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WHERE WE ARE MATTERS.

Where are you? How does it feel?

My goal is to create a living atlas. Over time, the work will form a body of drawings that together become an affective cartography of Ireland and beyond.

Kiera O’Toole, Affective Cartography; Limerick, 2025, graphite on wall, oil pastels and ink on archival paper, Bíodh Orm Anocht, a group exhibition presented by Ormston House in collaboration with EVA International, running from 29 August – 26 October 2025. Exhibiting artists: Seán Hannan, Laura Ní Fhlaibhín, Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh, Kiera O’Toole. Photography by Jed Niezgoda

Kiera O'Toole's artwork 'Affective Cartography: Limerick' arose from site visits to Ormston House and walks, taken without plan or destination, through the city centre. Through drawing in-situ, O'Toole registered the city's 'spatialised emotions': "the affective qualities that diffuse space, such as a tension that hangs in the air." She later translated these pre-reflective encounters into a topographical drawing, which can be seen as part of our group exhibition 'Bíodh Orm Anocht'.

This work forms part of O'Toole's broader exploration of drawing as a method of registering the spatialised emotions of place, blending phenomenology and atmospheric theory.

Continuing until 26 October, 'Bíodh Orm Anocht' is developed by Ormston House in collaboration with EVA International and supported by The Arts Council of Ireland and Limerick Arts Office.

Images by Jed Niezgoda

Image descriptions:
1. In Ormston House, a blurred figure looks at Kiera O'Toole's 'Affective Cartography: Limerick', a large artwork on an off-white wall comprised of abstract graphite shapes and paper circles and lines. The figure has short, dark hair and wears a dark-green jumper and light-brown trousers. To the left of the image, Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh's artwork 'An Loch Fada Thoir' is presented as a small stack of posters at the base of a central pillar.
2. A detail of 'Affective Cartography: Limerick'. On an off-white wall, a grey, textured circle of paper sits on a sequence of long, horizontal paper lines. Irregular graphite shapes and lines extend from the paper circle to the top-right of the image.

Text by Pádraic E. Moore, Artistic Director, Ormston House, Limerick

Through my methodology Drawing in-Space, I create Affective Cartographies—large-scale drawing installations, site-responsive works, and public drawing actions. These works do not represent but rather record affective presence, tracing atmospheres through impulse, force, and gesture. In this way, atmospheres are revealed as relational, more-than-human forces acting upon and with the body, positioning drawing as a mode of aesthetic attention in times of socio-ecological crisis.

“… the work of Kiera O’Toole, whose practice involves derivés¹ of everyday public spaces, in this case Limerick city centre. Through drawing in-situ, O’Toole records the subtle energies of these locations (which she describes as spatialised emotions) and translates her pre-reflective, sensory encounters into topographical maps and charts that she describes as ‘affective cartographies’.”

Many thanks to Pádraic E. Moore, Niamh Brown and the OHTeam @ormstonhouse and Matt Packer and the EVA Team @eva.international for their curatorial vision and support.

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