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Luci Kershaw is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Galway. Her work explores health topics and themes, as well as more traditional practice within the area of arts and health. Luci was awarded the artsandhealth.ie Emerging Artist Bursary in 2024 and has spent her time exploring how to embrace more collaborative approaches to sharing people’s stories through sound and film.
Luci sought to refine her objectives and articulate core values for her practice. She researched arts and health projects; talked to other artists, arts professionals, healthcare practitioners, and service users; learned about film techniques that can be simply taught and explored with people; and reflected on her own practice (what she has achieved, what she wants to carry forward, who she wants to work with).

“I have realised that my strengths are with people and working with people, communicating and engaging and not about great pieces of artwork. I have succeeded because of the process, because of the work done along the way, the research, and most importantly how I had worked with and supported others. So really these are the skills that I need to utilise.”
She considers how to find and approach participants, the ethical dimensions of her practice, what forms her work might take. She notes what Hartley and Payne have said about working successfully with ill people, that artists need “to understand their own relationship with the art forms they might use before engaging on a process of working with such people in healthcare settings.” She is reminded that when working with vulnerable people, the artist also needs to mind herself.
Luci recounts the mentoring she has received from artist Marie Brett, who often works in healthcare contexts with a special interest in hidden or stigmatised Irish experience.
“Mentoring makes you stop and take a breath and really look at the work you are doing or hoping to do. It examines the reasons behind the work, the aims and objectives and explores the potential. If you get the chance, grab it, with both hands, however experienced you are. To explore your work from another professional’s perspective is essential to your own development and prevents you walking blindly into the night.”

Postcards by Luci Kershaw (2020)
Through her research and conversations, Luci has developed a method for approaching projects, which she is using to inform two separate strands of her practice:
- The first strand involves large projects that focus on specific topics, asking detailed questions that require research, expert advice, and could evolve into significant collaborative art pieces or events. Luci’s current project, The Menopause Project, is investigating how we can normalize conversations around menopause through art.
- The second strand is more general, adaptable, and can be used in different settings. It prompts simple questions that lead to rich conversations. This strand is one that Luci is hoping to apply to working with older people. Her Inspirational Postcards Project involves people designing postcards that reflect something that inspires or comforts them.

“This opportunity has enabled me to rekindle areas of interest that I have found myself shying away from due to fears of getting it wrong or imposter syndrome, lack of confidence or having been stung. It has opened doors to conversations that I have been inspired by and made me take a deep dive into my practice in a way I have only half-heartedly done before.”
Luci’s reflection has taken the form of living documentation via an interactive landing page on her website. Selecting any of the topics on this page will take you to a dedicate page of research, conversation or thoughts on that particular matter, with fresh insights added as Luci progresses her work and learning.
Her reflections to date have been collated as a longform essay on artsandhealth.ie: