The Tea Houses is delighted to invite you to At the Waterline, a new exhibition by artist and ecologist Tasneem Khan exploring the concept of islandness as a lens for change, adaptation and thinking about our relationship to place. Opening Friday 29 May, 5.00pm. All are welcome. Curated by Shannon Carroll.
This exhibition emerges from an ongoing body of artistic research exploring how islands can be understood not only as geographical locations or terrain, but as spaces through which to consider ecological systems and human experience in a time of environmental instability. In these edge environments, change is often accelerated and magnified. The edges between land and water become a site of attention, a space in which to witness where systems shift, overlap and transform together.
Developed through Khan’s long-term engagement with coastal, riverine and island environments, At the Waterline brings together mixed media photography, video and text, using layering as part of a process of mapping and remapping place through experience and observation. It is the artist’s documentation of water journeys, through field-based observation and images, that functions as a form of visual note-taking. Across the work, Khan approaches the water’s edge as a threshold, where a special set of conditions provide ways of understanding connection, isolation, evolution and interdependence across systems.
The exhibition transforms into a working space: part studio, part field station. At the Waterline invites visitors into an active process of research and exploration, the gallery provides a quiet, contemplative space to encourage slow looking: a moment to pause, breathe, notice and reflect on how we encounter and understand the world around us. Alongside the works, visitors are encouraged to contribute their own observations and responses into a shared logbook. In this way, the exhibition extends beyond viewing into a collective act of mapping, creating a living text holding the thoughts and experience of all those involved.
Presented as part of the Kilkenny County Council Arts Office Programme. As part of the exhibition, the artist will be running a Climate Cartography hands-on art workshop at the water’s edge, engaging with the River Nore through observation, mapping and creative response. Open to anyone (18+) with an interest in art, ecology or place and no prior experience necessary. Taking place on the afternoon of Friday the 5th of June to celebrate the United Nations’ World Environment Day. Tickets available via Eventbrite.
Artist
Tasneem Khan is a photographer, artist, biologist and educator whose practice moves between coastal ecologies, island environments, intertidal detail and the intimate patterns of marine and freshwater worlds. Her work is shaped by two decades of exploring, studying and documenting waterscapes across the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic and beyond, and by a sustained curiosity about how place is understood through both scientific attention and lived experience. Working across photography, field-based research and science communication, she develops bodies of work that hold observation, memory and ecological change in the same frame.
Recent exhibitions and writing include: Time and Tide series of 8 photo essays (2025), MaraTime exhibition at the Coastguard Centre, Tramore (2025), Parallel Worlds photo exhibition at SETU, Waterford (2024), ‘The Subverse-Of Relationality and Water: Stories of Kinship, Care and Belonging’ Podcast (2023), The Story of Salt & Water exhibition at Vitamin Sea Festival Tramore (2023), ‘Nature in Focus’ Jury member at the Conservation & Wildlife Photography Awards (2020), Ecosystems In Change photography exhibition at Sublime Galleria, Bangalore, India (2017).
Exhibition runs from May 30 to June 5th
