Curated by Diana Ali at Art Center Caravel, ARTE.M Association, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal 2024 & Arthall, Victoria, Gozo, Malta 2025

Concept:

We are facing many barriers globally where our identities are being bruised, rejected, and turned away. This leaves a tension for bodies, thoughts, and circumstances to be accepted and co-exist. Artists have been invited to contest and question what it means to face barriers. Often our artworks have been declined from being shown and exhibited. This exhibition gives an opportunity for the art to migrate. There may not be a utopia, but there are ways of overcoming barriers. Imagine the artwork being personified. What would it say if it had freedom of movement, no immigration law, finding asylum and a sense of belonging without being displaced? A fantastic array of international artists come together in one space to question, confront and seek sanctuary through their artwork.

Exhibition information/Flyer:

Exhibition information/Flyer:

UPDATE 2025

In 2024, a majority of the work was detained by the Portuguese customs on the way to be exhibited in Madeira. The artwork did not have a freedom to roam. In 2025, the art hopes to confront crossings and overcome barriers by having the opportunity to be exhibited at Arthall, Malta.

Lane Shipsey (Ireland)

'Dancing to Belong'

(Digital photographic collage, semi-abstract, 50 x 33.4cm, 2024)

A child plays football in the street. His mother is new here, his dad local, but his parents live apart. On weekends the boy spends hours kicking a football outside his father's home. He plays like magic but he plays alone. Kids his own age likely avoid him or make fun of him. I get this, I too was seen seen as foreign, was challenged or 'teased' over it. The feeling of difference never entirely goes away. Sometimes it makes me try harder, as the boy is doing. His father watches briefly then goes back indoors, proud of his son yet distant from him. No matter who watches, the boy keeps up his dance with the ball. He is dancing for himself.


'Sheets Like a Wave'

(Digital photographic collage, semi-abstract, 50 x 33.4cm, 2024)

We are in a warm country, your country. Outside there are blue skies, there is sun, but this I remember from the day before we start the road trip, being in the apartment with the ironing board out, and Dylan folding sheets with you. I used to help my mum fold sheets like this too when I was little, and like him I laughed when the sheet jumped in the air like a wave. I remember as well packing up tp leave at the end of the road trip, my bag rammed with freshly picked oranges, saying ‘Come and visit this winter', but you said the last time you tried to go to London you lost hundreds when your visa was rejected. I feel bad and say I'm sorry but you just laugh and say, ‘Don't worry,there's better places we can go with no visa!’ 

Since her solo exhibition ‘Abhaile|Homing’ at An Cultúrlann Gallery (NI) in 2023, Shipsey has contributed works to upwards of a dozen group art exhibitions on themes of freedom, equality and the environment, most recently as part of Bloodroot shown in 2025 at Pulchri Studio (NL) & the Hamilton Gallery (IRL), and at Kinsale Arts Weekend. Shipsey holds a BA in Visual Communications and an MA in Local History. One of her photographic portraits came second in a portrait prize in 2024. Two short films also won awards and Shipsey’s portrait in oils ’Youtuber in the Supermarket’ was shortlisted for the Harley Prize.