Context Gallery hires new Director

Press Release:

The Context Gallery, Derry

The Context Gallery is pleased to announce the appointment of the new Director, Theo Sims. Sims has organised numerous national and international exhibitions and projects and brings a wealth of experience to the Context.


Theo Sims has moved back to Northern Ireland from Canada where he was the Programming Coordinator at a contemporary artist-run centre called aceartinc. located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Sims's achievements are particularly evident with his support and promotion of emerging artists such as Melanie Authier, Adad Hannah, Frieso Boning and this years Sobey Award nominee Daniel Barrow. Sims has worked with international artists such as Donigan Cumming, Rebecca Belmore and Steingrimur Eyfjord and has most recently founded and co-organised (In)Visible Cities, a festival of performance and off-site installations featuring artists such as Nhan Duc Nguyen, FASTWURMS, Cheryl L'Hirondelle and Finger In The Dyke Productions.

Prior to working at aceartinc., Sims was the Managing Editor for BlackFlash Magazine, a contemporary arts magazine focussing of photography and lens based art and he has also enjoyed success as an independent artist; his work being featured in the exhibition, Crack the Sky, curated by Wayne Baerwaldt, for La Biennale de Montréal 2007. He has also had several solo shows across Canada with forthcoming exhibitions in Vancouver and Ontario.

Theo Sims is an alumnus of the University of Ulster, (receiving his MA in 1994), and previous member of Orchid Studio's in Belfast from 1991-1998. He is looking forward to steering the gallery ahead in its fifteenth year of operation and launching the newly renovated space in the spring of 2009.


The Context Gallery was established in 1993 specifically to support and encourage emerging fine and applied Irish artists, and to develop links between emerging Irish artists and emerging artists in other countries. It the only gallery in the North-West of Ireland dedicated to providing a platform for emerging artists.

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