Floaters is an installation made from footballs found on beaches and riverbanks across the north of Ireland. Some were lost years ago, others more recently, carried by water far from where they were once used. Artist Locky Morris has collected these footballs over time, reshaping them and placing them behind glass so they appear paused and held in place—like a floater, a speck in your eye—while also engaging with the social meaning of a “floater”: someone who connects with different groups, and its related terms such as drifter, rover, or wanderer.
These footballs reflect those ideas. Weathered by salt, tide, and time, they sit between meanings: once objects of play, now discarded and found again. Although they are no longer moving, they still carry a sense of having travelled.

Locky Morris was born in Derry City where he continues to live and work. Renowned for his early work that explicitly dealt with the conflict in the North of Ireland – most notably from a socially embedded perspective – he has gone on to develop another working vocabulary that moves fluidly between the personal, public and political. While still informed by the complexities and intricacies of his immediate landscape, this work extends across video, sound, photography and gallery installation incorporating found sculptural assemblages. Morris’ practice, born in part out of a fascination for what confronts him in the often chaotic details of the everyday, is rich, inventive and marked by a visual playfulness that feels distinctly his own.  He has been posting almost daily for eight years to Instagram especiallyeverything @lockymorrisartist, seeing it as a parallel practice.  

Running alongside this have been numerous large-scale works and interventions in the public realm. The work has also been influenced by his active musicianship. 

Artist Talk & Walk at Swan Park & Barrick Hill

Saturday 2nd May 2026

Book for the bus tour now