Sarah Browne

Cork-based visual artist Sarah Browne has qualifications in Fine Art (Sculpture) from the National College of Art & Design, Dublin; Autism Studies from UCC; and Gender Studies from UCD. In her practice, she is increasingly invested in developing processes of social engagement that don’t rely only on speaking in order to address non-verbal, bodily experiences of knowledge, labour and justice.

While her practice is research-oriented, much of it is developed through processes of sculptural thinking and enquiry, particularly through working with textiles and analogue film processes. Primarily working through sculpture, film and performance, she often collaborates with people of formal and informal expertise (children, lawyers, carers, poets) to establish new communities of knowledge or experience. Significant projects in this vein include Echo’s Bones (2022-3, commissioned by Fingal County Council), The Law is a White Dog (2020, TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Galway), and In the Shadow of the State (2016, with Jesse Jones, commissioned by CREATE and Artangel). Her recent work continues to draw on an exploration of the artistic potential of sensory accessibility tools (e.g. captioning and audio description in film). Her current research is focused on anti-psychiatry and prison abolition movements, and what disability culture can teach us about current regimes of incarceration that persist.

Sarah Browne applied for a Golden Fleece Award to facilitate the development of studio infrastructure, namely the construction of a bespoke, large-scale quilting frame designed and made by art/architecture collective Forerunner. This will allow her to make larger quilted works, experiment with new ways of working, and pursue new exhibition opportunities.