work on show

solo: pavilion, exhibition, social events, ritual

Furze: fuel fodder thatch tools toys

outdoor pavilion and events in Knockree Wicklow

An Óige, Knockree Hostel, Co. Wicklow (offsite event as part of the programme of Mermaid Arts Centre, Wicklow)

3^rd July 2026 (launch)-date

"From reproducing its function as a building material to use as a source of charcoal...Finan invites a reconsideration of this remarkable stalwart of our lands."
-curator Anne Mullee, project publication

work from the project aiteann supported by Mermaid Arts Centre, Wicklow Arts Office Strategic Projects Award and the Arts Council of Ireland

group exhibition

Leverhulme Wildfires Conference 2026 exhibition

prints and video artwork in exhibition accompanying research conference

Imperial College London, Kensington, London

20^th-23^rd July 2026

"Bringing these artists together is an attempt not only to understand fire in its many dimensions, but to personally revitalise it as a question. To hold it up to researchers and hegemonic modes of environmental governance and challenge the positivist approaches that have long dominated knowledge-making and making sense of the world around us."
-Elisabed Gedevanishvili, Imperial College London, exhibition catalogue text

work from the project aiteann

exhibition environment, public events, ritual

Waking the Land

^ collective exhibition and associated events

The Dock Arts Centre, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim

22^nd Nov 2025-14^th Feb 2026

"Our work, within the space and outside, uses worlding practices that bring the human and non-human into community, conversation, encounter, and care. Leitrim is distinctive for its thriving ecosystems, supported by small-scale, low-impact farming and traditional land stewardship that allow wildlife and agriculture to coexist."
-exhibition catalogue

work from the project ^ Collective supported by The Dock and Leitrim Arts Office

socially engaged artwork, intervention, exhibition

untangle

public sculpture and socially engaged artwork as part of my work on the project Síolta Glasa, in collaboration with Friends of Lace Limerick, the University of Limerick, supported by Limerick Arts Office through Creative Ireland

Arthur's Quay Shopping Centre, Limerick and University of Limerick

14^th Aug-19^th Sep 2025

"Each one of our garments was made by a person with dreams and hopes"
-public participant

work from the project untangle, part of the Creative Ireland project Síolta Glasa

group exhibition

Full Circle

exhibition of work of artists from a 25-year programme

VARC, Highgreen, Northumberland, UK

8^th Sep 2025

"This special collection of artist residencies are self-directed, each lasting an average of two weeks."
-VARC

work from the project Wood Wide Web

ritual

don't recollect

A ritual and card game on how we perceive histories using resarch from my project don't recollect, from a residency about the transatlantic telegraph cable that I completed in Newfoundland in 2024, and then collaborator and futures literacy theorist Loes Damhof used the ritual as inspiration for a futures literacy workshop with the attendees.

antidefuturing, whiddy summer school, whiddy island, co. cork

5^th Jul 2025

""
-

work from the project territories of transmission

collective ritual and community events

Animating the mountain

community ritual including workshops, ritual, keen, public walk and documentation

^, Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim, Ireland

10^th-31^st Oct 2024

"With the community, we made báidín bróin – grief boats – for people to place their feelings of loss into, and then brought these on a journey with costume and ritual."
-Shane Finan

work from the project Waking the Land

solo installation and exhibition

Assembly

interactive installation about why we collect

Jackie Clarke Collection, Ballina, Co. Mayo

19^th Nov 2022-
1^st Jan 2024

"I want to emphasize how the significance of the project comes not just from its content and how the text provides material of the work, but Finan’s use of technology that is critical and aesthetic...material of production, but also provides new insights into how technologies are used."
-Dr. El Putnam, from the official launch speech

work from the project Assembly

group exhibition

How It's Made

exhibition and event considering materials in technologies

How It's Made, The Boathouse, Creative Places, Balbriggan, Co. Dublin

8^th-23^rd Sep 2023

"how it’s made: meitheal is an exhibition and series of events designed to consider how things are extracted from the natural world in modern society and artists reflections of that concept."
-Scéal Collective, exhibition website

work from the project the edge is where everything happens

collective public events and exhibition

Waking the Land

collective artist-led social events and public exhibition

^, Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim

1^st Aug 2023-
8^th Sep 2023

"Drawing from recent land issues in north Leitrim, the loss of language, the loss of sense of place and community for people both born in north Leitrim and those who have become part of the place, we wanted to create a wake for the landscape while it still lives. Using tradition, philosophy and collaborative arts practice, the aim was to create and perform a series of wakes for the landscape inside an immersive installation specially built for the exhibition."
-Shane Finan, quoted by the Irish Hospice Foundation

work from the project Solastalgia

Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Co. Wicklow

8^th Nov 2022-
7^th Jan 2023

photograph by Louis Haugh for Mermaid Arts Centre

Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre, Limavady, Co. Derry

8^th Oct-5^th Nov 2022

Blessington Library, Blessington, Co. Wicklow

17^th Feb-5^th Mar 2022

"In 2022, we present Púca in The Machine, an exploratory collaboration between three artists, coordinated by Shane Finan. The artists are Alannah Robins (mixed media, Interface Inagh, Galway, Ireland), Niamh Fahy (print and photography, University of the West of England, Bristol) and Finan (interactive digital media, Valleymount)...creating artworks that respond to the unique and unusual history, mythology and ecology of the Poulaphuca Reservoir."
-Shane Finan, curatorial statement

work from the project Púca in the Machine, and artworks from the series Solastalgia

online interactive artwork

Something Moved

interactive artwork that accompanied essay for Ecoversities about precarity in technology

Ecoversities Alliance, India/online

from 9^th jun 2022

"While we analyse how colonialism is embedded in education, social services, environmental issues and other areas, technology is often overlooked."
-from the accompanying essay Something Moved on Ecoversities

work from the project the edge is where everything happens

collaborative installation

the ongoing material reconfigurations of nothingness

interactive installation as part of experimental collaboration about arrivals and territories

Reagenz Ost, Graz, Austria

28^th-29^th apr 2022

"Swap Space takes up new decisive impulses for thought—such as the concept of contact—the elaboration of which aims to determine the form of a multi-year research project."
-Prof. Hanns Holger Rutz, project statement

work from the project the edge is where everything happens

touring group exhibition

ENTWINED

interactive installations from collaborative research with Northumberland Wildlife Trust, as part of touring exhibition with Visual Arts in Rural Communities

The Sill, Northumberland, UK

14^th-31^st jan 2022

Assembly House, Newcastle Arts Centre, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

2^nd-11^th dec 2021

Visual Arts in Rural Communities, Highgreen, Northumberland, UK

4^th-12^th sep 2021

"Shane’s interactive piece ‘The Power of Inconspicuous Things’ located in the Potting Shed, invites you into a darkened room to activate and experience a mycorrhizal system of light below ground, bringing together entangled and entwined networks...
‘Macalla’ -the Irish Gaeilge word for an ‘echo’, translated as ‘the child of a shout’ - is an interactive piece focussing on the tubes used in tree planting. It can be found in the Coal Shed. ‘This Wildwood is not a forest for future timber, it is being planted to remain for future generations of trees, humans and wildlife. What will the tress tell their future children and grandchildren? How will they explain what it was like to spend their first ten years inside a tube, never feeling the air, reaching up toward the sky?’
-Cynthia Morisson-Bell, curatorial exhibition text

work from the project Wood Wide Web

touring exhibition and interventions

FIELDS

film, drawing, interactive works, web-art, writing and presentations as results from a residency with FIELD, presented with the touring events programme FIELDS

exhibition

Museum of English Rural Life (MERL), Reading, UK

1^st oct 2022-
31^st jan 2022

film screenings

Being Human Festival, Everyman Cinema, Lincoln, UK

18^th nov 2021

Star & Shadow Cinema, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

21^st oct 2021

Hexham Forum Cinema, Hexham, UK

28^th sep 2021

community interventions

Grainger Market, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

16^th oct 2021

Hexham Farmers Market, Market Pl, Hexham, UK

25^th sep 2021

Beverley Market, Market Pl, Beverley, UK

11^th sep 2021

Louth Market, Cornmarket, Louth, UK

28^th aug 2021

Nuns Moor Park mini-market, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

8^th aug 2021

"Creating artwork for people to reflect on both online and in-person he has combined traditional observational drawing with digital technologies to create a series of online stories using a mix of documentary, photography and data visualisation."
-from the MERL exhibition text

work from the project ]EXPOSURE[[ENCLOSURE]

festival exhibition

Reboot Me Softly

two interactive artworks showing as part of international festival

19^th annual Piksel Festival for Electronic Art and Free Technologies, Bergen, Norway

18^thnov-12^th dec 2021

"[T]his year’s edition of Piksel is the highly relevant phrase 'Reboot me softly'...showing art pieces that deal with the post-pandemic state of mind we are in, in conflux with the altered state of planet earth."
-Gisle Frøysland, festival curatorial statement

work from the projects ]EXPOSURE[[ENCLOSURE] and Wood Wide Web

festival screening

tāctus

film screening of work as part of festival programme

17^th annual Athens Digital Arts Festival, Athens, Greece

20^th sep-30^th oct 2021

"Who is really being farmed? Sheep and cows have spread to every continent, attached to humans, and humans benefit from their company in many ways. An exchange has taken place. Drawing from posthuman philosophy and speculative ethics, artist Shane Finan explores this idea of exchange and relationship between animal and human."
-From the exhibition text

work from the project ]EXPOSURE[[ENCLOSURE]

solo exhibition

Detached Touch

residency and exhibition about care, technology and the nonhuman

Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim, Ireland

13^th aug-4^th sep 2021

"Working across technology and environmental contexts, Shane Finan considers how nonhuman entities such as animals, plants and geologies might contribute to a technological artistic process...three installations each using technology in a different way to explore the complex relationships between place, networks, technologies, critters and human activity, and how all these things are linked together."
-Sean O'Reilly, Director, Leitrim Sculpture Centre, from the exhibition text

work from the project ]EXPOSURE[[ENCLOSURE]

festival screening

Agrofilm

film screening at international festival

37^th annual Agrofilm, Nitra, Slovakia

4^th-9^th oct 2021

"The objective and mission of this special festival is to inform, incite and disseminate knowledge of science, research, development and practice in the sphere of agriculture, food industry, nutrition of population, forestry, water management, ecology, problems in rural areas and of their inhabitants, conservation and revitalization of natural resources, which provide food sufficiency and safety as well as healthy environment, cultural landscape and improvement of human life."
-From the exhibition text

work from the project ]EXPOSURE[[ENCLOSURE]

touring group exhibition

Over Nature

touring exhibition with six artists, curated by Valeria Ceregini. works included interactive installation, painting, film

Luan Gallery, Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland

26^th sep-21^st nov 2020

Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, Co. Clare, Ireland

8^th aug-5^th sep 2020

Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal, Ireland

7^th feb-8^th mar 2020

Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, Ireland

14^th nov-21^st dec 2019

TACTIC, Sample Studios, St. Luke's Crypt, Cork, Ireland

17^th-28^th oct 2019

Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre, Limavade, Co. Derry, Northern Ireland

8^th-28^th sep 2019

"This project is a deep reflection on how we intend and sense or perceive nature with our innermost intellect. People must become sensitised through a new approach to nature-related with art as a vehicle to attract the attention on the ecological problem without any attack, but simply activating constructive debate and a new attitude towards environmental crisis.
-Valeria Ceregini, curatorial text

group exhibition

as tree

exhibition and project management about nature and community, moved online due to pandemic

St. George's Hall, Tubbercurry, Co. Sligo, Ireland

9^th-17^th aug 2020

"The rural landscape in Sligo is a mixed array of mountains, forest, coastline and open fields...The overlaps in language of nature and language of technology are common – from the webs of spiders to those on the internet, to ontological ‘trees’ and ‘roots’ that make up the networks of knowledge in artificial intelligence systems. The relationship between the idea of locality, nature, and technology underpins this project."
-Shane Finan, from the project text

work from the project wood wide web

solo exhibition and community intervention

in áit

outdoor community event responding to wildness and the covid-19 pandemic

Mike Farringdon's Gate, Lockstown, Co. Wicklow, Ireland

27^th-29^th jun 2020

"I think this is the first time since we planted the garden a decade ago that we have all been together like this."
-Gay Twyford, neighbour and friend in attendance at event

work from the project Solastalgia

group exhibition

Arpillera Doll Exhibition

online exhibition of rememberance

Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre, Limavady, Co. Derry, Northern Ireland

21^st apr-31^st jul 2020

"Above all, these dolls confront us with the glaring gap between the rights articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the lived experiences of many human beings, over 70 years later. May the spirit of these dolls and their makers prompt and embolden us to confront Human Rights abuses and to embed a culture of Human Rights within our own community and globally."
-Roberta Bacic, Conflict Textiles, curatorial statement

work made for this exhibition

solo exhibition

The Repeated Refrains of Nature

solo exhibition in museum dedicated to extinct birds

Zoological Museum, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

19^th jun-31^st aug 2019

"Placed as it is, among other bird and animal species, the audience are asked to consider what a world without birds would be like. By remaining motionless, the birds may reappear, suggesting that reducing human action can also reduce the loss of species populations."
-Exhibition press release

work from the project Solastalgia.

solo exhibition

faigh ar ais ar an fharraige

solo artwork recreating a JMW Turner painting alongside an interactive film-based artwork about language

Rye Creative Centre, Rye, Sussex, UK

3^rd-17^th mar 2018

"The artwork was created to combine the influences of technology, terminology and place, as an attempt to emphasise the importance of retaining or understanding landscape, and to emphasise the role that technology plays in landscape."
-Interartive essay on artwork

work from the project Solastalgia

solo project and collaborative performance

Beyond the Black Stump

painting and performance for Culture Night responding to john healy's book no one shouted stop

Charlestown Arts Centre, Charlestown, Co. Mayo, Ireland

22^nd-24^th sep 2017

work from the project Solastalgia

group exhibition

A sudden and wonderful brightening

interactive artwork as part of residency exhibition with Digital Arts Studios Belfast

Duncairn Arts Centre, Belfast, Northern Ireland

8^th jan-22^nd feb 2017

work from the project Antikythera, Etc.

solo exhibition and event

Mugwort, Wormwood, and how little we know about the end of the world

solo artwork outdoor, including a talk on divisions and technology, commemorating the 30^th anniversary of the chernobyl disaster

Wormwood Gate, Dublin, Ireland

26^th apr 2016

"The idea was to create an impression of an exclusion zone, but one that could not be properly interacted with unless people stood on all sides (a minimum of three people). Otherwise there were constant ‘gaps’ in this zone. The piece becomes an ‘inclusion zone’, inviting people to move closer and become a part of the work, rather than remaining outside and forbidden to enter."
-artwork documentation, interartive

work from the project Antikythera, Etc.

group exhibition

trinity college arts annual exhibition

artwork in a group exhibition

Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland

apr 2016

more information on the project ADA

online and painting project

ADA

a distributed painting split into 96 small square pieces and sold to raise money for an exhibition

Wandelbar Art International, Gstaad, Switzerland

jan 2016

"That makes archipelagoes a timely and potent image: a cluster of discrete entities joined up more closely than it seems at first."
-Mark Sheerin, criticismism 2015

more information on the project ADA

online artwork

Nothing Lasts Forever

online artwork experimenting with text and interactivity through web code

online, artist's website

from 15^th dec 2015

work from the project Our Altered Places

group exhibition

Phase One Festival

interactive artwork mimicking sonar to create image from sound

The Dock Arts Centre, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim, Ireland

20^th-21^st apr 2014

work from the project Our Altered Places

group exhibition

Phase One Festival

interactive textual artwork critiquing data analysis and privacy concerns in google's search technology

The Dock Arts Centre, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim, Ireland

4^th-5^th apr 2015

work from the project Our Altered Places

collaborative artworks in group exhibition

Granby Park

two installations as part of visual art programme

Granby Park, Upstart, Dublin, Ireland

22^nd aug-22^nd sep 2013

work from the project Our Altered Places

collaborative masters' project

Tetralogy

four interactive digital installations as part of final project for masters' degree

Front Square, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

4^th-19^th aug 2013

work from the project Our Altered Places

group exhibition

Irish Wave III

painting and digital collage in two venues as part of group exhibition

Hidden Meanings, Yan Chao Collection Gallery, Beijing and Instruments of Pleasure, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing

9^th mar-7^th apr 2013

work from the projects Floating Islands and Archipelago

3-person exhibition

Make The Eighties The Decade Of Endeavour

paintings as part of 3-person exhibition

KT Contemporary, Donnybrook, Dublin, Ireland

7^th jun-13^th jul 2012

work from the project Archipelago

3-person exhibition

Painted Word

organised and exhibited work in an exhibition about contemporary painting

Vermont Studio Centre, Johnson, Vermont, USA

21^st-25^th apr 2012

work from the project Hubbert's Peak

group exhibition

This OFFSET Space

work in group exhibiton co-located with OFFSET festival 2012

Little Green Street Gallery, Little Green Street, Dublin, Ireland

9^th-11^th mar 2012

work from the project Hubbert's Peak

collaborative project in group exhibition

Where We're At

collaborative interactive digital artworks in abandoned technology centre

Creative Campus, The Big Picture, Tallaght, Dublin

16^th-22^nd sep 2011

work from the project Our Altered Places

collaborative artwork in group exhibition

Half and Half: Opposites

two paintings in group exhibition

Half and Half, Sullivan’s Quay, Cork

jul 2011

work made as a trial for project

group exhibition

Never Ending Skaga

developed and exhibited in two group exhibitions in Iceland

Mjólkurbúðin, Akureyri, Iceland

may 2011

Nes, Skagaströnd, Iceland

jun 2011

work from the projects Floating Islands and Archipelago

group exhibition

Artmartists

invited artist in group exhibition

ArtMart, The Mall, Sligo

sep 2010

work from the project Places and Non-Places

group exhibition

Artmartists

co-curated and exhibited in large group show of over 60 artists

ArtMart, The Mall, Sligo

sep 2009

work from the project Places and Non-Places

group exhibition

Claremorris Open Exhibition

two paintings in group exhibition curated by Lizzie Carey Thomas of TATE Britain

Claremorris Open Exhibition, Claremorris, Co. Mayo, Ireland

sep 2008

work from the project Places and Non-Places

group exhibition

Graduate Degree Exhibition

degree exhibition at end of year in IT Sligo (now ATU Sligo)

IT Sligo art campus, Blocks K and L, IT Sligo, Ireland

jun 2008

work from the project Places and Non-Places