T25 Coast With Ben Landscape

How Lies the Land? – Sorcha Carey Curates Folkestone Triennial 2025

We are delighted to celebrate the opening of this year's Folkestone Triennial, curated by our very own Director, Sorcha Carey. Titled How Lies the Land?, the contemporary art festival runs from 19 July to 19 October 2025, transforming the town of Folkestone into an open-air gallery of site-specific artworks.

This year’s festival brings together 18 artists from over 15 countries, working across sculpture, sound, moving image, performance and installation. The artists take Folkestone’s coastal terrain as a starting point, responding to its layered geographies and entangled histories - from industrial legacies to border politics, military defences to migration routes.

Sorcha explains the curatorial approach behind the exhibition:

“Embedded in the phrase ‘getting the lie of the land’ is the understanding that the layers and contours of the land have not only influenced where we find ourselves now, but can also suggest which direction we should take next.

The artists in How Lies the Land? find in the ground and landscapes of Folkestone an imaginative space to explore urgent contemporary questions: from climate change to migration, how we build communities, the interdependency of species, and the human impact on the landscape. All the artworks in How Lies the Land? are created and presented in response to the specific context and landscape of Folkestone. But the questions they explore are universal.”

As ever, Sorcha brings her long-standing interest in place, public space and collaborative commissioning to the Triennial, forging a dialogue between artists and environment that is both timely and deeply rooted.

We’re especially excited to share that some of the artists featured in Folkestone will be coming to Collective in the near future, continuing our commitment to commissioning bold, site-specific work and connecting local and international practices. Stay tuned...

Explore the full programme and artist line-up via Creative Folkestone.