Catherine O’Connor  is a self-taught tapestry artist currently based in Dublin. She established her studio practice in 2019 with the purpose of capturing the essence of a person in woven tapestries. Catherine is drawn to portraiture in an effort to capture the variations and nuances in a person’s features and expression. For YES 2024, Catherine will create a bespoke tapestry which will  celebrate the female form. The tapestry will be on display at The YES Hub, St Columb’s Hall, Derry~Londonderry.

This exhibition forms part of The Sixteen Nations, which celebrates female creativity, and the YES Hub at St. Columb’s Hall will be open from 10am – 6pm daily.

YES takes place in Derry~Londonderry and north Donegal from 13-16 June. It is the culmination of ULYSSES European Odyssey, an unprecedented international project supported with funding through Creative Europe that since 2022 has seen partners in 18 cities across Europe take Joyce’s novel as the starting point to explore contemporary issues, from migration to the environment and disability to global data.

Women artists from cities involved in ULYSSES European Odyssey will travel to Ireland for YES to present work in venues and public spaces across Derry~Donegal. The programme will include theatre, dance, visual arts, installations, film, writing, photography, textiles, circus, music, rap and song.

At a time when more is being written about both Joyce’s wife Nora Barnacle and Molly Bloom, YES and its theme The Future: A Female Vision invite audiences to think about the role of women in the writer’s life and work, and more widely, in society, in art, in business, in politics, as thinkers, as creatives, as leaders.