Coire NicGabhann (Corie McGowan) (b. 1994, Béal Feirste) is a London-based interdisciplinary artist from the North of Ireland. They weave speculative and documentary narratives with layered sounds that shift between lamentation, poetry, and dialogue to subvert colonial archives.
Performance and movement languages activate hand-cast silicon wearables. Exploring how film can become a tool to reconstruct identity as an act of recovery from a landscape shaped by a conflicted history. Working toward an inclusive, intersectional queer feminist methodology that challenges extractive production models by prioritising accessibility and the self-expression of marginalised communities through the renewal of oral histories and somatic movement, drawing from ancient Celtic burial sites and mourning rituals in response to deep ancestral longings.
State O’Chassis (2023), funded by ACE, explores how trauma and extractivist practices in Ireland are embedded in ancestral grief and movement ritual, creating a layered moving-image piece alongside a live event held at The Feminist Library. The event featured a line-up of poets and speakers, followed by a ceilidh; speakers included Cherry Smyth, Deirbhile Ní Bhranáin, and Dr. Maev McDaid. The work was developed intergenerationally to retrace fragments of lost oral histories predominantly practised by women. Through the summoning of chaos and revolt, the work engages with decolonial legacies in Ireland and explores how land, language, and bodies have been corrupted. McGowan recorded with Phyllida Anam-Áire, a 90-year-old professional Caoineadh (keener).
They graduated with an MA in Contemporary Art Practice: Moving Image from the Royal College of Art (2019) and, before that, earned a First Class BA Hons from Wimbledon College of the Arts, UAL. Notable achievements include Eaton Trust funding (2025), ACE Project Grant funding (£25k, 2023), ACE DYCP funding (£10k, 2021), and a commission to participate in Control the Virus curated by Hervisions (2020). Their work has been exhibited at Corsica Studios (2020), Arebyte Gallery (2020), and Whitechapel Art Gallery (2019).
C.V
Coire NicGabhann (Corie McGowan) (b. 1994, Béal Feirste)
Education:
MA Contemporary Art Practice: Moving Image (Merit), The Royal College of Art, London, 2019.
BA (Hons) First Class Honours degree in Fine Art: Print and Time-based Media, Wimbledon College of the Arts, University of the Arts
London, 2016.
Selected Group Shows:
2024, Scarlett Letters Press Launch, London.
2023, Limerence, Pink Pearl Gallery, London.
2022, My Body, My Choice? Pars Pro Toto, Peer 2 Space, Berlin.
2021, Control the Virus Volume 03, DATEAGLE ART x Hervisions.
2021, IDENT, New Art City curated by Schemata at Corsica Studios/Vortex.
2020, Going. Away TV, Arebyte Gallery, London.
2019, RCA CAP: Moving Image Presents 'Togetherness', Assembly Point, London.
2019, Silicare™️, The Performance Bar, S/ash Gallery WORM, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
2018, The Future is Personal, Chronomics Launch, Westbank, London.
2018, Patatas Guerra, Kreuzberg, Berlin.
2017, Gurl Projects, Noble Studios, London.
2017, Mutual Feelings 2-VR: Cybertwee Headquarters, The Alibi, London.
2017, herOiNE: The Future is Pink, The Square Gallery, London (Curated)
2017, Spilt Milk Launch, Pop-Up Art Cafe, Shoreditch, London.
2016, Cybertwee HQ, Virtual Exhibition Space, Designed by Violet Forest, App Store.
Selected Screenings:
2025, Bloomsday Film Festival, experimental Shorts, Dublin.
2023, State O’Chassis, The Feminist Library, London.
2020, PTBM Elbow Room, selected by Jennet Thomas, Peckham, London.
2020, Open Screenings, selected by Gareth Evans, The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.
2019, MIASMA EU with Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam, 504 Brixton, London.
2018, Porn/Porn, Presented by the RCA Queer and Feminist Society, Royal College of Art.
2017, Cybertwee headquarters, VR World, New York, USA.
2017, PMS Satellite, The Piet Zwart Institute, International Film Festival, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
2017, The Performance Art Weekend, The Performance Bar, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
2017, FICG31, Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara, Guadalajara, México.
Residencies and Awards:
2025, Eaton Trust Funding Award
2023, project grant funding, Arts Council England
2021, DYCP funding, Arts Council England.
2016, Shortlisted for the Royal Ulster Academy 135th Exhibition.
2014, KSDIY14, Kurt Schwitters Artist Residency, Cumbria, UK.
Press
2016, Dazed; Ashleigh Kane.
2016, Vice Motherboard; With Nadja Sayej, Berlin.
Biography:
2022, Workers Inferno, Launched at Mayday Rooms, edited by Cut-through Collective.
2017, Is This It?: Issue 01, Selected by Bob Bicknell-Knight.
2017, Clawmarks zine, Alex Face.
2016, Aether Magazine, Issue 9, Mia Sakai.
2015, Aether Magazine, Issue 7, Mia Sakai.
2015, Soft Matter, Rebecca Kay.
2015, New Women’s Art History, Sofia Landstrom.
2014, Dunne Beth: Cherry Magazine: New Beginnings, September.
2014, Hessami Aryana: Thurley Liv: Pinkd Publication, August.
Talks + Teaching:
2025, UAL Performance Futures Lecture
2024, FinboroughTheatre London in discussion with Ruari Conaghan
2019, University of the Arts London, presentation + crits
2019, The Piet Zwart Institute presentation + crits