Belfast-based poet Bebe Ashley has been awarded the 2025 British Council Fellowship as part of the world-renowned Bundanon Artists in Residence Programme.
The British Council Residency supports contemporary arts practice by providing space for UK based artists to experiment, conceive and develop new work and ideas in the areas of nature-based and rural arts, arts as place-based climate action, creative sense-making for present and future, storytelling and narrative change, collaboration between arts and science, culture as an ally in activism and/or experiments in futures.
“During this residency, I will focus on two projects that combine my work in poetry with my aim to produce work that increases access to the arts for traditionally neglected audiences,” Bebe said.. The primary elements of these projects include writing a series of audio description style poetic responses to the holdings of Bundanon’s Art Museum and to prepare and create new 3D-printed Braille poems inspired by the landscape.”
The Bundanon Artists in Residence program is the largest program of its kind in Australia and spans the organisation’s 30-year history. The program grows year-on-year and is structured through a series of partnerships with leading arts organisations and companies, cultural agencies and benefactors.
Bebe Ashley lives in Northern Ireland and works at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast. Her work is most recently published in Granta and The Stinging Fly and has also featured in anthologies such as Prototype’s Intertitles: an anthology at the intersection of writing & visual art.In 2023, Bebe received the Ivan Juritz Prize for Creative Experiment (Text) and a major Creative Practitioner Bursary from Belfast City Council. Prior to this, Bebe received a Digital Evolution Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Future Screens NI. Her 3D-printed Braille poems featured in a six-month exhibition at the Museum of Literature Ireland in 2024.Bebe’s debut collection Gold Light Shining was published by Banshee Press and selected as one of 21 Irish titles to be celebrated on Culture Night 2022. Her second collection, Harbour Doubts, will be published in June 2025.
For more information about Bundanon and Bebe’s residency please visit: Bebe Ashley — Bundanon
For more information about Bebe visit: Bebe Ashley