Current Board
Samar Nezamabad
Samar Nezamabad (b.1999) is an artist and curator based between Belfast and Limerick examining the nature of time, memory, and grief through experimental analogue photography and installation work.
She is a graduate of Fine Art Painting, Limerick School of Art & Design (LSAD) and served as chairperson of the LSAD Exhibition Society for the academic year of 2022-23. In 2023, she completed an internship with TULCA Festival of Visual Arts and worked as an Engagement Assistant with EVA International. She received the Collector General Purchase Award in 2023 for her work in the LSAD Graduate Show and was a member of the 2024 Douglas Hyde Gallery Student Forum.
She has a passion for providing opportunities for emerging artists to be brought into the public eye, which she has pursued both independently and within her role in the LSAD Exhibition Society. Her efforts have culminated in Work in Progress (2023) in Limerick School of Art & Design and ADVANCE (2022) in spacecraft studios, Limerick. She has exhibited her own work in The Complex, Dublin; Lismore Castle Arts, Waterford; Outset Gallery, Galway; VISUAL, Carlow; and Ormston House, Limerick.
Her curatorial ambitions moving forward centre on directing exhibitions that provide a notable experience for the viewer. This involves creating an encounter for the audience by implementing a degree of immersion into the presentation. Sustainability is also a point of concern for her, researching artistic practices that approach their method of making from the ground up, developing a system of creation that does not also destroy the earth from which it comes from.
Pete Ramsay
(B.2000) Pete is an Irish artist based in Belfast. His main practice is abstract painting with a common theme of humans and relationships.
Favourite colour: Blue
Favourite food : Guinness
Favourite irish artists: Richard Gorman and William McKeown
Hobby’s include: Sailing, cooking and looking for things in bushes
Emma Quin
Emma is a multi-media artist, writer and maker based in Belfast. Working with a variety of mediums, textures and pre-existing materials, Emma creates multi-dimensional works and text that communicates with the viewer. Throughout her writing and visual art, her practice borrows from familiar objects she encounters in her day-to-day life and her lived experiences. Emma also enjoys writing and publishing personal essays and cultural criticism, having work published online and in print by @polyesterzine @neighbourhoodmagazine and @readdork. Emma is currently an artist in residence at Digital Artist Studios Belfast and member of Soup Ink Writers Co-op.
Patsy McCartan
Patsy McCartan (b.1993, she/they) is a multilingual curator and cultural practitioner based in the north of Ireland. Previously, at Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, Patsy worked collaboratively to deliver exhibitions, publications and projects primarily aimed at raising awareness about the climate crisis. These include: ‘The glacier melt series’ (1999 - 2019); ‘Ice Watch’ (Tate Modern, 2018); and ‘EarthSpeakr’ (2020). Since relocating to Belfast from Berlin in 2022, Patsy has worked on several high-profile national and international communications campaigns, including ROMANTIC IRELAND by Eimear Walshe, curated by Sara Greavu and Project Arts Centre for Ireland at Venice 2024 and ‘Assembly’ by Cotter & Naessens Architects for Ireland at Venice 2025.
Patsy’s current curatorial ambitions include reimagining the gallery as a generative space for imagining queer and mad utopias. Her research interests include: the history of working class activism and kinship, disability justice and mad pride, esotericism and magic in visual culture, how cultural identity is shaped by myth, folklore and tradition, disruptions of power, and club culture.
Tori Clarkson
Tori Clarkson is a film editor and filmmaker based in Belfast with a BA(Hons) in Filmmaking and Photography from the University of Leeds and has specialised in documentary film editing at York University, Toronto.
Tori currently works within documentary filmmaking and moving image, with a strong focus on geographical landscapes and human relationship to the land at an individual and societal level. She has been working as a film editor on BAFTA and Grierson award-winning documentaries and has directed a number of short-form films including PÚCA and SOMA through Northern Ireland Screen and BBC.
Community and public engagement within the arts is at the forefront of her practice, acknowledging the importance of the arts as a way to communicate with and understand each other better within society. Political and environmental activism are consistent themes throughout her work.
Previous Directors
Seán Ward, Husk Bennett, Silvia Koistinen, Rachael Melvin, Dominic McKeown, Cecelia Graham, Kate Murphy, Manuela Moser, Jen Alexander, Tara McGinn, Rachel Botha, Thomas Wells, Leah Corbett, Emma Brennan, Anne Mager, Edy Fung, Liam McCartan, Peter Glasgow, Siobhan Kelly, Conor Mullan, John Macormac, Michael Edgar, Alessia Cargnelli, Emily McFarland, Joey O’Gorman, Edel O’Reilly, Mitch Conlon, Mary Stevens, Michaela Butler, Jane Butler, Phillip McCrilly, Brígh Strawbridge, Iain Griffin, Amy Brooks, Alice Clark, Rob Hilken, Katrina Sheena Smyth, Alissa Kleist, Ruaidhri Lennon, David Mahon, Emmanuelle Nègre, Tonya McMullan, Eoin Dara, Nathan Crothers, Catherine Neill, Kim McAleese, Mark De Conink, Anne McAuley, John Cashin, Charlotte Bosanquet, Aideen Doran, Kate McCullough, Johanna Leech, Fionnuala Doran, Sara o Gorman, Rachel Brown, Brighdin Farren, Caelan Bristow, Colm Clarke, Benjamin de Burca, Fuyuka Shindo, Leo Devlin, Helen Sharp, Lucy Edwards, Jude Bennett, Meabh O’Donnell, Kim Montgomery, Brendan O’Neill, Phil Hession, Lurach Bredin, Cian Donnelly, Clive Murphy, Allan Hughes, John Mathews, Ursula Burke, Deirdre McKenna, Elina Medley, Justin McKeown, Cherie Driver, Fiona Ni Mhaoilir, Niall Mc Cabe, Julie Bacon, Grainne Cullen, Seamus Harahan, Elina Medley, Joanna Fursmann, Keike Twisselmann, Jane Anderson, Stephen Hackett, Stella d’Ailly, Phil Collins, Heather Allen, Ruth Jones, Dan Shipsides, Brian Patterson, Niamh O’Malley, Angela Darby, Eoghan Mc Tigue, Peter Richards, Susan Phillipz, Toby Dennet, Duncan Campbell, Dougal Mc Kenzie, Sandra Johnston, Siofra Campbell, Robert Peters, Derval Fitzgerald, Karen Vaughan, Eillis O’Baoill, Mark Orange