Ben Malcolmson 

Altered States / Stáit Alter, 2025, 6:05 Minutes

Altered States / Stáit Alter is the culmination of Ben Malcolmson’s work for the Shared Histories - Diverse Views artist commission. It was instigated by Photo Museum Ireland and facilitated by the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny, Nerve Centre in Derry~Londonderry, and the National Library of Ireland. Funded by Donegal County Council and Creative Ireland’s *Creative Communities on a Shared Ireland* programme, the project is a powerful meditation on history, identity, and the spaces in between.

In the latter part of 2024, artist Ben Malcolmson embarked on an evocative exploration of the borderlands between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Altered States / Stáit Alter is a visual and auditory journey that captures the liminal spaces of this region, blending documentary footage, performative gestures, and layered soundscapes to reflect on the fluidity and complexity of borders, identity, and memory.

Frances Hennigan
Swift Economy, 2024, performed by Anneke Brunekreeft, camerawork by Jens Franke, 4:01 Minutes

Swift Economy explores media’s role in shaping reality and political beliefs. This work highlights the PR machine and algorithms which filter through every image we consume, algorithmically optimising personas. Situated in a time where we consume more images in a week than people 100 years ago consumed in a lifetime, Swift Economy asks us to become conscious of our advanced ability to read and interpret visual meaning. Appropriating choreography from Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, it examines performative visual and gestural signifiers of empowerment and political activism, encoded in the media we consume, bringing awareness to the subtle ways that content can shift our reality and our political beliefs.

Laura McMorrow
The Gardener Digs, 2024, 01:37 minutes

The gardener digs” is a stop motion animation, created using a ‘paint on glass’ technique. Each frame is hand painted, giving it a painterly and expressive aesthetic.The animation illustrates a quote by Derek Jarman:

“The gardener digs in another time, without past or future, beginning or end. A time that does not cleave the day with rush hours, lunch breaks, the last bus home. As you walk in the garden you pass into this time - the moment of entering can never be remembered. Around you the landscape lies transfigured. Here is the Amen beyond the prayer.” 

Erik Nuding
Looking For Sam, 2024, 5:36 Minutes

Over the course of one night from dusk to dawn, a bat biologist wanders the Indiana Dunes.

Penny McGovern
What Do You Want?, 2024, Actors: Maria Austin and Ali Keohane,16 Minutes

Two women try to understand what the other wants. Behind the scenes, their actors try to understand what the director wants. Their director tries to understand what the actors want. A playful and thought-provoking exercise in meta-filmmaking, exploring how an intonation, angle or glance can alter intention.