A little before love

13 Sep 25

Image credit: Image generated by AI using the prompt of a woman's hands holding a cheap lighter in her garden somewhere rural where she might or might not be thinking about her complicated relationship to love

Artists

Lucie McLaughlin

Info

Saturday 13 September 2025, 2–4pm

A little before love is an informal in-person reading and writing workshop with artist, writer and PhD candidate Lucie McLaughlin. The workshop operates in conversation with the current exhibition by McGibbon O’Lynn Love is blindly reaching out rhizoids and anchoring them to a rock.

Connecting devices from McGibbon O’Lynn’s work such as fiction and world-building to the exhibition’s themes of dating and ‘liaisons with the garden,’ in the workshop we will discuss ideas of gardens and parks as sites for thinking about our relationship to romantic entanglement, selfhood and the places in which we find ourselves. We will explore a close reading of Claire-Louise Bennett’s short story ‘A Little Before Seven’ from her book Pond where an unnamed narrator is struck by a ‘generally comical but profoundly concerning’ revelation about her feelings toward the opposite sex, taking us along to her garden to think things through. We will talk about the sensations of reading, and our relationship to the things that are ‘beyond, beneath and before’ language, with a few prompts and exercises to practice our own writing.

This in-person workshop will take place in CCA, 10-12 Artillery Street, Derry~Londonderry, BT48 6RG. No previous writing experience is needed and it is suitable for those aged 18 and over. Book your free place via CCA's online shop here.

About Lucie McLaughlin

Lucie grew up in Belfast in the era of turquoise dolphin necklaces with cords instead of chains. She now lives between places. She has fair hair and often wears oversize t-shirts. She really loves snorkeling and pickled onion crisps. Like most people involved in the arts, she has worked a wide variety of jobs throughout her time as an artist and writer, including retail assistant, gallery assistant, drinks promotions in nightclubs, cleaner, admin officer, concierge, model, waitress, bartender, event staff at weddings, invigilator, teacher.

She is interested in alternative forms of description, in order to disrupt pre-existing ideas of success and value. She collects postcards and cooks elaborate meals to unwind. Ferries are her favourite mode of transportation, other than books. She is currently learning to drive

A previous CCA Research Associate 2022, Lucie is completing a Collaborative Doctoral Award titled 'Sites of Art Writing', between CCA Derry~Londonderry and Kingston School of Art 2024–2027. Funded by technē, AHRC and working with the Contemporary Art Research Group. You can read more about the PhD here.