About


HOUSEHOLD is a collectively-led art organisation that supports the production of high quality art that connects people and place

We value artistic quality and ambition, nurturing relationships with collaborators and working with care, and creating new and sometimes unexpected connections.


WHAT WE DO

We are interested in telling untold stories, asking unspoken questions, and revealing hidden narratives through creative, engaging visual arts programming. We also organise events that encourage networking and support shared learning and creative and professional development.

We support artists to create exceptional, internationally acclaimed, locally grown public artwork in our city, a place where they are valued and trusted to impact on society.

We feed into future Arts Policy and strategic planning for our city, and want to create improved conditions for artists who want to stay, live and work in Northern Ireland and for organisations such as Household to support them.


OUR HISTORY

Household is an organisation rooted in the local in Belfast. Its origins lie in the Household Contemporary Art Festivals, held in and around the Ormeau Road in south Belfast in August 2012 and the following year. These festivals saw hundreds of resident artists and invited guests open their doors to welcome people into their homes to view contemporary art and experience music, theatre, performance and dance. It was an event situated in private, public and neighbourhood spaces that embodied acts of conditional and unconditional hospitality, welcoming another, and provided visitors and participants with a temporary agency over their city. Out of these festivals grew the central values of Household.

We now work across Belfast with artists on new public art commissions and programmes. We run a not-for-profit platform called UPHOLD that commissions and sells new work by the most exciting artists living and/or working in Northern Ireland today, and nurture new cultures of collecting in Northern Ireland.

From 2017-2021 our work focused on Sailortown, a unique historical Belfast neighbourhood. There, together with artists, residents, partners and visitors, we organised long-term artist residencies, exhibitions and events, neighbourhood days and festivals, workshops for people of all ages, and student modules and projects to explore, celebrate and question the area’s past, present and future.

Other events have included a six-week art and residency programme across disused city-centre offices; a series of citywide interventions, talks, commissions and events delivered in collaboration with local and international partners and creative practitioners; and a range of presentations, discussions, debates and get-togethers in Belfast and elsewhere. In partnership with Belfast City Council we presented The Imagined City, a programme of public events considering the role of art and artists in urban environments; and together with Belfast Film Festival and Artangel The Arbor, a series of film screenings and discussions in private and community spaces.


OUR STRUCTURE

The Belfast-based Household team is collectively-led by its co-directors: artist and organiser Jane Butler and curators Alissa Kleist and Ciara Hickey, who work with artist and arts administrator Sinead O’Neill-Nicholl. Household is supported by designer Sean Greer at NONGRAPHIC, evaluator Seán O’Sullivan, our artists, partners and community collaborators.

Household was founded in 2012 by curators Eoin Dara, Ciara Hickey, Alissa Kleist and Kim McAleese and artist Sighle Bhreathnach-Cashell. In 2014, Household registered as a Community Interest Company (CIC number NI627443), and continues to operate under this not-for-profit communities-orientated model with a collectively-led ‘flat’ organisational structure.

A full list of the individuals, volunteers and partners that have worked with Household can be found here.