Marie Theresa Crick
Artist | Writer | Researcher | Facilitator
Marie Theresa Crick is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, researcher, and facilitator whose work engages with transnational feminisms, embodied methodologies, and breath as ‘performance.’
She is a PhD researcher in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, a fellow of the Advanced Practices PhD, and an active member of collectives including Counterfield and the Feminist Breath Collective. Born in London to an Irish mother and a British father, her practice is rooted in the lived experience of Irish migration, informing her exploration of Irish Catholic maternal shame, migration, and memory through philosophy, film, performance, and embodied workshops - reimagining maternal relations as transformative.
Philosophically grounded in Luce Irigaray’s concept of “shared air,” Marie Theresa’s research examines breath as a medium for relational exchange, addressing how transgenerational shame is embodied and transmitted through the maternal relation. Her lived experience of her mother’s dementia, shaped by migration and Irish Catholicism in London, informs her exploration of silences, bodily traces, and inherited trauma. Contextualised within colonial histories and state control over female bodies, her practice emphasizes the urgency of addressing “histories that hurt” (Ahmed) and the affective legacies of shame.
Marie Theresa’s embodied practice explores breath as a relational and transformative medium across “private,” “public,” “filmic,” and “communal” air. Her practice includes intimate shared readings with her mother, public scripted performances at sites of the Virgin Mary, and durational embodied workshops.
These practices are interwoven with her filmic works, where shared breath shapes the rhythm and cuts of visuals, creating a visceral and reflective connection between the bodily and the cinematic. Central to her methodology is what she terms embodied circular readings, performative acts that “put in play” histories of maternal shame, dementia, and migration within “brave spaces” inspired by Irish contemporary art practices such as those of Jesse Jones and Sarah Browne. These durational workshops invite participants to collectively engage with personal and transgenerational experiences of shame without judgment, fostering courageous conversations and shared reflection. Rooted in conscious connected breathing practices, the workshops create empathetic and sensory foundations for deeper engagement, offering transformative communal dialogues that reimagine the maternal relation as a site of co-becoming. By attending to breath as a means to process what Ahmed terms “histories that hurt,” Marie Theresa’s work opens pathways to explore transgenerational shame and relational rupture, offering insights into feminist relationalities and embodied methodologies.
Central to her work is an interdisciplinary methodology bridging historical, philosophical, and creative approaches. She engages deeply with archives in Ireland and England, including the National Library of Ireland, the Radharc Film Archive, the Irish Film Institute, and London Metropolitan University’s Irish Archive, attending to the silences and gaps within these records. Her archival and practice-based work seeks to create dialogues between academic and artistic practices, reframing the intertwined colonial histories of Ireland and England to highlight their lasting psychosocial impacts.
Her facilitation experience spans over 20 years, working with learners from early childhood (ages 3-5, often known as Key Stage 1 in the UK) through to postgraduate levels in photography, film, fine art, philosophy, and contemporary art theory. Central to her teaching is a commitment to horizontal, participatory approaches that foster inclusive, multi-directional learning environments—opening spaces for collective engagement.
Marie Theresa’s work positions breath as a relational and transformative force, imagining futures of maternal co-becoming and challenging the silences of the past through embodied, filmic, and collective practices
