Dream States: Ireland on the International Art Stage
I. A Quiet Departure, A Global Arrival
It is a familiar narrative in Irish cultural life: the artist who must leave these shores to find their audience. Yet, in the case of Cork-based visual artist Elinor O’Donovan, the international stage has come to her, and she has met it with a work of considerable wit and depth. Her short film, Wild Geese 2: Wilder Geese (2023), has been selected to represent Ireland in the 2025 edition of the prestigious Artists’ Film International (AFI) programme. This is not a minor accolade .
AFI, now in its 18th year, is a touring programme of artists’ moving image conceived by Forma in London. It is a collaborative venture, uniting sixteen cultural organisations from across four continents . This year’s theme, ‘Dream States’, provides a fertile ground for exploring “the emancipatory potential of dreams, altered states, and cinematic illusion” . It is within this powerful thematic framework that O’Donovan’s film, selected by the Crawford Art Gallery, finds its international context . For a young Irish artist to be positioned within such a formidable global programme is a testament to the strength and distinctiveness of her vision.
II. A Playful Response to a Poetic Invitation
Wild Geese 2: Wilder Geese is, on its surface, a four-minute-and-one-second single-channel video filmed in Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland, during an artist’s residency at the Fish Factory . But to describe it merely by its logistics is to miss its essence. The work is a playful, searching response to the poem ‘Wild Geese’ by the late American poet Mary Oliver . Oliver’s poem, a gentle but firm injunction to stop worrying and be at peace with the world, is a beloved text, almost a secular scripture for the spiritually inclined. O’Donovan’s film takes this starting point and, with characteristic mischief, inverts it.
As the artist herself has explained, the film “in a light-hearted way, plays with the idea of cosmic nihilism: what if instead of the universe being indifferent to our existence as some people believe it to be, it is ‘overly’ concerned?” . This is a brilliant, almost absurdist premise. The film features Barry Manilow and is described as contemplating the extent to which the universe is concerned with our individual problems . It is a work that uses humour and pop-cultural touchstones to dismantle and then rebuild a more radical, speculative worldview, expounding the idea that the worlds we inhabit are constructed by inherited stories and cultural narratives .
O’Donovan’s practice, which spans filmmaking, digital collage, installation, drawing, and sculpture, is consistently engaged with questioning “knowledge, memory, and truth” . She makes, as she puts it, “playful answers” to these substantial questions. In her work, she examines how micro-details reveal macro-narratives, and she frequently employs an aesthetic of neoteny—unresolved or juvenile forms—to create glimpses of speculative worlds where things might be different .
III. A Voice on the International Stage
What does it mean for an Irish artist to participate in a programme like AFI? For O’Donovan, it provides an opportunity to test her work against a global context . The artist has been remarkably candid about the implications, stating: “My work, which so much depends on the cultural contexts and references I recycle as methods of meaning-making, by being tested in settings and to people who might be unfamiliar with the pop-cultural shorthand I use, affirms to me in new ways the idea that the worlds we inhabit are constructed by stories” . This is a mature and self-aware understanding of the artistic exchange; it is a process of verification and reinvention.
Her selection for AFI’25 is the latest in a series of achievements for the Cork-born artist. In 2024, she was shortlisted for the prestigious Golden Fleece Award, Ireland’s largest prize for artists . She has also been the recipient of the Jane Anne Rothwell Award from Cork Midsummer Festival, and the inaugural Cork International Film Festival Commission Award . Her first film, The Immeasurable Grief of the Prawn (2023), premiered at the Everyman during the Cork International Film Festival—a moment she has described as a source of immense pride .
Her work, which has been exhibited in Ireland, the UK, Portugal, Italy, and Mexico, is increasingly part of a broader conversation . She is a studio member at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios in Dublin, and her career is marked by a consistent pattern of recognition and support from the Arts Council and other institutions . Her recent exhibition, Metametamorphosis, at the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh—mixing imagery of The Beatles with a reference to Franz Kafka—demonstrates the playful, referential intelligence that characterises her approach .
IV. Crawford Art Gallery’s Vision
The selection of O’Donovan for AFI’25 is itself a significant act of curatorial advocacy. Crawford Art Gallery, in choosing Wild Geese 2: Wilder Geese, has championed a work that is deeply engaged with contemporary artistic discourse . As the films in the AFI’25 programme challenge perceptions of reality and open pathways to alternative futures, O’Donovan’s contribution is a vital Irish voice . In October 2025, audiences in Cork were able to see her film alongside works from artists representing Belgium, Germany, Serbia, Argentina, Turkey, and beyond, in screenings at The Arc Cinema . The programme is also being presented at partner venues globally, ensuring her work reaches audiences from Berlin to Mumbai to Los Angeles .
V. A Dreamer’s Invitation
Elinor O’Donovan’s success is a reminder of the vital, outward-looking energy that exists within the Irish visual arts. Her work, which joyfully and intellectually dismantles our assumptions, invites us to imagine a world where the universe is not indifferent, but perhaps overly concerned with our fates.
It is a dream state worth inhabiting.
