The Parallax Emerging Film Artist Award Exhibition 2026 features new film and installation by recent graduates Harrison Connally (MTU Crawford College of Art and Design), Autumn McNamara (Limerick School of Art & Design), Andy Chirali (National College of Arts & Design) and Nikol Ochichenko (Institute of Art, Deign & Technology).
The exhibition takes place in Sample-Studios Gallery: The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, Fitzgerald’s Park, Cork City from November 12th – 28th 2026. Opening Hours: Tues-Sat, 11am- 4pm
About parallax
The Parallax Emerging Film Artist Award is a partnership between Sample-Studios and Cork International Film Festival, formed in 2023, to recognise outstanding emerging talent in artist film nationally. Parallax seeks out and supports promising graduate film artists from tertiary fine art colleges throughout Ireland, offering their work a meaningful, quality platform as part of Ireland’s largest film festival, in partnership with Ireland’s largest artist studios. In 2026, we have expanded the Parallax Award to allow it to positively impact more promising graduate film artists through a jury-selected exhibition in The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion of 4 shortlisted graduates from around Ireland, as part of the 71st CIFF.
The winner of the Parallax Award will be selected from the shortlisted exhibitors and announced during the Festival programme. They will receive a €3000 bursary, 12 month honorary membership of Sample-Studios and accreditation at the 72nd CIFF.
The Parallax Award partnership creates a distinct space to champion emerging film artists to bolster their practices at the early stages of development, with a high quality platform.
About the artists
Harrison Connally:
Connally was born in Texas, raised in a forest, and became best friends with boredom and imagination. As a young adult, he returned to the forest of his childhood to live off-grid in a yurt for two years. This time initiated a re-integration with nature that inspires the core of Harrison’s practice today. Harrison’s work is motivated by intimacy with site-specific nature. Now living in Ireland, Harrison’s work establishes new relationships with Irish nature through its botany and specific sites near his home in West Cork.
Autumn McNamara:
Autumn McNamara is a video/audio artist based in Limerick City, Ireland, known for their innovative approach to diary film-making and meta-textual, collage-esque process in music. With a background in fine arts & sculpture, Autumn is fascinated by the sense of texture within art and the indescribable sensation that the timbre of visuals and sound elicit, treating these senses to be art’s access to the soul. Their work has been featured in the Limerick School of Art & Design’s 2026 Graduate Showcase where they were longlisted for the RSD Visual Arts Award and their music has been celebrated internationally with their 2025 album ‘i expect the same of u’ being considered the best album of the year by Genuine Irish.
Andy Chirali:
Andy Chirali is an Irish/Romanian digital media artist based in Dublin, and recent Fine Art Media graduate from NCAD. He brings together video, writing, and performance within a digital creative practice to explore his intimate curiosity with human behaviour and interpersonal interactions within a myriad of circumstances. His writing serves as the foundation of his work, this in combination with a variety of digital art disciplines results in a creative output which is exploratory and fresh. Underpinning all his work is a desire to hold a mirror to the everyday, finding meaning and tension in the gestures, exchanges and rituals that define how we relate to one another, ourselves and the world.
Nikol Ochichenko:
Nikol Ochichenko is a visual artist from Ukraine with her practice based in Ireland. After fleeing the war in her home-country she then had to reestablish her art practice in Ireland, and her current works are an exact reflection of that transformation. She is often concerned with themes of community, social engagement, and displaced identity as they allow her to explore the lived experiences of others informed by her own. Using photography, moving image, and installation practice as the main anchors of her work, she encourages a space where people affected by war can allow themselves to be vulnerable, using it as an outlet for grief, guilt, and other coping emotions. One of Nikol’s main aspirations is to expand on the supportive connections within affected communities, learning to use them as a bridge between violence and survival.
