Siobhán McGibbon
Love beyond the species and the sexual
DATES
25 July to 19 September
TIMES
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Siobhán McGibbon
Love beyond the species and the sexual
25 July to 19 September 2026
Love beyond the species and the sexual is a major solo exhibition by Siobhán McGibbon at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre. The exhibition presents a chapter of McGibbon’s ongoing speculative world, Xenophon, a long-term project that imagines more-than-human futures through fiction, science and sculpture. Told across three acts, it moves from the artist’s unkempt garden into the ecologies, histories and more-than-human communities of Myross Woods, Leap, Co. Cork.
Developed through collaborations and mentorships with Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, olfactory artist Frank Bloem, intimacy coach Grace O’Shea, mycelium artist Catherine Euale, sound artist Billy Kemp and disability activist consultant and multi-sensory artist Emilie Conway, the exhibition proposes new forms of sensory and material storytelling. McGibbon develops a queer multi-species romance that considers what it might mean to love beyond the human and the sexual. The project proposes weeds, fungal networks, insects, the endangered Killarney fern, invasive plants and woodland processes as active participants in forms of desire, care and relation.
Act 1: Netflix and Disintegrate into Nothing and Everything explores the possibilities of multispecies desire and the absurdities of dating culture; Act 2: Love Is Blindly Reaching Out Rhizoids and Anchoring Them to a Rock explores how popular culture shapes intimacy and relationships with human and more-than-human lives. The exhibition’s final act, Decomposition is Devotion and the Land Longs for You, expands these ideas through the processes of compost, rot and decomposition. Through sculpture, scent, sound, mycelium, bio-materials and participatory installation, McGibbon imagines decomposition as a love language: a slow, sensory and material form of intimacy shaped by seepage, exchange, absorption, transformation and return.
Taking the form of a speculative multi-species relationship counselling session, Love beyond the species and the sexual invites audiences to encounter the woodland as partners in loving acts of merging and decay. Humorous, tactile and conceptually rigorous, Love beyond the species and the sexual is accompanied by a public engagement programme of talks, sensory events, audio experiences and accessible tours.
Programme of Events
Opening Event – Saturday 25 July at 2.00pm
The exhibition opened with guest speaker Dr. Sarah Kelleher, writer and curator.
Gallery Talk – Monday 27 July at 1.30pm
Invisible Languages: Scent and Sensory Storytelling with Frank Bloem, olfactory artist
Frank Bloem (NL) will give a talk on working with scent as an art form, discussing the creative challenges of olfactory practice, how presenting scent differs from presenting visual art, and share examples from his past work. He will also speak about his collaboration with Siobhán McGibbon on the installation Decomposition is Devotion and the Land Longs for You where they developed a series of scents that move between the language of therapy, including terms such as gaslighting, triggering and attachment, and the love language of decomposition.
In Conversation – Friday 31 July at 1.30pm
Fungal Matters: Mycelium in Ecology, Materials, and More-than-Human Design
Siobhán McGibbon and Catherine Euale
Bio-artist Catherine Euale, in conversation with Siobhán McGibbon, will introduce audiences to her practice and explore mycelium as a material, discussing its ecological significance, cultivation and artistic applications. Catherine has mentored Siobhán in the development of the mycelium-based elements of Love Beyond the Species and the Sexual.
Exhibition Tours – Monday 27, Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 July and Tuesday 18 and Wednesday 19 August at 12.30pm
Join Public Engagement Assistant Sylwia Migdal for a sensory exploration of the exhibition, discovering its materials, creative processes, and the ideas explored through the artworks.
Gallery Conversation and Tour – Saturday 5 September at 12 noon
Join artist Siobhan McGibbon and Director Ann Davoren for a guided tour of the exhibition.
Listening With Your Skin – Wednesday 9 September at 1.00pm
Experience the exhibition through a tour created and led by visually impaired artist and aesthetic accessibility consultant Emilie Conway. Shaped from a blind and low-vision perspective, the tour offers a rich, multisensory experience of the speculative world of Xenophon. Through vivid verbal description, spatial orientation, tactile references to materials and evocative soundscapes, Emilie invites visitors to engage deeply and imaginatively with the form, texture, narrative and physical presence of the artworks.
Free event with limited places so booking is essential. To book, just call: 02822090 or email info@westcorkartscentre.com
Culture Night – Friday 18 September
– Gallery Tour – 5:15pm to 5:45pm
Join Public Engagement Assistant Sylwia Migdal for a 30‑minute guided tour to explore an imagined world that rethinks relationships between humans, plants, animals, fungi and ecosystems.
– The Land Longs for You: A Scent Encounter – 5:45pm to 6:15pm
Join artist Siobhán McGibbon and Public Engagement Assistant Sylwia Migdal to explore a selection of experimental scents created by olfactory artist Frank Bloem working with Siobhán on Act 3 of the exhibition. These scents explore themes of woodland ecologies, decomposition, therapeutic language and contemporary relationships — including red flags, boundaries, attachment, and triggers. Visitors are invited to sample works‑in‑progress and scents that didn’t make it into the final exhibition, offering a behind‑the‑scenes look at scent as material and non‑visual storytelling.
The development of this work has been supported by several residencies at Uillinn in recent years, each one contributing meaningfully to Siobhán’s research, collaborative practice, and the development of her unique visual language.
Supported by an Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Project Award.
Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre acknowledges the financial support of The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon in making these exhibitions possible.
