Mayo artist among shortlisted makers on display at Craft Awards Exhibition
The 2026 RDS Craft Awards Exhibition in partnership with the National Museum of Ireland has officially launched at Collins Barracks, giving contemporary Irish craft a national stage within one of the country’s leading cultural institutions.
The exhibition marks a new partnership between the Royal Dublin Society and the National Museum of Ireland, bringing together the €60,000 RDS Craft Awards, the largest fund of its kind for craft in Europe, with public exposure at a level rarely seen in the craft sector.
Curated by Dee Morgan-Smyth of the RDS, the exhibition presents work by the 12 shortlisted makers from the 2026 RDS Craft Awards, unveiled today, offering visitors an opportunity to experience some of the most exciting contemporary craft being produced in Ireland. Emma Bourke from Westport, is among the shortlisted six established makers. Emma Bourke is a glass artist whose practice combines lampworked glass sculpture with ethnobotany, mythology and material storytelling. Her work explores relationships between people and plants and how knowledge of healing, ecology and identity has been carried through generations. She has exhibited internationally, including at Homo Faber in Venice and Collect in London, with work held by the National Museum of Ireland and Trinity College Dublin.
Selected following a competitive call for applications from Ireland and internationally, the shortlist spans disciplines including ceramics, textiles, wood, glass, metal, jewellery, weaving and lace, reflecting the breadth of contemporary craft practice today.
By placing contemporary makers alongside Ireland’s material heritage, the show highlights craft as a living, evolving practice, rooted in tradition and engaging with modern life. It also reconnects two institutions with shared roots, with the National Museum of Ireland originating from collections transferred from the RDS in 1877.
Now in the second year of their reimagined format, the RDS Craft Awards support makers at different stages of their careers through significant financial investment and opportunities to bring their work to new audiences.
Dr. Éimear O’Connor, interim director of the National Museum of Ireland, said: “The National Museum of Ireland is proud to partner with the RDS and to welcome the shortlisted makers to Collins Barracks for the first time. This partnership brings contemporary craft into dialogue with our collections, showing how making continues to evolve while remaining connected to Ireland’s cultural heritage.”
Dee Morgan-Smyth, curator of the exhibition, said: “The opening of the exhibition is an opportunity for audiences to experience an RDS Craft Awards shortlist that brings together makers whose work celebrates exceptional skill, imagination and commitment to material practice from across the island. The selected works, alongside the Museum’s collections at Collins Barracks, speak to Ireland’s incredibly deep history of craft, design and decorative arts. Together, they show the connection and progression of how contemporary makers continue to draw from, respond to and reimagine these traditions. I feel privileged to play a part in this chapter of material culture in Ireland.”
The exhibition will be accompanied by Threading Europe: Shared Heritage, Shared Hand, a one-week public programme exploring the craft traditions that connect Ireland with Europe. The programme will include a public forum, makers’ skill exchange activities, demonstrations, workshops, schools’ engagement initiatives and a curated exhibition, Craft Lines – European Stories in Making, with further details to be announced as part of the exhibition programme.
The 2026 RDS Craft Awards Exhibition in partnership with the National Museum of Ireland is open to the public at the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks from October 1, until April 2027. Admission is free.
The winners will be announced at the 2026 RDS Craft Awards ceremony at the RDS on November 19.