Season's Greetings from CCA Derry~Londonderry

As we go into our winter break, CCA Derry~Londonderry’s team and board want to say a big thank you to every artist, visitor, freelancer, educator, funder, donor, follower and volunteer for being part of CCA in 2023 🤝


We began 2023 with our biennial exhibition URGENCIES (2023), featuring work by ten emerging artists: Chloe Austin, Husk Bennett, Daniel Coleman, Sarah Diver Lang, DreamBean, Miach Malachy, Julie Lovett, Richard Magee, Silvia Mandic and Yasmine Robinson. We followed this with Laura Wilson's solo exhibition SEAMS in March 2023, and later presented Sam's Eden, curated by Thomas Wells, featuring artists Michaela Razafima Nash, Suds McKenna and Yarli Allison, as part of Jerwood Curatorial Accelerator 22/23 legacy projects. The year closed with Kwok Tsui's solo exhibition Deferral | Echo.

Alongside this, we held a programme of public events expanding on themes encountered in our exhibitions. This included workshops, performances and talks facilitated by Frank Wasser, Laura Wilson and Alex Wilson, Michaela Razafima Nash, Mel Bradley, Cara Donaghey, Husk Bennett, Sarah Diver Lang and Ciarraí MacCormac. We also held events as part of Derry Halloween with Grace Fairley, continued our partnership with Derry Print Workshop for Culture Night, held our second Seed Saving Day with Seed It Union, contributed to NI Science Festival with a workshop by Jane Butler, were part of Northern Ireland Mental Health Arts Festival with Crios Belts facilitated by Deborah White and Foyle Pride with Jack McGarrigle’s workshop Queers Won’t Be Quiet. In May, we hosted The Uncommon, a gathering for migrant artists on the island of Ireland with Bojana Janković and Marta Dyczkowska. In addition, we held a Schools Programme to run alongside each exhibition, with Jack McGarrigle and Sarah McNabb.

This year also saw the launch of CCA x Jerwood = Supports, expanding our programme of artist support for emerging artistic talent. This included mentoring programmes, peer critique facilitated by our Public Programmes Curator Laura McCafferty, application feedback, our Research Associate programme, public sharing events, and more. CCA's Project Space welcomed artists to try out new ideas including Charys Wilson, Ginte Regina, Sally O'Dowd, Indigo Azidhaka and you can currently view Matthew Wilson's work through CCA's windows until the New Year.

CCA's Digital Programme continued with two Digital Residencies with Peter Glasgow's The Honky-Tonks and Me, and Ella Yolande's We Have Never Only Been Human. CCA Introducing presented takeovers by Nessa Finnegan, Charlie Rydzewski, Lydia Davies, Niall McCallum and Kialy Tihngang, with five more artists and practitioners hosting takeovers in early 2024. Each 24-hour takeover is viewable on our Instagram @CCADLD. Additionally, we recorded three Roundtable Podcasts, available to listen on our Spotify channel.

We will begin the new year with Paola Bernardelli in the Project Space from 1–31 January 2024 we we look forward to welcoming you all to the launch of our next gallery exhibition, Stones from a Gentle Place, by artist Susan Hughes, which opens on Saturday 20 January, 7–9pm.