Companion Planting
Ongoing across 2023 - 2024
Nomadic, Belfast

A series of ongoing gatherings that take the form of an informal discussion group, Companion Planting creates space for the interrogation of embedded institutional practices and bureaucratic mechanisms within the arts ecology as a whole.

In the sessions, we discuss possible ways of reconfiguring arts organisations, seeking new and genuine means of support for creative practitioners in the north of Ireland; whether it’s ways of working that exist outside of monetary exchange, the implementation of more transparent policy, contracts and institutional procedures, or re-imagining how we can work collectively to uphold one another through, for example, holding institutions accountable. 

In the gatherings, we often share readings, listenings, watchings and examples that identify ways of supporting practitioners, staff and (often underpaid) contractors as they journey through institutions.

This builds on a series of writing made for LUMIN’s Local 37 Broadcast at Peak Cymru, expanding on themes of the artists’ labour and autonomy. You can read / listen to the writings here

If you are based in Ireland and wish to take part in a gathering, email cecelia.ac.graham@gmail.com.