geology, she has been always fascinated by how our planet works and in particular about its history, a story that only rocks and fossils can tell!

Thomas Heising

Geologist & Science Communicator

Thomas Heising has worked with graphic design and video for over 15 years, and has mixed this with his academic background as a geologist. Originally from Denmark, he is now living and thriving in Cork working with visual science communication at UCC while trying to get out exploring on the bicycle as much as possible. Along with a geologist at UCC, he co-created and co-launched Hardcore Cork: Geology in the City - a website highlighting and promoting Cork city's geology for the general public. This led to the creation of geological heritage content for Cork City Council and an annual geology city tour personally hosted by himself as part of Heritage Week from 2021. Other projects include animation videos on local geology and science history with websites on air quality and environmental research projects.