ARTIST BIO

Caoimhín Gaffney is an artist and filmmaker, based between Belfast and Cavan, whose work has been shown in exhibitions and film festivals internationally. They graduated from Technological University Dublin with BA Fine Art in 2008 and from the Royal College of Art’s MA Photography and Moving Image in 2011. In 2014 they were an UNESCO-Aschberg laureate artist-in-residence at South Korea’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s Changdong residency and their work was shown in two solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Institute CAI02 in Japan (2014 & 2018). A monograph of their work, Unseen By My Open Eyes, was published in 2017.

Gaffney’s work has been shown at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (2021) and in a solo exhibition at the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork (2021), and is part of both collections. Their work has also screened at film festivals, including: Cork Film Festival (2016 & 2018), European Media Arts Festival (Germany, 2016), and the 10th Imagine Science Film Festival (New York, 2017). In 2022, they completed a practice-led PhD on queer artist filmmaking at Ulster University. Recent exhibitions include ‘Images Are All We Have’ at PhotoIreland Festival (2022) and ‘Guides’ at the Linenhall Arts Centre (2022).

Often the characters’ roles – or way of performing – change from scene to scene, creating an ambiguity that reflects on the shifting nature of identity and which draws attention to the constructed nature of cinema and photography itself

The texts and scripts they write are often without traditional narratives or character arcs, aiming to create an unsettled terrain that reflects the unsettled and uncomfortable emotions and sensations they discuss.