Fingal Arts Office announces recipient of The Loughshinny Boathouse Studio Award 2025 - Maria McSweeney

Fingal Arts Office is pleased to announce Maria McSweeney as the recipient of the Loughshinny Boathouse Studio Award. The objective of this award is to provide a fully funded studio for a professional visual artist to research and develop new work in response to the coastal environment of Loughshinny and surrounding areas.

The coastline of Fingal is a wonderful natural amenity and an important wildlife resource for the many plants and animals that live in the diversity of habitats found around its shores. This initiative provides funding to enable the artist to observe and explore Fingal’s biodiversity, coastal habitats and climate change impacts. The former boathouse, located in the beautiful coastal village of Loughshinny will provide an ideal space for the artist to undertake research, interact with environmental specialists and engage with local communities. The artist will develop her project between September 2025 and May 2026 and create new work centering on Fingal’s biodiversity and natural environment.

Maria McSweeney’s lens-based art practice focuses on exploring place through the intricate process of deep mapping and documenting diverse landscapes. She is currently captivated by underwater aquatic spaces and overwater landscapes that hold unique ecologies and ecosystems. Her work seeks to traverse these often underrepresented environments, with a particular interest in the dynamic rhythms and interactions within these ecosystems, encompassing flora, fauna, geology and the impact of human activity. Using snorkeling and scuba diving as methods of exploration, she approaches these areas through an ecological, care based and hydrofeminist lens. She works with analogue lens-based processes, exploring sustainable and ecological alternatives to mainstream darkroom practices. She is currently experimenting with developing 35mm and Super 8 underwater films onsite using seaweed, seawater and natural materials, alongside other cameraless techniques like lumen prints, anthotypes, and phytograms. By working outdoors using an ‘en plein air’ darkroom model of her own design, she challenges the extractive, chemically intensive nature of traditional labs.

The Mayor of Fingal, Cllr. Tom O’ Leary commented “I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to Maria McSweeney on being chosen for this significant award and I am excited to see the innovative work she will produce during her residency at the boathouse.”

County Arts Officer, Sarah O’ Neill commented “I am pleased to announce Maria McSweeney as the recipient of the Studio Award in Loughshinny and look forward to welcoming her to the boathouse. This award reflects Fingal County Council’s ongoing commitment to supporting artists, enabling them to develop original work while fostering meaningful collaboration with communities and biodiversity experts.”

Maria said on being awarded, “I’m delighted to receive the Loughshinny Boathouse Studio Award which offers me the time and resources to fully explore the potential of my lens based art practice, and to experiment with new ecological processes and materials. I plan to create a site-specific body of work focused on the seaweed species present in Loughshinny and the wider Fingal coastline. I want to explore seaweed in relation to the underwater and overwater landscapes, geological, ecological and social histories, and its role in biodiversity and climate change.”

Maria McSweeney received a BA degree in Sculpture and Combined Media from Limerick School of Art and Design in 2020 and a Level 9 Diploma in Art and Ecology from NCAD in 2025. She was awarded a place on the IMMA Perspectives - A Creative Encounter programme (2025). She was the recipient of the Arts Council Agility Award (2021 – 2024); Create’s Artist in the Community Scheme (AIC) Artist Mentoring Award (2023); the Exhibition Residency Award at the Leitrim Sculpture Centre (2023); a Super 8 motion film residency at The Darkroom, Dublin (2023); a second place Green Award, sponsored by An Taisce, at Trinity College Dublin’s Sustainable Sculpture Exhibition (2024). Other achievements include the Aran Island Underwater Photography Project (2024) and ‘Submerged Mythos’ an installation which featured at IMMA’s ‘Earth Rising’ (2024).

Images: Maria McSweeney and Bike Lab courtesy of the artist.