Highlights of March 2025
NIVAL is delighted to share news about the development of our special collections.
NIVAL has acquired a significant volume of administrative and archival material from Arts & Disability Ireland (ADI). ADI is the national development and resource organisation for arts and disability and promotes engagement with the arts at all levels – as professional artists, audience members and arts workers – for people of all ages with disabilities of all kinds.
NIVAL is honoured to continue to preserve the documentation and work of this important national resource and make it available for research and public access. The materials will be processed in due course and researchers are very welcome to get in touch with any queries.
NIVAL is excited to announce the final stages of processing the Traveller Art & Craft collection are complete. This valuable collection comprises photographs and oral histories recorded with Traveller craftspeople and highlights the importance of Traveller Art & Craft within Irish cultural heritage. The project and recordings were initiated by Katie Blackwood (NIVAL staff member) and undertaken by Francesca Hutchinson and Geraldine McDonnell, and the project was funded by the Heritage Council.
Twenty-six members of the Traveller community took part and the project resulted in 22 audio recordings of interviews with Traveller participants, 624 photographs and 14 videos. The histories specifically relate to art and craft and were recorded in 2022. The collection is primarily digital with one additional archive box of objects. Samples are available to view on our website and all materials are accessible through the NIVAL Reading Room. We are excited for researchers to get in touch to find out more about this unique collection!
NIVAL is grateful to have received further significant donations into the Artist-led Archive. The ALA was deposited in NIVAL on long term loan in 2010, having begun as an art project which was conceived and developed by artist and curator Megs Morley. The collectives which have been added include Array Collective, Askeaton Contemporary Arts, Chimera, RAGE (Realising Absolute Gender Equality) and others, facilitated by Kate O’Shea.
Following the Dublin Art Book Fair in November and the Drogheda Zine Fair in January, NIVAL has now added 53 new artist books and zines to our ever-growing collection. The new acquisitions will be processed in due course and all books are accessible to view in the NIVAL Reading Room.
The results of NCAD Second Year Graphic Design students’ work under the annual Archive(ist) project have been collected by NIVAL for public access. The artist books made by students were inspired by the HIBERNIA collection and showcase the range of engagements that students and researchers can have with the archives.
NIVAL is honoured to hold the uncut manuscript of Nicola Gordon Bowe’s definitive biography of Irish stained glass artist, Wilhelmina Geddes. The finished book was published by Four Courts Press, Dublin, in October 2015. On her death, Wilhelmina Geddes was described as ‘the greatest stained glass artist of our time’ and is the only Irish visual artist to have a crater named after her on Mercury.
Find information on visiting NIVAL and making an appointment to view any of our collections.