EVA International is pleased to announce a phased approach for its 39^th edition and a new opening date of 18th September 2020.

Originally scheduled as a concentrated 10 week programme, the 39th EVA International will now be delivered in three phases that will take place across various venues in Limerick city between 2020 and 2021. This approach has been developed as a practical response to the consequences of COVID-19, ensuring that EVA International upholds its commitments to artists and audiences in a way that is sensitive to ongoing public health concerns.

Phase 1 of the 39^th EVA International will open on the 18^th September and continue until 15^th November 2020. The Phase 1 programme will include venue-based, online, and offsite presentations by artists including Bora Baboci, Yane Calovski, Eirene Efstathiou, Laura Fitzgerald, Michele Horrigan, Melanie Jackson and Esther Leslie, Áine McBride, Emily McFarland, Eimear Walshe, Driant Zeneli, and Women Artists Action Group. Venues include Limerick City Gallery of Art, The Hunt Museum, the Sailor’s Home.  All venues will be subject to protocols to ensure the safety and well-being of the visiting public, adhering to current government guidelines for cultural venues.

Full details of the Phase 1 programme will be released in August 2020, with details of Phase 2 and Phase 3 released in early 2021.

EVA Director Matt Packer says “This is the first time in EVA’s 43 year history that the exhibition extends across two years. As an organisation that works through local and international partnership, we have been uniquely challenged by COVID-19 and its consequences on aspects of international mobility, artist production, and EVA’s organisational capacities. In the context of ongoing uncertainties, we’re delighted to have found an approach of manageably delivering the 39^th edition that can also benefit artists and audiences in new ways. Through the course of the three-phase programme, I believe that EVA can play an important part in the renewal of public life in the months ahead while offering encounters with the best of contemporary art from Irish and international artists.”

Taking its reference from the “Golden Vein,” a 19th-century descriptor for the agricultural bounty of the Limerick region, the 39th EVA International programme seeks to address ideas of land and its contested values in the context of Ireland today. Featuring venue- and non venue-based presentations, each phase will include elements of the Guest Programme curated by Merve Elveren (Little did they know) alongside artist commissions developed through EVA’s Platform Commissions and Partnership Project initiatives. The full list of participants is as follows:

Guest Programme:
Curated by Merve Elveren, The Guest Programme of the 39^th EVA International (Little did they know) will feature artworks by artists Benji Boyadjian, Diego Bruno, Oisín Byrne, Yane Calovski, Jasmina Cibic, Barış Doğrusöz, Eirene Efstathiou, Minna Henriksson, Michele Horrigan, Melanie Jackson and Esther Leslie, Amy Lien and Enzo Camacho, Hana Miletić, Deirdre O’Mahony, Zeyno Pekünlü, Richard Proffitt, Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings, Mario Rizzi, Aykan Safoğlu, Krista Belle Stewart, Driant Zeneli, and Women Artists Action Group (Archive of Pauline Cummins). The exhibition will also feature the presentation of four research projects led by curatorial partners: Betsy Damon Archive: Keepers of the Waters (Chengdu and Lhasa), led by Asia Art Archive; Derry Film and Video Workshop led by curator Sara Greavu in collaboration with Ciara Phillips; Sexuality of A Nation: Lionel Soukaz and Liberation Politics led by writer, curator and lecturer Paul Clinton; and The Reconciliation of the Blood Feuds Campaign, 1990-1991, led by curator and researcher Erëmirë Krasniqi (Oral History Initiative).

Platform Commissions:
Selected by Anne Tallentire and Merve Elveren for the 39th EVA International, artists Laura Fitzgerald, Áine McBride, Emily McFarland, and Eimear Walshe will present major new works that variously address ideas of environmentalism, land use, and housing activism.

Partnership Projects: 
The 39th EVA International will also include new commissions developed in collaborative partnership with Irish and international organisations, including artists Em’kal Eyongakpa (in collaboration with IMMA); Orla Barry (in collaboration with Mu.ZEE); Bora Baboci; and Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan; and Inês Neto dos Santos (in collaboration with Magic Carpets Creative Europe Programme).