Image by Kev O' Farrell.
Maria McSweeney is an Irish lens-based visual artist. Her practice focuses on exploring place through the intricate process of deep mapping and documenting diverse landscapes. She is currently captivated by underwater aquatic spaces and overwater landscapes that hold unique ecologies and ecosystems. Her work traverses these underrepresented spaces, examining the dynamic rhythms and interactions within them.
Using snorkeling and scuba diving as methods of exploration, she approaches these areas through an ecological, care-based, and hydrofeminist lens. Working primarily with analogue processes, she experiments with sustainable and ecological alternatives to mainstream darkroom practices. By developing images outdoors through an en plein air darkroom model she challenges the extractive and chemically intensive nature of traditional labs, which are often detached from the environments they depict.
Both analogue photography and scuba diving are rooted in scientific traditions, demanding precision, maintenance, and specialised equipment. Her practice draws from those foundations while reimagining them through an immersive, artistic, and ecologically engaged lens. Her practice asks how site-specific, analogue, scientific, and ecological lens-based methods can become acts of care within the Anthropocene.
She holds a BA in Sculpture and Combined Media from LSAD (2020) and a Level 9 Diploma in Art and Ecology (2025) and a Level 9 Certificate in Sustainable Exhibition Making both from NCAD (2023). She is also a PADI Scuba Divemaster.
Recent achievements include: Sustainable Body: Symposium on Artistic Research in Analog Practices, Helsinki Analog Festival (2026); The Loughshinny Boathouse Studio Award supported by Fingal County Council (2025–2026); UCC Creative Workshops with Climate Scientists (2025); IMMA Perspectives: Residency for Neurodiverse Artists (2025); IMMA Earth Rising (2024); Leitrim Sculpture Centre Exhibition Residency (2023); Arts Council of Ireland's Agility Award (2021–2024); Create’s Artist in the Community Mentoring Award (2023); The Darkroom Dublin Super 8 Residency (2023); The Aran Island Underwater Photography Project (2023).
My practice has been supported by
