What are the opening hours?

Monday 9:30am - 5pm Tuesday 9:30am - 5pm Wednesday 9:30am - 5pm Thursday 9:30am - 5pm Friday 9:30am - 5pm

National Sculpture Factory

Name: National Sculpture Factory
Address: Albert Road, Cork, 00, IE
Telephone: 00353 (0)21 4314353

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National Sculpture Factory

National Sculpture Factory (NSF) is an organisation which provides and promotes a supportive and enabling environment for the making of art.

17/09/2026

Seiko Hayase spent some time on the Factory floor earlier this year working on a new commission for the The Glucksman. Kinship Emotion-Bloom and Kinship Emotion-Spiral were launched earlier this week.

In Spring 2026, the Glucksman invited neurodivergent students and staff to participate in a collaborative project to create a new artwork for the University College Cork art collection by Seiko.
Led by curator Meadhbh Healy, the commissioning process included workshops, drop-in sessions and online consultations in order to create an inclusive platform for neurodivergent students and staff to share their stories, express their creativity, and engage in meaningful discussions about their unique experiences on campus in a supportive and safe environment.
Swipe to see some of the work in progress photos.

IMG 1&2: Kinship Emotion-Bloom and Kinship Emotion-Spiral. 2026. Photos by Clare Keogh, courtesy The Glucksman
IMG 3-6: Kinship Emotion-Bloom and Kinship Emotion-Spiral. 2026. Photos courtesy the artist

15/09/2026

Join us this Friday 18th September, 5pm - 8pm

For Culture Night 2026, NSF invites visitors to explore its historic building and discover its contribution to Cork’s vibrant visual arts community.

Cork City Council Cork Arts Culture Night

11/09/2026

Out Of The Circle is inviting applications for their 2027 Artist’s Residency from artists based outside of Egypt.
Out of the Circle is a private arts entity based in Cairo, Egypt, offering a platform that facilitates and curates events, art residencies, artistic research and exhibitions.

Deadline: 9th October 2026
Full guidelines and application process - https://resartis.org/open-call/air-2027-for-global-artists-in-egypt/

Out Of The Circle AIR program is an art research based residency open for all artists who use different mediums in the contemporary art field, in addition to curators and art researchers.
There is a dedicated studio space in the Out Of The Circle apartment. This is a comfortable and sunny workspace with a good view suitable for research, experimentation and small to medium scale work. A selection of books on topics such as curation, Egyptian history and culture, and art are available for the artist to borrow during their stay.

Out Of The Circle Organization

10/09/2026

NSF artist Maitiú Mac Cárthaigh's solo exhibition 𝒽𝒶𝓎 𝒷𝑜𝓎, 𝑔𝒶𝓎 𝒷𝑜𝓎, opens today Thursday 10 September, 5PM at Cork Printmakers Studio Gallery

10 September – 12 November.

Mac Cárthaigh’s work explores the rural sexual imaginary. Within this, Mac Cárthaigh’s practice focuses on rural gentrification, homonormativity, greenwashing, and the material economies of space and place. They approach work through a Country Boy’s Make-Do methodology, drawing on a Co-Op materiality. Mac Cárthaigh’s practice examines how we construct different kinds of rural space with a materiality not rooted in rurality but with things that come in off the back of a lorry to be bought off the shelf.

hay boy, gay boy builds from Mac Cárthaigh’s writing practice set in Ballybent, a semi-fictional slice of gentrified countryside heaven made for urban consumption. This work follows a throuple who recently relocated from the City to Ballybent. Life is great, slow and healing with nature all around. That is, except for delivery delays from Dublin and Berlin. Desperate to make their long weekend bacchanal with the boys from the city a success, the throuple rush to the Co-Op to see what gear they might fashion from bullrings and builder’s twine.

This exhibition coincides with Mac Cárthaigh’s exhibition, thirty 6-inch top-down all-purpose at the LHQ Gallery in Cork County Hall. thirty 6-inch top-down all-purpose explores the interconnectivity of oat flat whites, artificial insemination and rustic so**my amidst a rapidly yassifying rural Ireland. This exhibition is supported through Cork County Council’s Emerging Visual Artist Award 2025.

Cork City Council Cork Arts Cork County Council Cork County Council Library & Arts Service

08/09/2026

Allow to Fallow, Allow to Fall Low

NSF artist Fiona Kelly's PhD exhibition at the Luan Gallery - opening reception on Saturday 12th of September at 3pm

Centering on the concept of fallowness, the exhibition considers the value of stillness as both a method and a form of resistance, questioning expectations of constant artistic production in an age defined by urgency. It explores how spaces of pause and contemplation might be reintroduced within contemporary practice, foregrounding the potential of strategic dormancy as a generative condition.

Working across a mixed media installation encompassing sculpture, print, and video, Kelly examines the theorem of fallowness through three distinct yet interconnected sites: the Long Hill Esker—an ancient landform shaped during the last Ice Age; GannonEco, a waste-repurposing plant operating within a disused quarry along the razed esker complex; and the artist’s studio. Together, these sites trace a movement between geological time, industrial intervention, and intimate creative space, positioning fallowness as a condition that operates across ecological, material, and artistic registers.

01/09/2026

Friday 18th September | 5pm - 8pm
For Culture Night 2026, NSF invites visitors to explore its historic building and discover its contribution to Cork’s vibrant visual arts community.

Cork City Council Cork Arts

25/08/2026

Opening this Friday 28th August at The Linenhall, Castlebar

A Syndicate*
by A. Hunt

Drawing on an artistic inquiry of expansive relational frameworks, A. Hunt’s practice unpacks questions of proximity, attention, and support from both an infrastructural and embodied vantage point. Traversing Sculpture, Installation, and Live Art, this work abstractly rehearses ‘togethering’ beyond Hegemonic (Capitalist and Heteronormative) organizational agendas, both from a researched and lived point of view in the artist’s life.

20/08/2026

Some sounds from the Factory floor.
Ceramicist Tanja Haramincic has kindly shared this footage of her time with us, and her experimentation making ceramic glazes from local materials foraged from Cork and its surroundings.

Address

Albert Road
Cork
00

Opening Hours

Monday	9:30am - 5pm
Tuesday	9:30am - 5pm
Wednesday	9:30am - 5pm
Thursday	9:30am - 5pm
Friday	9:30am - 5pm

Telephone

00353 (0)21 4314353

Website

http://www.nationalsculpturefactory.com/

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