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k.sweeney@outlook.com

Dr. Kate Sweeney is a visual artist and researcher looking at the ways that we create and tell stories about ourselves. She is interested in how we can expand the ways we think about and describe ideas of who we are beyond metaphors of blood and DNA. Her work uses inks and drawing tools she makes from materials such as plant matter, soil and scrap metal gathered from her intimate environment.  She uses these inks as the starting point for conversations about family and kinship. These conversations are translated into large-scale drawings, short films and poetic texts that explore our collective understanding of heritage; a slow unfolding process of portrait making; searching in the margins and looking in the mirror to find references and ways to represent the adoptive mother’s body.

The theoretical frame to the work is informed by emerging cultural discourses surrounding queer ecologies and queerness as a collective and open enterprise. My projects are often located in and around archives, libraries and other sites of cultural repository and memory as well as being shaped and informed by my own lived experiences. In recent years I have produced work alongside The National Trust, D6: Culture in Transit, Newcastle University, Open Clasp Theatre Company, The RVI and The Women Artists of the North East Library.

education:

PhD (REA funded), Creative Writing, Newcastle University
HaSS Postgrad cert. in Research training, Newcastle University
MA Fine Art, Northumbria University
BA Fine Art, Northumbria University

Exhibitions, screenings, readings:

‘Being’ two-person exhibition, Vane Gallery, Gateshead, 2025
‘MotherOther’ exhibition, group show, NewBridge Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2024
‘Coremarks’ exhibition, group show D6 Culture in Transit, 2024
Zebra International Poetry Festival. Muenster, Germany. 2023
‘The Wings of a Moth without the moth-bit in between’ artists book launch, Newcastle, UK 2023
Ó Bhéal Poetry Film Festival, Cork, Ireland. 2023
Newcastle Poetry Festival 2022
AnimaTricks Animation Festival, Helsinki, Finland. June 2021
‘Liveness’ online exhibition, Newcastle University Performance Faculty May 2021
Star and Shadow Cinema, Newcastle, UK. Dec 2020
The Marginalian 2020
Climate Fringe COP26. 2020
Durham International Book Festival, UK. Oct 2020
7th International Video Poetry Festival. Athens, Greece. Dec 2018
Overcome FIlm Festival. online screening. Nov 2018
Ó Bhéal Poetry Film Festival, Cork, Ireland. Oct 2018
Juteback Poetry Film Festival, Colorado, USA. Oct 2018
Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival, Massachusetts, USA. Oct 2018
Zebra International Poetry Festival. Muenster, Germany. Sept 2018
‘Women Filmmakers in the North East’. Screening /talk. Aug 2018
Ledbury Poetry Festival. Ledbury, UK. July 2018
Newcastle Poetry Festival. May 2017
Animage Animation Festival, Pernambuco, Brazil. Dec 17
Art Visuals and Poetry Festival, Vienna, Austria. Nov 17
Meridian Czernowitz Poetry Fest, Czernowitz, Ukraine. Sept 17
New York City Poetry Festival, New York. July 17
Juteback Poetry Film Festival, Colorado. June 17
Shortwaves Festival, Poznan, Poland. Mar 17
Rabbit Heart Poetry Festival, Worcs., MA, USA. Nov 2017
Newcastle Poetry Festival, UK. May 2017
York Art Gallery. York, UK. Dec 2016
Great North Museum. Newcastle, UK. Aug 2016
ZEBRA Film Festival, Muenster, Germany. Nov 2016
Manchester Animation Festival, UK. Nov 2016
Festival Silencio, Lisbon, Portugal. July 2016
The Cinema Museum, London UK. Jun 2016
Newcastle Poetry Festival, UK. May 2016
Southbank International Poetry Festival, London, UK July 2014

commissions / funding / residencies:

Rupture; Open Clasp Theatre co., video illustration and projection commission for theatre prod, 2025
A Different Kind of Mind; Cap-a-Pie animation commission, 2025
Designs on Heritage; research residency with D6: Culture in Transit and National Trust 2023-4
Relations Archives Biomes; Women Artists of the North East Library writing commission 2022
ToBeTwo; Arts Council DYCP research award 2021
Startling; New Writing North animated video commission, 2021
Home Colours; Newcastle University Pioneer research award 2020
Human Cell Atlas Research Project: Newcastle University and Wellcome Trust commission, 2020
Murmuration; New Writing North animated video commission, 2020
Traces in the Script; research associate: Open Clasp Theatre Company and Newcastle University. AHRC animated video commission. 2019
Moving In; artist in residence, Northbourne Care Home Gateshead. Arts Council Nat. Lottery award. 2017
Vaccine; Centre for Chronic Diseases and Wellcome Trust animated video commission. 2016
A Scientist’s Advice on Healing; Centre for Chronic Diseases and Wellcome Trust animated video commission. 2016
Hammersmith; Newcastle Poetry Festival, Newcastle University, animated video commission. 2016
Dementia and The Imagination; research artist, Newcastle, Manchester and Bangor Universities, Equal Arts. AHRC commission. 2015
Material; Newcastle University, AHRC video commission. 2015
In the Air; Newcastle Poetry Festival, Newcastle University, animated video commission. 2015
Conversations for an Archive; Newcastle University, animated video commission. 2015
Antiphonal; Newcastle University, animated video commission. 2014
Poetics of the Archive; research assoc. Newcastle University. AHRC commission. 2013-5
Proof; Newcastle University, AHRC video commission. 2013

awards:

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM for To Be Two: Ó Bhéal Poetry Film Festival, Cork, Ireland, 2023
Arts and engagement award for Where We Will Go, Newcastle University. 2023
Saboteur Awards; special mention for Murmuration. 2021
BEST INT. ANIMATION for A Scientist’s Advice on Healing. Rabbit Heart Poetry Festival, USA. 2017
BEST INT. POETRY FILM for A Scientist’s Advice on Healing Festival Silencio. Lisbon, Portugal. 2017
BEST INT. POETRY FILM for Hammersmith: Festival Silencio, Lisbon, Portugal. July 2016
Shortlist for BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM for Hammersmith. Zebra Int. Poetry Film Festival, 2016
Ted Hughes Prize for Art and Poetry; shortlist for Turbines in January. 2012

conferences, research presentations:

‘CORE MARKS’; D6: Culture in Transit sharing event, Newcastle, UK, 2023
‘Home Colours’; Gertrude Bell symposium paper, Newcastle University, UK 2022
‘New voices on arts, humanities and social sciences‘ Insights Public Lectures, Newcastle University, UK 2018
‘Women, Work and Activism’ Conference paper. Newcastle University, UK. Nov 2018
‘Political Memory and it’s Archives’ Symposium. York University, UK. May 2018
‘Writing Digital’ MIX conference, Bath Spa University’s College of Liberal Arts, UK. Jul 2017
‘Archival Afterlives’ The 2017 John Rylands Research Institute conference, Manchester, UK. Jun 2017
‘Embodied Methodologies’ Practice-based Research conference, Royal Holloway, Univ. of London. Nov 2016
‘Digging into Data’; Conference paper, Glasgow School of Art, UK. Feb 2016

book and publication / authoring, citations, references:

‘Open Clasp, Open Archive: negotiating intimacy and distance in an archival collaboration.’ Co-authored article in ’Collaborative Research in Theatre and Performance Studies’ 2022
‘IN CONVERSATION: CAPTURING REFLECTION BETWEEN POETRY AND FILMMAKING PRACTICE.’ Reference in Tony Williams, Northumbria University Alan Fentiman, independent filmmaker’s article published in Text Journal, April 19. https://www.textjournal.com.au/april19/williams&fentiman.htm
‘The Contemporary Poetry Archive’ Reference and images in book by Linda Anderson, Mark Byers and Ahren Warner. 2018
‘Messenger’: Pamphlet of photography accompanying Christy Ducker’s poetry. Published by Smith|Doorstop. Wellcome Trust funded project at York University /Centre for Chronic Diseases, 2016