ART IS A TRADE explores Andrew Cooke’s journey from Foundation Year to Animal Instincts, showing how making supports men’s mental health, creativity, identity, and emotional wellbeing.
ART IS A TRADE is a powerful exhibition by ceramic artist and facilitator Andrew Cooke, rooted in working class experience, dyslexia, and the emotional realities of navigating the arts sector. The work traces Andrew’s journey from Foundation Year to his newest Animal Instincts sculptures, revealing how lived experience, labour, and instinct shape a maker’s path. It highlights how making can support mental health and wellbeing, with Andrew directing this especially toward men who often lack safe, creative spaces to express themselves.
The exhibition creates room for honesty, vulnerability, and reconnection with creativity as a tool for grounding, identity, and emotional repair. Workshops with clay and talks invite communities to engage directly with making, conversation, and shared experience.
ART IS A TRADE challenges who gets to belong in the arts. It offers not just artwork, but a call for fairness, access, and the right to create without apology.
- Thursday 14 May | Friday 15 May | Saturday 16 May
- 10am – 1pm
- Cost: Free, booking is essential
- Moat Park Pavilion, Dundonald, 11 Church Grn, Belfast BT16 2LP
Disclaimer: There is limited Access to the Moat Pavilion. Please be aware wheelchair users will need to use a stair lift to access the space. Please inform us if you are unable to use a stair lift and the Artist can do a talk outside weather dependant.
More information and booking: https://islandartscentre.com/event/art-is-a-trade-exhibition-by-andrew-cooke
