“My curatorial approach challenges competitive institutions that value power, knowledge and scale, as well as slick modes of working and presenting artwork. I hope to create space for artists and audiences to be vulnerable, sincere and open when engaging with contemporary art. My central motivation is collaboration between people, disciplines and ideas. By prioritising collaborative working, I embrace a welcoming and non-judgemental approach that dismantles ideas surrounding individual success. For me, collaboration also embraces the idea that knowledge can come from many places – whether it’s gardening, watching reality TV, staring at walls or reading an academic text.”
In her independent practice, Cecelia explores community-based, participatory knowledge gathering in order to challenge notions of hyper-productivity, disciplinary borders and power structures often relied on within institutions. Her work approaches modes of working and caring that emerge from collaborative and slow methods within ecology, agriculture, craft and undervalued, messy acts of labour.
Cecelia has a collaborative practice with curator Grace Jackson, researching kind-hearted and vulnerable approaches to artistic-curatorial relationships and establishing alternative modes of advocating and caring for a community of artists that resist strict, slick outputs. The duo are current Curators-in-Residence at PS2 in Belfast. Cecelia is currently a Co-Director at Catalyst Arts, an artist-led space in Belfast.
