Artist Talk/Panel – Gwen Stevenson

Gail is a professional visual artist and researcher based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She was born in Newtownards, County Down. Gail studied art and design at Ulster University (BA Hons. 1991) and at Queen’s University (MA Arts Management 2013). In 2022 she was awarded a PhD in International Relations from Queen’s University Belfast for practice-based research into how the Northern Ireland Troubles might be commemorated in material form. She has been a studio holder of Queen Street Studios (QSS) since 2003 and has served both as a Board Member and Chair. During this time she co-led projects which enabled the group to relocate twice to improved premises. From 1995 to 2003 Gail lived in the Republic of Ireland and she was a member of Backwater Artists Group Cork.

She has received awards from Arts Council Ireland, Arts Council Northern Ireland, Cultural Relations Committee, the British Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Most recently she received the Basil Chubb Award from the Political Studies Association of Ireland for her practice-based thesis The im/material monument. She continues her speculative research into time, memory and memorials from her studio in East Belfast.

Dr. Paul Mullan is Northern Ireland Director of The National Lottery Heritage Fund and is an Honorary Professor of Practice at Queen’s University Belfast and a Visiting Professor at Ulster University. He has been involved in a variety of heritage, tourism and conservation projects, and has written, lectured and broadcasted on heritage matters. He studied at Queen’s University, Trinity College Dublin, and Ulster University. In 2021 he obtained his doctorate looking at how the past is remembered in a divided society. He also has an MBA.

He has sat on a variety of Ministerial Advisory Groups including the recent Culture, Arts and Heritage Taskforce. He is also a member of the Irish Government’s Expert Advisory Committee on the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. He chairs the Decade of Centenaries Roundtable which supports civic and community organisations to navigate how the past is remembered.