The Irish Theatre Institute and its programme partners are thrilled to announce the selected artists for the second edition of Gap Exchange, the international exchange programme for artists.
The 2025 Gap Exchange Artists are:
John O’Donovan (Clare) and Cassie Cameron (Buffalo)
David McGovern (Louth/Dublin) and Amparo González Sola (Utrecht)
Dónal Gallagher (Kilkenny) and Mira Bryssinck & Dounia Mahammed (Ghent)
Kate Guelke (Belfast) and Jennifer Lee Tsai (Liverpool)
More information on the Gap Exchange 2025 participating artists and their practice.
Gap Exchange is being run by Creative Facilitator Lian Bell and Irish Theatre Institute (ITI), with contributions from international partners; Bluecoat (Liverpool, UK), Irish Classical Theatre (Buffalo, NY, US), Spring Performing Arts Festival (Utrecht, The Netherlands) and Viernulvier (Ghent, Belgium). The programme also receives support from Watergate Theatre (Kilkenny) and Droichead Arts Centre (Drogheda).
What is Gap Exchange?
Gap Exchange is a way for contemporary theatre artists to share their practice, learn from international peers, and develop an international network. It is practice-centred, informal, egalitarian, and thoughtful, with a focus on taking time and offering hospitality.
Four artists based on the island of Ireland will meet five international artists, two in Belgium, one in England, one in the Netherlands, and one in the USA. Each artist will be paired with another artist and will visit them in their homeplace for a week – meaning that each artist will spend a week as a host in their own country and a week as a guest in another country.
The artists themselves are the main architects of the visits. Visits will be preceded by regular online meetups between March-July 2025 as research and relationship building so each host artist can take ownership over planning and programming the visit for their guest. They will be supported in this by the Creative Facilitator and artist liaisons in each partner organisation.
The idea for Gap Exchange originally developed out of Gap Day, a programme run by Lian Bell and Mermaid Arts Centre since 2016. In 2023, the Gap Exchange pilot programme successfully brought six artists based in Ireland in contact with six international artists (two in Belgium, two in England and two in the Netherlands). Learn more about the pilot programme here.
Gap Exchange 2025
