Beyond imagination - new research for a feminist-led art resource centre
Post-Doc Researcher Alessia Cargnelli joins NIVAL and IMMA
Dr Alessia Cargnelli (she/her, b. 1990 in Trieste, Italy), a visual artist and researcher based in Belfast, commences as a Enterprise Post-Doctoral Fellow at NIVAL and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) with the the support of Research Ireland.
For the next two years Alessia will further expand on her previous research interests, conducting participatory-led preliminary research to support the establishment of the first community-led feminist art resource centre on the island of Ireland. This will be an experimental space for the preservation and promotion of feminist histories, radical resistance, and imagination.
Understanding feminist archives as sites “of knowledge making, cultural production, and activism; where academic and activist work frequently converge” (Eichhorn, 2013; p. 15), and building on the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s recent acquisitions of time-based art practices and artist-led archives with a focus on Irish women artists; this project will further enhance the Museum’s future collection strategy, developing the basis of an independent research centre informed by community-led archives models and feminist-informed, participatory-led methodologies. The research will be undertaken in consultation with the National Irish Visual Arts Library at the National College of Art and Design, the academic partner of this project.
With a background in artist moving image practice, subsequently informed by artist-led initiatives and collaborative productions, Alessia’s interests expand towards alternative forms of education, feminist-informed methodologies, collective self-organisations, activism, and artist moving image production and programming. Along with artist Emily McFarland, she is co-founder of Soft Fiction Projects (2018-ongoing), an artist-run initiative dedicated to producing digital and printed matter on artist moving image culture; focused on the exploring omitted voices, oppositional histories, geopolitical narratives underpinned by intersectional feminist perspectives which challenge and reframe dominant hegemonic power structures. Alessia is also a member of Array Collective, a Belfast-based group who, since 2016, creates collaborative actions in response to the socio-political issues affecting the north of Ireland. Array Collective were the winners of the 2021 Turner Prize, with the immersive installation The Druthaib’s Ball, which is now part of the Ulster Museum permanent collection. Array newest commission An Dún was featured in the 2023-2024 exhibition Self-Determination: A Global Perspective, at IMMA, the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
Alessia is a former co-director of the artist-led initiative Catalyst Arts Gallery (2016-2018). She was 2020-21 Research Associate at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Derry. She completed a BFA with Hons in Visual and Performing Arts at IUAV University and a MA in Contemporary Art History at Ca’Foscari University in Venice, Italy. She obtained an Associate Fellowship Diploma with AFHEA at Ulster University in 2021 and she completed her doctoral research at the Belfast School of Art in 2024, with research on feminist-led women-artists’ advocacy groups connected with the island of Ireland in the late 80s and early 90s. In 2023, Alessia was appointed post-doctoral researcher-in-residency at the National Irish Visual Arts Library, in NCAD, Dublin; with a pilot project focused on expanding underrepresented categories in the library’s collections – such as artists and designers which are coming from diverse ethnic, cultural, gender backgrounds and nationalities. The outcomes of the research are presented in a printed publication Archiving Plurality, published by NIVAL in 2024.
