About the Exhibition

‘Tender Ruins’ is a new immersive soft-sculpture installation that
explores the tension between trust, care, and the shifting experience of
maternal indispensability. Rooted in fictional storytelling, the work
examines the fragile space of unholding, shaped by emotions that
emerge before rational decision-making.
Drawing on textile processes, reflective writing, and soft sculpture,
Suzanne weaves together often unseen emotional landscapes,
excavating vulnerability, and the fragile process of building trust. The
installation reflects single motherhood when a child becomes an adult,
and parental roles begin to shift.
Developed through documenting personal experiences of navigating a
child’s mental health struggles and addiction, the exhibited works
function as props for an evolving stop-motion animation. Set from a
current perspective, the narrative explores the experience of a mother
navigating in the spaces between the cracks in a society shaped by
housing insecurity, social fragmentation, and diminishing prospects for
the next generation.

About the Artist

Susanne Horsch is a Swiss installation artist whose practice
investigates the relationship between mind and body, drawing on
feminist, queer, and affect theories to explore how emotions, thoughts,
and lived experience shape individual and collective identities. A
graduate of Ulster University Belfast with an MFA in Fine Art, she works

primarily with textiles and soft sculpture as metaphors for weaving
together often invisible elements of human experience. Reflective
writing and textile techniques, including batik, underpin her practice,
excavating hidden emotions, memories, and personal histories while
inviting connection, understanding, and collective healing. Her evolving
three-dimensional works create spaces for shared intimacy.

Photo Credits and Artist Credits
The development for this work has been supported by CCA Derry, the
Arts Council Ireland through the Agility Award and by Kilkenny County
Council through the Arts Act Grant.

Opening Night – Thursday 1 October | 6:00 – 9:00 pm

Friday 2 October | 10:00 am – 5:30 pm

Saturday 3 October | 10:00 am – 5:30 pm

Sunday 4 October | 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

The work is eclectic and diverse. Each artist has worked
independently on their own pieces. There is a common
thread of exploration and discovery – uncovering what is
seldom seen, the layers beneath, and finding a voice through
the arts. The exhibition is called ‘What Lies Within’, as it is from
the creative depths that these works have come”.
Exhibiting Organisations

Art is Collective artist studio space is currently located at 2
Royal Avenue in Belfast as an assisted studio model. It is the
temporary creative home to nine studio artists who represent

a range of learning and mental health disabilities. It operates
on an assisted studio model: artists are supported by
mentors and facilitators in all aspects of their professional
development. There is a strong sense of community and
mutual support between artists and mentors which extends
beyond the walls of the studio. The artists work individually,
but all share, inspire and motivate each other.
Connections Arts Centre is a social enterprise working
alongside adults living with intellectual disabilities and
neurodivergent adults based in Dublin. Artists with disabilities
are at the centre of the community as leaders, contributors
and cultural producers. The Connecting Artists programme
supports neurodivergent adults and adults with disabilities to
build confidence, develop skills, and participate more fully in
society. The artists in this exhibition have worked with
mentors to support their professional development and to
work towards this exhibition.

Mencap Northern Ireland’s contribution to this exhibition is
a film from their project ‘Positive Identities, Inclusive Futures’,
which places people with a learning disability at the centre of
conversations about identity, understanding and
reconciliation. This project, which is funded through the
Department of Foreign Affairs’ Reconciliation Fund, worked
with Mencap Network Partner groups, brings together more
than 60 participants to explore identity, belonging and shared
futures through digital arts, storytelling, film, photography and
music.

Exhibition dates:

Thursday 2 July – Friday 21 August 2026

Late Night Art openings:
Thursday 2 July 2026 from 5:00 – 9:00 pm
Thursday 6 August 2026 from 6:00 – 9:00 pm

Artist Talk:
Thursday 9 July 2026 from 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Cover image: Unforgotten Imprints by Jenny Humphreys (Connections
Art Centre)

Northern Ireland faces a disproportionate systemic problem with femicide and gendered violence. ANIMA explores what we as a society tolerate or brush under the carpet in regard to domestic violence. This show incorporates the feminine, the ‘ANIMA’ showing a delicacy in the materials and using scale as a method of showing the vastness of the issue.

Stereotypically feminine colours and shapes are used as a footprint for what we feel comfortable talking about, vs things we can’t or are not allowed to say for fear of retaliation or suppression -the redacted lines. With current global events regarding certain files, and how as a society we refuse to believe women – it unfortunately took thousands of redacted lines for us to admit it has never been about protecting women or children.

ANIMA Part 1 explores the discrepancy of justice for victims of gender-based violence and is an active call for societal reform.

About the artist:

Anna Vidamour is a multidisciplinary installation artist whose work explores the complexities of the human condition through lived experience. She works across large-scale sculpture, film, performance, sound, and painting, rooted in a radical feminist lens and a commitment to social justice.

Drawing on Newton’s First Law of Inertia, she examines how trauma irreversibly alters the body and mind. Using repurposed materials, she creates biomorphic forms—mangled female organs, phallic petals, distorted bodies—reclaiming agency in the wake of abuse. Themes of memory, transformation, and the life–death–rebirth cycle are central.

Cover Image credit: Anna Vidamour, 2026