Ciara Rodgers announced as Jane Anne Rothwell Award recipient for 2026

Cork Midsummer Festival is delighted to announce that the recipient of the Jane Anne Rothwell Award for 2026 is Ciara Rodgers.

The Jane Anne Rothwell Award is a prize of €5,000 awarded annually to an emerging artist – either from Cork, or based in Cork – working in any discipline, who identifies as female. Jane Anne Rothwell was the inspirational Chair of Cork Midsummer Festival from 2013 – 2018. A leading figure in Cork’s legal and business community, Jane Anne was an incredible mentor to and champion of women in the arts.

Ciara Rodgers is a Cork City based visual artist who works across drawing, installation, performance, and photography. She explores the entanglement of body and building and our physical and psychological experience of space. Ciara is a studio member of Backwater Artists Group, and her work has been exhibited widely in Ireland and internationally often unfolding through site-responsive research. Solo presentations include Folly | Façade at GOMA, Waterford (2024) and an upcoming exhibition at Pallas Projects, Dublin (2026). Her project for Cork Midsummer Festival 2026 will be a site-responsive temporary installation and participatory walking project that introduces playful, soft, sculptural interventions across Cork City, inviting audiences to experience familiar urban routes in new and unexpected ways.