Crit Session w/ Amy-Clare McCarthy

Crit Sessions are a unique opportunity to develop your emerging, early or mid-career visual arts or curatorial practice with constructive feedback and discussions on your works or works-in-progress from some of Australia’s leading artists, curators and industry professionals. This professional development series provides artists with valuable insights which are often hard to find outside of educational institutions.⁠

Across 2025, Outer Space are facilitating five Crit Sessions both online and in-person with industry leaders from across Australia. For the fifth and final Crit Session of 2025, we will be joined by esteemed curator, Amy-Clare McCarthy.

These events are free with a very limited capacity of six participants per session. We intend for the sessions to be accessible, inclusive and supportive environments for creative and professional growth. ⁠

Spots are limited and available until tickets are exhausted. If our upcoming guest facilitator feels aligned with your practice, feel free to claim a seat.

If tickets have been exhausted, we encourage you to still join the waitlist via the form provided. If something comes up and you cannot attend, please release your ticket so someone else has the chance to participate.

Need further clarity on what a crit session is and how it runs?

• Crits (short for critique) are casual but considered conversations that give artists the chance to share their work-in-progress and receive constructive, thoughtful feedback from industry peers.

• This particular session will run online, virtually from 9:30am - 12:30pm with an intimate session of six participants. Each artist or curator will receive 20-30 minutes to share their background, artistic practice and request any feedback, or direction, asking specific questions to the guest facilitator. As a collaborative session we request that all participants stay for the entirety of the crit with the opportunity to also provide constructive peer feedback.

• Whether you’re refining a new piece, shifting direction, or just needing some fresh eyes - Crits are about support, dialogue and growth, not judgement.

About the guest facilitator: Amy-Clare McCarthy (she/her) is a curator based in Meanjin (Brisbane). She is Gallery Manager at Milani Gallery and curator of the CARPARKGallery program. She was the inaugural Chair of the Board of Outer Space from 2017-19, and from 2013-17 she was the Exhibition Program Curator at Metro Arts. Working with Kieran Swann as McCarthy-Swann Projects, she has co-curated major temporary public art commissions for Brisbane City Council; in the Spring Hill Reservoir, in Queen Street Mall, as well as for their Outdoor Gallery Program. 

Amy-Clare has a particular interest in feminist; socially-engaged; and participatory art practices, and in curating outside of conventional gallery spaces. She proudly hosts FEMIOKE - a feminist karaoke event imagined by Level ARI, that has had multiple iterations since 2016.

Accessibility: This session will be hosted in-person at the Judith Wright Arts Centre, 420 Brunswick St Fortitude Valley. If you have any specific access needs or questions, please either email admin@outerspacebrisbane.org or send us a message on Instagram.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Amy-Clare McCarthy