Seasons Greetings from CCA

From CCA Derry~Londonderry’s Staff and Board, to every artist, visitor, freelancer, educator, funder, donor, follower, volunteer, we send a warm thank you for being part of CCA in 2022

CCA will be closed from Thursday 22 December 2022, with the team returning on Wednesday 4 January 2023.

This year, we were delighted to have our doors open year-round with our projects and programmes, whilst continuing our online and remote programmes. Our year began with Ferox by Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh,and continued with our reciprocal residency solo exhibitions by Mark Buckeridge and Ona Juciūtė both at CCA and at Kaunas Artists’ House. In Ballads of Rhinestones and Newcomers, Bojana Jankovic and Frank Sweeney & Tom O’Dea, explored counterpointing experiences of the border through bus routes and pirate radio and we closed with the group exhibition Fugitive Seeds curated by Borbála Soós. We will begin the new year with our biennial exhibition URGENCIES (2023), which launches on Saturday 21 January 2023, 7pm.

Alongside our exhibition programme, we have held numerous workshops and schools programmes exploring and expanding upon the ideas featured in the our exhibitions. This year's programme included workshops with SeedIt Union, Jasmine Marker, Helena Hamilton, Priya Mistry, Sarah McNabb, Jack McGarrigle, Hattie Godfrey, Lyndsey McDougall, Hannah Casey-Brogan and Grace Fairley. We took part in WAIWAV interventions with DASH Arts, working with artist Bel Pye. We also held a series of writing workshops with our CCA Research Associate Lucie McLaughlin, Why Not Call This a Life! and continued our Window Texts series with a second cohort featuring writers, artists and designers who took part in Francis Whorral Campbell’s writing workshop How to write a door and walk through. We were so delighted to work with the brilliant Derry Print Workshop again on creating the Risograph editions. A fundraiser bundle will be available to purchase in the new year as well as free individual copies available to pick up from CCA.

Our Digital Programme remains intrinsic in our yearly programming, and this year continued with residencies Seven Days by Sarah Duffy exploring technological hauntology and Black Gold and Green (Mobilise the Poets) by Anne McCloy and Femi Dawkins responding to historial, archival and autobiographical aspects of the civil rights movements in Ireland and the USA. We also continued our CCA Introducing takeovers across our socials with artists Salma Abedin Prithi, Corinne Mazzoli, Amy Higgins, Jess Atieno, Blaine O’Donnell and Leah Hickey. Check out our Instagram to see the takeovers @CCADLD

CCA’s street-facing Project Space hosted experimental projects by Oisín Roberts, Tara McGinn, the UK New Artists Weekender cohort's banner (resulting from their workshop with Array Collective), Sue Morris and Greg McLaughlin, CCA Graduate Award winnerDavid Younglove, Niall McLaughlin, Christopher Steenson and the Department of Dreamtime. In the new year we will welcome Charys Wilson to the space, whose Graduate Award will be on show from 14 January 2023.

This year we had a staffing change, as Fiona Allan departed CCA to begin a new role in Glasgow at WASPS, and we welcomed Cecelia Graham to the team as Marketing and Digital Programmes Coordinator.

We’re excited to welcome in 2023, and future projects such as URGENCIES (2023) and a solo show of new and existing work by Laura Wilson. 2023 will also see the expansion of our artist development programme with the launch of CCA x Jerwood = Supports and many other projects including NI Science Festival 2023 with Jane Butler, our Round Table podcasts, editions and more from from Luis Jacob and screenings with Frank Sweeney and Gintė Regina. Keep an eye out for more information in the new year.

However you spend the holidays, we send all of the best wishes and look forward to welcoming you to CCA online and onsite in 2023!