Artist Statement

With a practice that spans sound, lens-based media, text and digital systems, Christopher Steenson’s (b.1992, Northern Ireland) work bridges historical and speculative narratives to interrogate the politics of time, environment and more-than-human-relations. In approaching these concerns, he seeks to make work through which we can ‘listen across tenses’.

Drawing upon the open methodologies of John Cage, and the idea of ‘correspondences’ proposed by anthropologist Tim Ingold, Steenson’s artworks attempt to operate as a collaborative process, unfolding as a field of potentialities between viewers and (speculative) environments. Using transmission signals, broadcasting equipment, architectural resonances and archives, Steenson’s artworks seek to locate audiences within a ‘dreamtime’ – a space in which pasts, presents and futures are negotiated on a continuum. 

By conjuring fictions, folklores and alternative temporalities, Steenson’s works can be likened to networks or constellations. They are distributed and non-hierarchical; eschewing control and didactics in favour of contingency and emergence. In this sense, Steenson’s practice is a capsule for ‘quantum listening’, unfolding across multiple temporalities and perspectives – a point that is reinforced by the artist’s use of public infrastructure and bygone forms of technology, which are used to comment on present-day and future concerns. As artist and researcher Mark Peter Wright remarks: “Steenson’s artworks correspond with the mutability of sound and space, to oneself and a contingent time to come. They are invitations to listen elsewhere whilst simultaneously sounding the present.”

Recent solo presentations include: ‘They haven’t gone away you know’, mother’s tankstation, Dublin, Ireland (2025); 'Breath Variations’, Flat Time House, London (2023); and ‘Soft Rains Will Come’, VISUAL, Carlow, Ireland (2022). Recent group presentations include: ‘The Air We Share’, Galway Arts Centre, Ireland (2025); ‘The Sky is Falling!’, Ormston House, Limerick, Ireland (2024); 'mother tongue', The MAC, Belfast, Ireland (2024); 'inching towards', Freelands Foundation, London. United Kingdom (2024); ‘Penumbra’, LAVA, Mexico City (2024); and TULCA Festival of Visual Arts: The World Was All Before Them (2022). In 2020, Steenson presented ‘On Chorus’ a national public sound artwork utilising Ireland’s network of train station PA systems. His work is held in the Arts Council of Ireland Collection.

Biography

Following time as a researcher and PhD candidate in psychology and movement science, Christopher Steenson began his artistic practice in 2017. His work has manifested through several installations, site-specific sound works, and performances. His work has been presented by mother’s tankstation, Dublin, Ireland (2025); Freelands Foundation, London, United Kingdom (2024); LAVA, Mexico City (2024); Flat Time House, London, United Kingdom (2023); VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art (2022); TULCA Festival of Visual Arts: The World Was All Before Them (2022), curated by Clare Gormley; Pallas Projects/Studios, Dublin, Ireland (2022); Project DivFuse, London, United Kingdom (2022); Sonorities sound biennale (2022); CCA Derry~Londonderry (2021), curated by Locky Morris and Catherine Hemelryk; Radiophrenia (2020); The Old Jesuit Monastery, Syros, Greece (2019); NCAD Gallery, Dublin (2019); and EastSide Arts Festival, Belfast (2017). 

Steenson has participated on several residencies including: Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, USA (2023); Flat Time House, London, United Kingdom (2023); Interface, Connemara, Ireland (2022); Cow House Studios, Wexford, Ireland (2022); Sounding Paths, Syros, Greece (2019). He was part of the fourth and final cohort participating in the PS² Freelands Artist Programme (2022–2023). From 2024-2025, he participated on the Conditions Online Programme. Steenson’s work has been covered by various publications and media outlets including Paper Visual Art, The Quietus, Irish Times, RTÉ and BBC. He has received funding from the Arts Council of Ireland (2019–2023), the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (2019, 2020 & 2022); Kerry Arts Office (2020 & 2024) and the ESB Brighter Future Fund (2022–2023). Steenson’s work is held in the Arts Council of Ireland’s Collection. 

In 2026, Christopher Steenson’s artwork The Long Grass (2022–2024), will be presented as part of New Contemporaries, with exhibitions at South London Gallery (30 January – 12 April 2026), and MIMA, Middlesbrough (8 May – 16 August 2026). In June 2026, Steenson will present a solo exhibition of new work at the CCA Derry~Londonderry. Titled ‘Stone Age Economics’, the exhibition’s focus stems from a period of long-term research focusing on the speculative potentials of prehistory.