Proudly opening with a major three-year exhibition from the IMMA Collection

IMMA, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, today (30 January 2025) announced highlights of its 2025 programme, opening with a major three-year display celebrating IMMA’s Permanent Collection titled IMMA Collection: Art as Agency, that showcases over 100 artists from the 1960s to the present, highlighting key works including many recent acquisitions. Through thematic, chronological, geographical, and media-based approaches, Art as Agency examines how artworks connect across time and contexts, fostering new interpretations and relevance. By interweaving historical and contemporary narratives, the exhibition invites audiences to reflect on the evolving meanings and possibilities of art in shaping our understanding of and action in the world. Opening on 6 February this ambitious exhibition will invite engagement and research, allowing for a rich durational experience of Ireland’s Modern and Contemporary Art Collection.

Commenting on the 2025 programme, Director of IMMA Annie Fletcher said: “In 2025, IMMA is proud to be placing the permanent Collection at the forefront of the museum. By investing in significant semi-permanent displays of the National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, we hope to allow the public time to delve into the pivotal artworks that have shaped contemporary practice. This will complement an exceptional exhibition programme punctuated by unmissable experiential performances. Creative interventions as part of Dwell Here, Living Canvas at IMMA, Summer at IMMA, and EARTH RISING will animate the grounds to provide our visitors with remarkable experiences that we hope will bring them back to IMMA time and time again”.

Central to the 2025 exhibition programme is an exploration of artists working with textiles, two of which share connections to Ireland. IMMA is presenting solo exhibitions of their work in Ireland for the first time. The first exhibition, opening on 28 February, features the Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers, a group of African American women from a small Alabama community with a 150-year tradition of quilt-making. Their quilts are both artistically and politically significant, rising to prominence during the Civil Rights Movement as symbols of Black empowerment and cultural pride. These works are deeply rooted in family, heritage and the history of their community.

Opening on 13 June IMMA presents a solo exhibition by Sam Gilliam (1933 – 2022), one of the great innovators in post-war American painting, co-organised with the Sam Gilliam Foundation. Emerging in the mid-1960s, his canonical ‘Drape’ paintings merged painting, sculpture, and performance in conversation with architecture in entirely new ways. Suspending unstretched lengths of painted canvas from the walls or ceilings of exhibition spaces, Gilliam transformed his medium and the contexts in which it was viewed. Following an influential artist residency in Ireland in Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Co. Mayo in the early 1990s, he continued his innovative exploration of sewn and collaged works, liberating canvases from traditional supports blurring the boundaries between painting and sculpture. Gilliam’s work in Ireland fostered an intuitive dialogue with the surrounding environment, celebrating the physicality of painting and the emotional resonance of place through abstraction and materiality.

In the Autumn IMMA presents a solo exhibition by internationally renowned artist, poet, and activist Cecilia Vicuña titled Reverse Migration, a Poetic Journey, opening on 7 November. This groundbreaking presentation delves into themes of ancestry, ecological urgency, and the interconnectedness of humanity, inspired by Vicuña’s discovery of her ancient ties to Ireland and the poetic resonance of her return journey from the Andes to Ireland. The exhibition draws on her 2006 visit to Ireland, during which she and her partner, James O’Hern, honoured Ireland’s archaeological sites with rituals of gratitude. This connection becomes a narrative thread within the exhibition, intertwining personal memory, indigenous traditions, and a dialogue with Irish heritage. Vicuña, whose multidisciplinary practice bridges visual art, poetry, sound, and performance, will transform IMMA’s galleries with a dynamic suite of new works. Central to the exhibition is a site-specific quipu—an ancient Andean system of communication using knotted cords – created with local makers. The commission is a reference to the design of Aran sweater that is thought to be symbolic of nature, the sea and the lives of the fisherman and Islanders.

Other highlights in 2025 include Staying with the Trouble, an exhibition opening on 2 May of over 40 Irish and Ireland-based artists whose diverse practices explore urgent themes of our time. Staying with the Trouble is inspired by author and philosopher Donna Haraway’s germinal work of the same name. The exhibition challenges human-centric narratives, advocating for a multi-species/multi-kin perspective through sculpture, film, painting, installation and performance.

Alongside the exhibition programme live performances will be presented throughout the year in the newly reopened North Wing of IMMA. A new live performance by Isabel Nolan and Belinda Quirke, The Hum of Earth’s Uneven Breath, will take place in the Baroque Chapel on 13 March. Created in response to the current exhibition Take a Breath Nolan and Quirke explore embodied, cosmological and spiritual breath through deep time using sound improvisation, spoken word and voice. Other performances in 2025 include Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born in June, and as part of the Staying with the Trouble exhibition, a series of live performances on 26 July.

IMMA is also proud to announce the 2025 screening programme for Living Canvas at IMMA, a partnership between IMMA and IPUT Real Estate, Dublin’s leading property investment company and supporter of the arts, that brings Europe’s largest digital art screen to the grounds of IMMA. The programme opens with the screening of Derek Jarman’s The Angelic Conversation, 1985. This is followed by a partnership with the RDS Visual Art Awards presenting a specially curated programme by past Visual Art Awards artists. Later in the year screenings will feature work by artists Bruce Conner, Sweat Variant, Clare Langan and Aideen Barry, amongst others, together with partnerships with Dublin International Film Festival and Beta Festival.

This Summer IMMA’s popular programme, Summer at IMMA, will return with a vibrant programme of free events, exhibitions, artist performances, screenings, talks, workshops and tours, running from June to August.

EARTH RISING returns to IMMA in 2025 as a vibrant festival of art, ecology, and ideas. Running from 12 to 14 September, alongside the Staying with the Trouble exhibition, the festival will spark transformative climate conversations and actions through immersive cultural experiences. This year’s theme, “Making Kin,” invites audiences to explore meaningful connections — with each other, the natural world, and the urgent challenges of our time. Expect thought-provoking installations, interactive workshops, and inspiring voices that merge creativity with climate action, offering fresh perspectives and a space for collective imagination.

IMMA’s Engagement & Learning programme is central to the museum and in 2025 it will deliver many new initiatives.

The launch of a new residency Dwell Here that will support research and engagement with more than 20 residents in 2025. Six practices will have year-long opportunities at IMMA and all other residents will participate in one month residencies organised around a series of Research Intensives. Selected artists include Eoghan Ryan (IE), Crystal Bennes (UK/USA), Colm Keady-Tabbal (IE/LB), Sarah Pierce (US/IE), Amanda Dunsmore (UK/IE), Seamus Nolan (IE), Olga Micińska (PO), Slinko (US/UA), Renèe Helèna Browne (IE), and Angelina Radaković (UK), with more artists to be announced.

An international Summer School, Landscape and Conflict, organised by IMMA and the National College of Art and Design as part of the L’Internationale project Museum of the Commons will take place in Dublin and Belfast from 7 to 11 July 2025.

Engagement Hub: Art in Action is a new unique training programme to empower racialised and ethnic diverse artists to develop their practice towards engagement with younger audiences. This project, created by IMMA and Superprojects, is funded by the Ireland against Racism Fund 2024 by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

Art for All: Inclusive Family Workshop is a new programme that creates pathways for families seeking asylum into IMMA’s existing Explorer Family Workshops. IMMA has teamed up with artist Olga Vnukova and the Liberties Community Project as part of Dublin City Council’s pilot grant scheme aimed at delivering meaningful and impactful programmes in local settings.

IMMA Perspectives: A Creative Encounter is a partnership between IMMA, Dublin City Council and neurodivergent artists, Jody O’Neill and Dee Roycroft working towards creating a Dublin where neurodivergent people can fully participate in and enjoy cultural experiences. The programme will see selected professional neurodivergent artists participate in a facilitated encounter through bespoke workshops and seminars.

Please click on the links below to read more about the individual exhibitions and programmes:

2025 Programme

IMMA Collection: Art as Agency
8 February – 7 February 2028

Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers
28 February – 27 October 2025

Staying with the Trouble
2 May – 21 September 2025

Sam Gilliam
13 June 2025 – 25 January 2026

EARTH RISING
12 – 14 September 2025

Cecilia Vicuña: Reverse Migration, a Poetic Journey
7 November 2025 – July 2026

Living Canvas at IMMA
Year long

Continuing in 2025

Take a Breath
Until 17 March 2025

Hamad Butt: Apprehensions
Until 5 May

– ENDS –

For further information and images please contact:   

Monica Cullinane E: [email protected] T: 086 2010023  
Patrice Molloy E: [email protected] T: 086 2009957 

Born in Lahore, Pakistan and raised in London, Hamad Butt was British South Asian, Muslim, and queer. A contemporary of the Young British Artists, critics described him as epitomizing the new ‘hazardism’ in art; his poignant and severe work is emotive yet austere. Before his AIDS-related death in 1994, aged 32, Butt completed and showed four major sculptural installations, which forged new encounters between art and science in the time of AIDS. He also left behind videos, writings, drawings, paintings and plans for new installations; and was a pioneer of intermedia art, sculptural installation, sci-art and queer diasporic art.

Butt belongs to a group of British artists – most famously Derek Jarman (subject of a 2019 IMMA retrospective) – who responded to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Unlike Jarman however, Butt’s art did so in a non-militant way, dealing with the subject matter through subtle inferences to sex and death, an approach which connects his work to major international figures like Felix González-Torres, who similarly used a more minimal sculptural vocabulary.

Butt’s most iconic works, Transmission (1990) and the three-part series Familiars (1992), have never been shown together. None of his works has ever been shown outside the UK. Hamad Butt: Apprehensions is the first retrospective exhibition of Butt’s work and it seeks to correct the ways his work has been overlooked in British and international histories of contemporary art. It brings together Butt’s extant works, including the four major installations and supplementary parts, including the reconstruction of a destroyed work (a cabinet inhabited by live flies); schematic drawings, sketches and written notes from his archive; previously unseen (or rarely shown) paintings, etchings and works on paper; and a videotaped interview with the artist.

Butt’s works imply physical risk or endangerment: in Transmission, the threatening image of a triffid (a literary harbinger of blindness and mass extinction) is visible if one dons protective glasses to screen out the harmful ultraviolet light; in Familiars, we encounter chemicals that can heal us (they are disinfectants), but that irritate, burn, blind or kill if unleashed. He summons the fear of injury and contamination as analogies, perhaps, for the threat of disease and contagion (including that of HIV/AIDS), for mortality, or for airborne disasters – of climate emergency or of war. He also invokes the perceived threat of the racial, religious, or national outsider, through references to Christian and Islamic iconology, and to religious, spiritual, or hermetic orders of knowledge, such as the Islamic history of alchemy. His invocations of the end of the world are redolent in our own contaminated present – blighted (still) by pandemics, looming environmental disaster, migrant crises, and terror from the air.

Hamad Butt: Apprehensions is a retrospective exhibition developed in collaboration between IMMA and Whitechapel Gallery, London. The exhibition restages the Familiars, and Transmission sculpture series, along with paintings, drawings, and archive materials that contextualise his practice. The exhibition is curated by Dominic Johnson, Professor of Performance and Visual Culture at Queen Mary University of London, and co-curated with Seán Kissane and Gilane Tawadros. The exhibition is organised in cooperation with Jamal Butt and the Estate of Hamad Butt.

The accompanying exhibition catalogue is edited by Dominic Johnson and features a comprehensive survey essay (the first of its kind), and new commissioned essays by scholars, curators, conservators and artists including Alice Correia, Seán Kissane, Steve Kurtz, Adrian Rifkin and others. It is the first significant book-length study of the work of Hamad Butt. The catalogue is published by Prestel and supported by Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Price €35 from the IMMA Shop.

Commenting on the exhibition, Annie Fletcher, IMMA Director said; “We are thrilled to work with Whitechapel Art Gallery, Dominic Johnson, and Jamal Butt, to realise this long-overdue retrospective of Hamad Butt. Building on our series of exhibitions that has revisited and revised the art of the 1990s, including The Narrow Gate of the Here-and-Now and Derek Jarman: Protest!, this exhibition reveals how other, truly significant, histories of the ‘90s and HIV/AIDS, can enrich our understanding of that time, and also provide a more complex and diverse lineage for the art of the present moment.” 

Hamad Butt: Apprehensions is supported by the Henry Moore Foundation.

– ENDS – 

For further information and images please contact: 

Monica Cullinane E: [email protected] T: 086 2010023
Patrice Molloy E: [email protected] T: 086 2009957

Additional Notes for Editors Exhibition Details 

Title: Hamad Butt: Apprehensions
Exhibition Dates: 06 Dec 2024–05 May 2025
Museum Opening Hours:
Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday: 10am – 5.30pm Wednesday: 11.30am – 5.30pm
Sunday: 12noon – 5.30pm
Bank Holiday Mondays: 12noon – 5.30pm

IMMA TALKS
Preview Curators’ Panel Discussion 
Thurs 5 Dec, 5.00 – 6.20pm, Johnston Suite, IMMA 
Dominic Johnson, Professor of Performance and Visual Culture at Queen Mary University of London, Gilane Tawadros, Director, Whitechapel Gallery in a moderated discussion with Seán Kissane, Curator, Exhibitions, IMMA.
Admission free, booking essential. Book here.

About Hamad Butt
Hamad Butt was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1962 and moved to live in east London with his family in 1964. He studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths from 1987 to 1990, and coincided with the Young British Artists (YBA) generation, many of whom studied alongside him there. His earliest works include countless paintings and prints, which were shown in exhibitions around London and the UK from 1983-87, including at Brixton Gallery, Walker Art Gallery, South London Gallery and London Lesbian and Gay Centre. From the late 1980s, Butt developed unprecedented large-scale sculptural installations using toxic or dangerous materials. His later works were exhibited at John Hansard Gallery (Southampton), Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain), Whitechapel Gallery, Milch, Institute of Contemporary Arts (all London), Manchester Art Gallery, and elsewhere. He continued to make works on paper throughout this time. Butt died of AIDS- related complications in London in 1994, aged 32. A book on his work, Familiars, was published posthumously in 1996. His work is in the permanent collections of Tate and IMMA.

A new exhibition, from the exceptional photography collection donated to IMMA by Dr David Kronn, opens at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Monday 28 October 2024. This display presents a selection of 130 works showcasing Dr Kronn’s longstanding commitment to building a diverse collection of photographic works for nearly 30 years.

Photography has held a lifelong fascination for Irish-born US-based collector Dr Kronn. A doctor specialising in medical genetics, his attraction to the scientific processes used in photography is not surprising. The donation contains examples of many photographic forms and media, from 19th century Daguerrotypes and albumen prints; the microphotography of Karl Blossfeldt from the 1920s; or pin-hole camera images by Adam Fuss from the 1980s.

Other themes that emerge throughout the collection include abstracted landscapes or seascapes; portraits of artists, such as August Sander’s image of Heinrich Hoerle at work in 1931; the portrait of Louise Bourgeois by Annie Leibovitz from 1997; and numerous iconic works, like Herb Ritts’s image of pop star Madonna from 1986. Irish artists showing as part of this exhibition include Alice Maher, Richard Mosse, and Ameila Stein and international photographers such as Harry Callahan who made work in Ireland in the 1970s.

Seán Kissane, Curator, IMMA said: “Currently there is no major collection of international photography collection housed in any Irish museum. Dr Kronn’s pledge to make IMMA the future home of his extensive collection, now over 1000 photographs, will position IMMA as a centre of research and a major force in the field”.

Photographers included are Slim Aarons; Berenice Abbott; Amy Arbus; Peter Arnell; Roger Ballen; Marion Belanger; Dominique Berretty; Karl Blossfeldt; Bill Brandt; Harry Callahan; Elinor Carucci; Vincent Cianni; Tillman Crane; Steve Crouch; Edward S. Curtis; William E. Davis; Michael Deines; Jack Delano; Josh Dennis; Mike Disfarmer; Doug Dubois; Dr Harold Edgerton; Alfred Ehrnhardt; Martine Franck; Gisèle Freund; Adam Fuss; Helen K. Garber; Mario Giacomelli; John Goldblatt; Mark Goodman; Pedro E. Guerrero; Philippe Halsman; Manuela Hofer; Chip Hooper; Rolfe Horn; Nicolai Howalt and Trine Søndergaard; Karel Otto Hruby; Robert Glenn Ketchum; Annie Leibovitz; Edwin Hale Lincoln; Eric Lindbloom; Alice Maher; Joel Meyerowitz; Bart Michiels; Richard Misrach; Inge Morath; Richard Mosse; Martin Munkacsi; Asako Narahashi; Simon Norfolk; Nigel Parry; Irving Penn; John Pfahl; Richard Quataert; Eugene Richards; Wynn Richards; Herb Ritts; Ron Rosenstock; Douglas Ryuije; August Sander; Paul Sepuya; Aaron Siskind; Rosalind Solomon; Frank Spadarella; Jerry Spagnoli; Jan Staller; Amelia Stein; Antanas Sutkus; Bob Thall; Terry Towery; Penelope Umbrico; Underwood; Todd Webb; Brett Weston; Ronald W. Wohlauer.

In close collaboration with the Collections Team at IMMA who are guiding the acquisition process, this is the fourth exhibition from the David Kronn Collection Donation, since 2011 IMMA has held three exhibitions from the Collection – Out of the Dark Room, Second Sight and Northern Light – showcasing over 300 works.

For media inquiries, please contact: 

Monica Cullinane E: [email protected] T: 086 2010023 
Patrice Molloy E: [email protected] T: 086 2009957 

Additional Information 

David Kronn Photography Collection Donation
28 October 2024 – 26 January 2025
Admission Free
Open: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday: 10am – 5.30pm.
Wednesday: 11.30am – 5.30pm. Sunday: 12noon – 5.30pm.
Webpage: David Kronn Collection – IMMA  

IMMA Talk
In-Gallery Conversation with Dr David Kronn and Seán Kissane
Friday 1 November at 1.15pm / Drop-in / No booking required 
Join an in-gallery conversation with Dr David Kronn and IMMA curator Seán Kissane who will explore the photographers and themes in the exhibition.  

About Dr David Kronn
Born and brought up in Dublin, Dr David Kronn had an early interest in photography, learning to use a darkroom at his school camera club. He remained an active photographer while he was studying medicine at Trinity College Dublin and when his medical training took him to New York, this interest in photography developed into a passion for collecting pictures. Dr Kronn has shaped a collection, of over 1000 photographs, rich in content, genre and themes that encourages many readings.  

Performed by Crash Ensemble, the Camille Norment Trio and vocalists from Oslo 14
Date: Thursday 24 October at 7.30pm

IMMA presents Camille Norment’s composition Sounds For New Seeds (2023) live for one-night only, Thursday 24 October, in the Great Hall at IMMA. Sounds For New Seeds is composed for an instrument and vocal ensemble that includes the rare glass harmonica, the Norwegian hardingfele, electric guitar and feedback amongst the brass and string instrumentation. The ensemble forms a ring around the audience, and for this event, the piece will be performed by Ireland’s leading new music ensemble, Crash Ensemble, members from Norment’s own core ensemble from Norway – the Camille Norment Trio – and vocalists from Oslo 14.

The performance marks the return of live events by IMMA in the Great Hall and will be the first in over six years. We are delighted to welcome audiences back into one of the most exciting spaces of the museum with Norment’s expansive work Sounds For New Seeds.

Visual artist, composer and performer Camille Norment is at home both in the world of exhibitions and music, exploring the spaces of sound and their relation to bodies, thoughts and actions. Norment’s multimedia installations explore socio-cultural and psychological phenomena through what she describes as cultural psychoacoustics, which is about how context, form, space and the viewer’s body interact in the formation of somatic and cognitive experiences.

In Norment’s work, the power of sound and music is a magic force that envelopes the listening body in its transformation of perceptions and possibilities. Sonic agency, and change through thought and action, can be as quiet as the quiver of a single butterfly on a string, or a whisper that becomes the roar of sonic feedback.

Sounds For New Seeds listens to locate and gestures to produce new seeds for the future, scattering them around and setting them to grow. The piece is not meant as sentimental but rather as impassioned, practical work through sound.

Performance details:
Date: Thursday 24 October
Time: 7.30pm – 8.30pm
Tickets & Booking: €20 full price / €18 conc. Book online here.
Refreshments included in ticket price.
Venue: Great Hall, IMMA.

A composition in six parts for instrumentation and choreography, Sounds For New Seeds was originally commissioned by Bergen International Festival 2023.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Monica Cullinane E: [email protected] T: 086 2010023 
Patrice Molloy E: [email protected] T: 086 2009957

Additional Information

Camille Norment: Sounds For New Seeds
Date: Thursday 24 October 2024
Time: 7.30-8.30pm
Ticket Prices: €20 full price / €18 concession. Refreshments included in ticket price.
Booking: Online booking at Camille Norment: Sounds For New Seeds – IMMA
Venue: Great Hall, North Wing, IMMA
Doors: Open from 7pm, performance starts at 7.30pm
Refreshments available after performance in the Johnston Suite

Camille Norment
Camille Norment’s work has recently been shown in solo exhibitions at the Bergen Kunsthall (2023); Dia Art Foundation in New York (2022–23); the David Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago (2019); the Oslo Kunstforening (2017); and Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin (2017). Since her solo presentation in the Nordic Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, she has participated in the Kochi-Muziris (2016), Montreal (2016), Lyon (2017), and Thailand (2018) biennials. She has produced several permanent artwork commissions for public spaces.

Camille Norment Trio
Camille Norment Trio features artist Camille Norment on the glass harmonica, electronics and voice with musicians Vegar Vårdal on Norwegian Hardanger fiddle and Håvard Skaset on electric guitar. This unique trio of voices investigates the visceral qualities of resonance, noise, and overtone, creating music that enacts and deconstructs cultural and historical positions relevant to each of the instruments. Each of the instruments have been simultaneously revered and feared or even outlawed at various points in their histories. The sonic worlds they create resonate through a tantalising union of the instruments’ voices and their often-paradoxical cultural histories. Their performance is an organic movement between the composed and the improvised, creating a dynamic soundscape that defies a fixed genre reference. Their mysterious sonic environments hover at the meeting points of folk, rock, classical, experimental music, and more. The Camille Norment Trio has been performing internationally since is founding in 2010.

Crash Ensemble
Crash Ensemble is Ireland’s leading new music ensemble; a group of world-class musicians who play the most adventurous, ground-breaking music of today. Amazingly ordinary people doing extraordinary things – Crash is innovative, adventurous and ambitious.

Led by cellist and Artistic Director, Kate Ellis and Principal Conductor, Ryan McAdams, the ensemble commissions, collaborates, explores, investigates and experiments with a broad spectrum of music creators and artistic collaborators: ‘We love to innovate, with quality always at the heart of everything we do. We are passionate about the music we play. We create experiences; exploring new ways of presenting music and bringing our audiences on new adventures. Community for us is key – our community inspires us to create and experiment more. We value our audiences and our connection with them.’

Crash perform both in Ireland and internationally. The ensemble’s music is available on their own label, Crash Records and they have recordings on Nonesuch, Cantaloupe, NMC, Ergodos and Bedroom Community labels. Many well-known artists from diverse musical backgrounds have performed with the ensemble; Terry Reily, Gavin Friday, Dawn Upshaw, Diamanda La Berge Dramm, Laurie Anderson, Lisa Hannigan, Íarla Ó Lionáird (The Gloaming), Bryce Dessner (The National), Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire), Sam Amidon and Beth Orton.

As well as performing throughout Ireland, Crash regularly perform internationally, with appearances in the last few years at the Edinburgh International Festival, The Royal Opera House (London), The Barbican (London), Carnegie Hall (NYC) The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington DC), Virginia Tech (Virginia), GAIDA Festival (Lithuania) and residencies at The Huddersfield Contemporary Music festival (UK) and Princeton University (NJ).

Crash Ensemble is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland and Dublin City Council, is a resident ensemble at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland and at Kilkenny Arts Festival, Ireland.

Oslo 14
The vocal ensemble Oslo 14 was founded in 2014 by Elin Rosseland and fourteen singers. Today, the ensemble consists of a pool of up to 20 improvising vocalists: Gro-Marthe Dickson, Åshild Bergill Hagen, Live Foyn Friis, Petter Hauglum, Guro Eliassen Kverndokk, Hedda Hammer Myhre, Marika Schultze, Karoline Ruderaas Jerve, Sean Bell, and Bendik Sells (artistic director).

Oslo 14’s mission is to explore movement, experimentation, and improvisation. By incorporating both collective and solo improvisation elements into composed works, the ensemble aims to expand the boundaries of vocal music in choral and ensemble formats. Additionally, Oslo 14 frequently works with free improvisation, presenting several concerts each year with entirely improvised material.

Oslo 14 made its debut at nyMusikk’s Only Connect Festival in 2015, performing the commissioned work “Mass for the Witch Woman” by Susanna. Since then, the ensemble has collaborated with a wide range of Norwegian contemporary composers in developing and performing new music, including Lisa Dillan, Sofia Jernberg, Wenche Losnegård, Jessica Slighter, Ole-Henrik Giørtz, Guro Skumsnes Moe, Andreas Backer, Tone Åse, Tine Surel Lange, Eric S. Egan, and Agnes Ida Pettersen. Oslo 14 has also contributed to performances and recordings for Camille Norment’s installation at the 2015 Venice Biennale, and worked with Jøkleba for a tribute concert of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme at the Oslo Jazz Festival the same year.

Since autumn 2021, Oslo 14 has performed at several prestigious events, including the official opening of the MUNCH museum in Oslo, the Bergen International Festival, the Tonehimmel concert series in Volda, and multiple tours across Eastern Norway. The ensemble has also premiered new works by Camille Norment, Elin Rosseland, Guro Skumsnes Moe, and Bendik Sells.

 

The Minister for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht, Catherine Martin T.D., yesterday (Thursday 5 September), launched EARTH RISING, a dynamic three-day festival dedicated to addressing the climate crisis through art, creativity, and community. From Friday 20 to Sunday 22 September 2024, in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin, EARTH RISING will transform IMMA’s grounds into a vibrant hub of free events designed to inspire collective action towards a sustainable future. The festival offers a rich programme of talks, exhibitions, workshops, outdoor screenings, food, artists salon, music and an Eco Fair, all free to the public.  

Speaking at the launch, Minister Catherine Martin, said “EARTH RISING is an important national event that aligns with Ireland’s commitment to addressing the climate crisis through culture and community engagement. The climate crisis requires a unified response, and EARTH RISING serves as a platform where community can come together to share ideas, collaborate, and take collective action. It is through community engagement that sustainable change can be achieved and it is this collective spirit that strengthens community bonds and amplifies the impact of individual actions”.  

Annie Fletcher, Director of IMMA said “The original vision for EARTH RISING was simple: to create a space where art meets activism, where the public can engage with artists and thinkers to explore how we might build a more sustainable and thriving future. Today, it has become a vibrant creative assembly for everyone who cares deeply about the future of our planet. This festival not only highlights the urgency of the climate crisis but also demonstrates how creativity can inspire action and foster a shared sense of responsibility.” 

The festival programme offers a diverse array of events, including over 100 artists and collaborators who will showcase their work via performances, installations, screenings, workshops, tours, and a talks programme supported by Research Ireland. Programme highlights include an installation and talk by Sakiya, a progressive academy for experimental knowledge production and sharing around local farming in Ramallah, Palestine; a climate comedy workshop with Anne Gill and Diane O’Connor; speed dating to find your ‘Soil Mate’ to connect garden owners with gardenless growers; Project Dandelion workshops hosted by the Mary Robinson Centre; a climate-based mixed reality experience by Andrew McSweeney; a spoken word poetry event focusing on nature, ecology and climate taking place on Culture Night, to name a few!  

Special collaborations include a Slow Tour Concert brought to IMMA by the Goethe Institut Ireland featuring musician LIE NING who is travelling across Europe by train and ferry, as part of a resource-efficient concert tour. Also, a discussion exploring the living national artwork The Forest That Won’t Forget which evolved from a collaboration between artist’s John Conway and Fiona Whelan and 221+ (organisation supporting individuals directly affected by failures in the CervicalCheck Screening programme) and Hometree.  

Creative Ireland is supporting several projects including Demolition Takedown, a large-scale installation situated in IMMA’s Courtyard that creatively displays the scale of waste. The installation aims to encourage action on reducing construction and demolition waste in Ireland. Creative Ireland also supports the Purpose Disruptors: The Good Life 2030, an initiative that invites the advertising industry and the public to envision a future where sustainability and well-being take centre stage, and Tern the Tide an initiative by artists Marie Gordon and Laura McMahon to raise awareness of the NSPW Little Tern conservation work along the Dublin-Rosslare Railway Line.  

The festival programme is available on the EARTH RISING FESTIVAL APP, which can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play.   

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS  

EARTH RISING EXHIBITON: Take a Breath is a major exhibition that provides an historical, social, political, and personal examination of breathing – why we breathe, how we breathe and what we breathe – exploring themes of decolonisation, environmental racism, indigenous language, the impact of war on the environment and breath as meditation. Guided tours of Take a Breath will take place during the festival.  

EARTH RISING Artists – Over 100 artists and collaborators will showcase their work across the weekend. Highlights include outdoor art installations including a willow installation Live and Let Rot by Ellen Harrold, and Glassophere a glass sculpture addressing the global water crisis by Claire Halpin and Madeleine Hellier. A dance performance Body’s in Trouble; moth releasing events with nocturnal field recordings made onsite from Sarah Rose; and Fuinneamh Community Drum will host workshops for all ages on their 14 foot drum in the meadow. Upcycling and recycling workshops along with nature themed memory and board games for kids, foraging, hedgerow planting, a Compost Carnival and much more!  

This year EARTH RISING presents an Artists Salon that brings climate action artists and scientists together to learn about their ideas, how they make their work and the different approaches they take to address the issues of our time.  

EARTH RISING TALKS – IMMA Talks programme for EARTH RISING brings together leading thinkers and makers and offers a platform for thought, provocation and exchange, on how to rebuild systems of regeneration, sustainability and care, in a climate changed world. From Land Rights, Health, and Food to Migration, and restoring ancient relationships with forests and woodlands, this gathering brings together a diverse set of practices working nationally and globally, to foster solidarity and shared responsibility in protecting and repairing a climate-changed world.  

Speakers include Roland Verquez (Professor of Post/Decolonial Theories and Literatures, the University of Amsterdam); Françoise Vergès (Antiracist Feminist Activist, Co-founder of the Collective Decolonize the Arts); Sharae Deckard (Associate Professor, World Literature, UCD); Nadine El-Enany (Writer, Teacher, Poet, Professor of Law, University of Kent, UK); Ursula Biemann (Swiss Artist, Theorist, Forest Mind); Pippa Marland (author of Ecocriticism and the Island: Readings from the British-Irish Archipelago, UK); Sahar Qawasmi (Sakiya Residency – Palestine); Evie Kenny (host of RTE’s Ecolution podcast); Islander architects (Laura Carroll & Ciarán Molumby); Susannah Hagan (Author of Revolution? Architecture and the Anthropocene, 2022, and Professor University of Westminster, London) and many others. 

EARTH RISING FOOD PROGRAMME – Jennie Moran will host a convivial exchange of ideas, skills and knowledge around food where we will rethink our food practices over food demonstrations, talks and presentations. The weekend kicks off with a Taste of the African Diaspora, an evening of conversation and culinary delights to celebrate Culture Night. Weekend highlights include keynote speaker Colin Sage on Food citizenship; a soil workshop for families with Dr Aga Soil Scientist; a talk by artist and bee-keeper Anthony Freeman O’Brien; a panel discussion on Food and Empathy; Food and Storytelling with Ahmad Salah from Bethlehem Palestinian Restaurant; a discussion with Farming for Nature; and an event and workshops by the Louth Urban Food Sanctuary.

EARTH RISING ECO FAIR – Explore the Eco Fair where sustainability meets creativity! The Eco Fair showcases a diverse array of eco-conscious vendors committed to a greener future. Discover unique, sustainable products – from organic skincare and ethical fashion to upcycled home goods – that prioritise circularity and regeneration, all while connecting with like-minded individuals passionate about protecting our planet. The Eco Fair is more than just a marketplace; it’s a celebration of innovation and a call to action for a better tomorrow.  

All events and experiences at EARTH RISING are free of charge, ensuring the festival is accessible to all. However, booking in advance may be required for specific workshops and events. For updates and further details, visit www.imma.ie.  

ENDS  

For media inquiries, interviews, or additional information, please contact:
Patrice Molloy E: [email protected] T: 086 2009957
Monica Cullinane E: [email protected] T: 086 2010023 

 

Additional Notes for Editors  

EARTH RISING Festival Details

Admission: Free     

Dates: Friday 20 – Sunday 22 September 2024    

Festival Times:
Friday 20 September: 5pm – 9pm
Saturday 21 September: 10am – 7pm
Sunday 22 September: 10am – 7pm

Festival App: The festival programme is available on the EARTH RISING FESTIVAL APP  

Download from App Store (Apple iOS): Earth Rising on the App Store (apple.com) 

Goggle Play (Android): Earth Rising – Apps on Google Play

Webpage: EARTH RISING IMMA webpage 

Festival Partners: Collaborations and partnerships remain at the heart of Earth Rising 2024. IMMA is proud to work with partners including Creative Ireland, The Mary Robinson Centre, Taighde Éireann | Research Ireland, Dublin Volunteer Centre, Scouting Ireland, EcoUNESCO, Spunout.ie, IPUT Real Estate Dublin, Native Events, DCU Centre for Climate, Goethe Institute, and Technical University Dublin. 

  

 

 

IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) presents When the body says Yes, an immersive installation by Dutch artist melanie bonajo opening on Friday 26 July 2024. melanie bonajo (they/them), is a queer non-binary Dutch artist, filmmaker, sexological bodyworker, and somatic sex coach and educator. The video installation, originally commissioned by the Mondriaan Fund for the Biennale Arte 2022, is part of the artist’s ongoing research into the current status of intimacy in our increasingly alienating, commodity-driven world. For bonajo, touch can be a powerful remedy for the modern epidemic of loneliness.

Through their videos, performances, photographs and installations, bonajo examines current conundrums of co-existence in crippling capitalistic systems, and address themes of eroding intimacy and isolation in an increasingly sterile, technological world.

They research how technological advances and commodity-based pleasures increase feelings of alienation, removing a sense of belonging in an individual, and their works present anti-capitalist methods to reconnect, explore sexualities, intimacies and feelings. Their experimental documentaries often explore communities living or working on the margins of society, either through illegal means or cultural exclusion, and the paradoxes inherent to ideas of comfort with a strong sense for community, equality, and body-politics.

bonajo represented with When the body says Yes The Netherlands at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022 and worked with a curatorial team consisting of Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg, Geir Haraldseth and Soraya Pol. The scenography for the installation, both at the Venice Biennale and in subsequent iterations, including at IMMA, has been developed in collaboration with Théo Demans.

melanie bonajo was nominated for the Nam June Paik Award (2018) and the Prix de Rome (2017) and won the IFFR Tiger Award (2016).

IMMA Talks presents a conversation with melanie bonajo and collaborator Pawel CHILL Dudus on Thursday 25 July at 5.30pm. Two artist led workshops with bonajo/Skinship Collective take place on Saturday 27 July exploring Consentship (10am) and Collective Body Spells (2pm). See full details and booking links below.

When the body says Yes was shown at FOMU, Antwerp, Belgium (2023) and KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia (2024) and Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. melanie bonajo is represented by AKINCI, Amsterdam.

When the body say Yes, has been made possible with the generous support of the Mondriaan Fund.

8 July 2024

 

– ENDS –

 

For further information and images please contact: 

Monica Cullinane E: [email protected] T: 086 2010023

Patrice Molloy E: [email protected] T: 086 2009957

Additional notes for Editors

melanie bonajo When the body says Yes
26 July – 20 October 2024

Admission Free

Open: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday: 10am – 5.30pm.
Wednesday: 11.30am – 5.30pm. Sunday: 12noon – 5.30pm.
Webpage: melanie bonajo When the body says Yes

IMMA Talks Programme

Preview Talk: Artist’s Conversation
melanie bonajo, When the body says Yes
Thursday 25 July, 5.30 – 6.15pm, Baroque Chapel, IMMA
Free, Booking essential, click here to book
Join Dutch artist melanie bonajo for an artist’s conversation on When the body says Yes. This talk is part of the exhibition’s opening programme, including exhibition preview, reception, and artist lead workshops with collaborator Pawel CHILL Dudus.

Other Events

BODY BUBBLE WORKSHOPS: Saturday 27 July
Hosted by by melanie bonajo and Pawel Chill Dudus (Skinship_touch_based_place_for_Kinship)
Saturday 27 July, 10 – 1pm, Matheson Creativity Hub, IMMA
Workshop – CONSENTSHIP
Join melanie bonajo and Pawel CHILL Dudus of Skinship collective for a workshop about consent and boundaries. This is a queer-friendly workshop, the theme of consent will be explored through touching exercises. Participants are asked to bring a blanket or yoga mat.
This workshop is for anyone working and teaching in the area of consent.
Free, Booking essential, click here to book

Saturday 27 July, 2 – 5pm, Matheson Creativity Hub, IMMA
WORKSHOP – Collective Body Spells
Hosted by melanie bonajo and Pawel Chill Dudus (Skinship)
What does it mean to summon a queer collective body to create a spell? How do we recognise the voice of our collective body and our voice inside of it? And to which collective future do our bodies say YES?
Collective Body Spells is a workshop about honouring individual needs while weaving them into the fabric of togetherness, creating a harmonious dance of interconnectedness.
Free, Booking essential, click here to book

 

About the artist

melanie bonajo (they/them) is an artist, filmmaker, sexological bodyworker, somatic sex coach and educator, cuddle workshop facilitator and activist. Through their videos, performances, photographs, and installations, they examine current conundrums of co-existence in a crippling capitalist system, and address themes of eroding intimacy and isolation in an increasingly sterile, technological world. They research how technological advances and commodity-based pleasures increase feelings of alienation, removing an individual’s sense of belonging. Their works present anti-capitalist methods to reconnect and to explore sexualities, intimacies and feelings. bonajo’s experimental documentaries often feature communities living or working on the margins of society, either through illegal means or cultural exclusion, and the paradoxes inherent to ideas of comfort with a strong sense for community, equality and body-politics.

bonajo studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and completed residencies at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunst in Amsterdam (2009 2009-10) and at ISCP in New York (2014). Solo exhibitions have been: KUMU Tallinn, EE (2023), FOMU Antwerp, BE (2023); Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, NL (2018); Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, DE (2017); FOAM, Amsterdam, NL (2016). Solo shows include When the body says Yes: IMMA Dublin, IE (2024); Kunstpalais Erlangen, DE (2024).

Pawel CHILL Dudus (they/ them) is a Polish artist living in Vienna. He studied contemporary dance and has danced in performances by Georg Blaschke, Akemi Takeya, Alessandro Sciarroni and others.

Pawel CHILL Dudus was born in Poland, studied contemporary dance at the Anton Bruckner University in Linz. Since 2015 he has been dedicated to #ONLYLOVEISREAL – a friendship-based collaboration with Laura Eva Meuris, a long-term research project dedicated to the themes of love, intimacy and (self-)care. Pawel feels the need to respond to violence, hatred and fearmongering as well as to the prevalence of normative concepts.

They investigate how intimacy and shared vulnerability can help us to improve the way we interact with each other and to build alternative networks and relationships with each other. Pawel has given workshops at the Berlin festivals STRETCH and xplore, among others. Until recently, they performed in Alexander Gottfarb’s 365-day performance Negotiations at the Tanzquartier Wien.

Skinship is a touched based place for kinship @skinship_berlin. Skinship is a Berlin-based collective teaching workshops on touch, intimacy, consent, pleasure and activism, centering queer/trans/nonbinary/femme people. Celebrating life and diversity in connection to the body is core to our values, and an act of resistance. melanie bonajo, Ayo Gry Jonassen, and Pawel CHILL Dudus founded Skinship in May 2020.

 

 

 

– Take a Breath, a major new exhibition that examines why, how and what we breathe.

– Living Canvas at IMMA, Europe’s largest digital art screen on the grounds of IMMA.  

IMMA is excited to present Summer at IMMA, a vibrant summer programme of free events that includes exhibitions, performances, screenings, talks, workshops, tours and more, taking place in the beautiful surroundings of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham from June to August.

The 2024 summer programme includes the opening of two new exhibitions, Take a Breath, provides an historical, social, political, and personal examination of breathing; and When the body says Yes an immersive video installation by Dutch artist melanie bonajo presented in IMMA’s stunning 17th-century Baroque Chapel.

IMMA is thrilled to present Living Canvas at IMMA in partnership with IPUT Real Estate, Dublin’s leading property investment company and supporter of the arts. The Living Canvas large-scale outdoor art screen is located on IMMA’s front lawn, allowing visitors and the wider community to enjoy a vibrant programme of artworks by Irish and international artists throughout the summer.

The summer programme culminates with EARTH RISING, a festival of free events and experiences aimed at addressing the climate crisis taking place from the 20 – 22 September.

Programme Highlights

Take a Breath is a major new exhibition opening on Friday 14 June that provides an historical, social, political, and personal examination of breathing – why we breathe, how we breathe and what we breathe – exploring themes of decolonisation, environmental racism, indigenous language, the impact of war on the environment and breath as meditation. Featuring the work of Marina Abramović, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Ammar Bouras, Alex Cecchetti, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, Ana Mendieta, Hajra Waheed, JMW Turner, among many others, the exhibition will also explore breath through movement and sound with performances by Okwui Okpokwasili in collaboration with Peter Born, Maria Hassabi, Isabel Nolan with Belinda Quirke, and Camille Norment Trio with Crash Ensemble.

Taking as its starting point the nature of breath and its vital role in our very existence, the exhibition reflects on the social, political, environmental, and spiritual aspect of breathing. Tracking this vital act from the impact of post-industrial air pollution to modern-day wars and the effect on environment, health and how we live; to the suppression of protests of voices from different communities, where breath is a symbol of community and resistance; and the use of breath as personal meditation.

Opening on 26 July, When the body says Yes, is an immersive video installation by melanie bonajo (they/them), a queer non-binary Dutch artist, filmmaker, sexological bodyworker and somatic sex coach and educator. The installation is part of the artist’s ongoing research into the current status of intimacy in our increasingly alienating, commodity-driven world. For bonajo, touch can be a powerful remedy for the modern epidemic of loneliness.

Throughout the summer Living Canvas at IMMA will feature film and moving image works by artists including Clare Langan, Helen Cammock, Bruce Conner and Derek Jarman. The summer programme will also include one-off film screenings on selected Thursday evenings from 6 to 8pm. The Living Canvas at IMMA programme opens with the screening of renowned American artist Bruce Conner’s iconic work CROSSROADS. This mesmerising and haunting 1976 short film will be shown as part of the opening of Take a Breath, from 13 June. This will be followed by the premiere of Irish artist Clare Langan’s epic new work Alchemy, 2023, launching on 27 June and screening from 2 July.

Summer at IMMA celebrates Pride Month with a special programme of events that includes the workshop Voguing at IMMA with Haus of Schiaparelli who offer a space for queer folks to find social support, to kiki and to grow, both within and beyond Ballroom; a book launch of Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage and conversation with the photographer Gilbert McCarragher; the screening of The Angelic Conversation, 1985 by Derek Jarman and Brunch with SHREM a relaxing afternoon of Pride tunes in the Camerino Bakery café. There will also be a special IMMA MEMBERS evening with Seanchoíche, a storytelling night exploring love and empathy to celebrate Pride.

Live Performances by contemporary visual artists in the galleries and grounds of IMMA include artists Alex Cecchetti, Mark Cullen, Lisa Freeman, Irina Gheorghe, Maria Hassabi, Okwui Okpokwasili with Peter Born, and Frank Wasser. IMMA Talks invites renowned critical thinkers, writers, artists, and international curators to share their contemporary views. From keynote speakers, artists’ discussions and gallery talks to offer deeper reflection on themes of breath, care, gender, representation, and resistance.

IMMA is delighted to offer our spaces for a variety of community events, gatherings, and workshops as part of Summer at IMMA. Collaborations with community groups provide diverse opportunities for engagement through guided tours, dedicated workshops, or simply offering a space for communal gatherings. Summer events include Turban Yourself a workshop led by the Bahian artist Thaís Muniz, founder of the Turbante-se platform, who has been researching the rich history and practical techniques of turbans and headwraps in Afro-Atlantic cultures since 2012.

Summer at IMMA’s much-loved programmes, delivered by IMMA’s Visitor Engagement Team, will continue this year. These include Slow Art Tours, Art & Mindfulness workshops, yoga classes, heritage tours, biodiversity tours, family workshops and Parent and Baby Hour.  

IMMA’s popular Music in the Courtyard series continues on Sunday afternoons and will feature a monthly family Céilí with live trad music and a Céilí caller who will put you through your paces.

To round off a very special summer season IMMA will present EARTH RISING, a festival of free events and experiences aimed at addressing the climate crisis and inspiring collective action towards a sustainable and hopeful future. Now in its third year, EARTH RISING will take place from 20 to 22 September and promises an unforgettable experience that seeks to provoke, inspire, and empower audiences to become agents of change.

The award-winning Camerino Bakery café which includes an outdoor van and a beautiful indoor café is open all summer for delicious lunch and treats.

– ENDS –

For further information and images please contact:   
Monica Cullinane E: [email protected] T: 086 2010023  
Patrice Molloy E: [email protected] T: 086 2009957 

Additional notes for Editors 

Summer at IMMA 
June / July / August
Webpage with full details and calendar: SUMMER AT IMMA – IMMA

Take a Breath – Opening Events 
Opening Reception: Thursday 13 June 2024 / 6 – 8pm

Artists’ Conversation with Alex Cecchetti, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, Isabel Nolan, and others, at 5.30pm. Booked out.
Live performance of Alex Cecchetti’s Torneremo Onde, Torneremo Foreste (We will return as waves, we will return as forests), set within the immersive installation Medusa Mothers (2022), takes place in the galleries from 6 to 8pm.
Film screening of Bruce Conner’s film CROSSROADS, 1976.

Take a Breath Talks Series  

Discussion and Screening on Ana Mendiata 
Saturday 15 June / 2 – 4pm / Lecture Room 
Join us for a discussion and film screenings on the radically experimental work of Ana Mendieta (American, born, Cuba. 1948–1985) with special guest Raquel Cecilia Mendieta, who will screen two short documentaries, Ana Mendieta, Nature Inside and Whispering Cave. This event offers reflection on the continued significance of Ana Mendieta’s work and why the artist was a true pioneer of Performance Art. Book here.

Curators Talks Series: Take a Breath 
Sunday 7 July, 2 – 3pm / No booking required / Meeting point Reception 
Join Mary Cremin, Head of Programming, IMMA, for an in-gallery discussion of Take a Breath that explores a selection of works in the exhibition.
 
IMMA MEMBERS  
IMMA MEMBERS offer access to a calendar of seasonal events, retail discounts at the IMMA Shop, and bespoke merchandise, and on 20 June will host its second event of 2024 in collaboration with global storytelling phenomenon, Seanchoíche. Celebrating Pride 2024, some familiar faces from across the arts, comedy, and activism will tell their stories in IMMA’s People’s Pavilion, exclusive to IMMA MEMBERS. Tickets will be made available on 4 June and 7 June, to IMMA MEMBERS exclusively. To access the booking link, make sure you are subscribed to the IMMA MEMBERS newsletter by 7 June. To become an IMMA MEMBER click here.

IMMA presents Hilary Heron: A Retrospective, an exhibition of some 60 works celebrating the pioneering work of modernist sculptor Hilary Heron (1923 – 1977) opening on Friday 24 May 2024. As the first major retrospective exhibition of Heron’s work since 1964, this exhibition seeks to correct the ways that her work has been overlooked in Irish and international histories of modern sculpture.

Hilary Heron was a Dublin born sculptor who co-represented Ireland at the 1956 Venice Biennale alongside painter Louis le Brocquy (1916 – 2012). The exhibition brings together work from national and international collections, including carvings, welding and castings. Heron was a master welder, a practice highly unusual for an Irish artist, let alone a woman in the 1950s. Her work tactfully and skilfully broaches themes of gender, relationships, deep histories and religion through impressive, varied mediums including stone, lead, steel and wood.

Commenting on the exhibition, Seán Kissane, Curator, Exhibitions, IMMA, said: “This exhibition aims to bring Heron’s work back into public focus, and to publish a monograph with images and commentary on her work making it available to future audiences. Although Heron carved out a successful career for herself during her lifetime, problems of historiography and how the art market values the work of women less than that of men, meant that her work fell into obscurity after her death.”

Highlights from the exhibition include those works shown at the Venice Biennale each loosely on the theme of birds and the human body. Of these, Virgo (1950) is the most life-like rendition of the body, unlike each of the other sculptures which propose highly exaggerated features, like the Idol (1951) whose neck has been stretched and whose hair forms two shoulder-like appendages; or the Stiff Necked Woman (undated) whose body has been exaggerated almost to the point of abstraction.

Presented alongside Heron’s work is a display of works titled Redux: Contemporary Irish sculptors at Venice. This display features the work of Siobhán Hapaska, Eva Rothschild, and Niamh O’Malley, all female sculptors who represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 2001, 2019, and 2022 respectively. Redux, meaning revival, signals Heron’s enduring influence on contemporary Irish sculpture and her legacy in proximity to contemporary sculptural practice, making her influence visible for the first time.

A symposium on the work of Hilary Heron, presented in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin The Long Room Hub and FE Mc William Gallery, takes place on Thursday 23 May at TCD. This one-day gathering brings together a milieu of voices to reflect and speculate on Heron’s overlooked legacy. Speakers include Penelope Curtis, Fionna Barber, Riann Coulter, Billy Shortall, Mary Kelly, Barbara Knezevic, Niamh O’Malley, and others.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, published by IMMA, with texts by Riann Coulter, Seán Kissane, Sara Damaris Muthi, Billy Shortall, and Eva Rothschild.

Hilary Heron: A Retrospective is supported by the Henry Moore Foundation and the Doyle Collection.

15 April 2024

– ENDS –

For further information and images please contact:  Monica Cullinane E: [email protected] T: 086 2010023 Patrice Molloy E: [email protected] T: 086 2009957

Additional notes for Editors

Hilary Heron: A Retrospective 24 May – 28 October 2024 Admission Free

Open: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday: 10am – 5.30pm.

Wednesday: 11.30am – 5.30pm. Sunday: 12noon – 5.30pm.

Webpage: Hilary Heron: A Retrospective

Publication

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, published by IMMA, with texts by Riann Coulter, Seán Kissane, Sara Damaris Muthi, Billy Shortall, and Eva Rothschild. Price €20.00.

Exhibition Tour

This exhibition is curated by Seán Kissane, Curator, IMMA, in collaboration with Riann Coulter, Curator, FE Mc William Gallery & Studio. The exhibition will tour to the FE Mc William Gallery & Studio, Banbridge from 15 November 2024 to 15 February 2025.

Redux: Contemporary Irish sculptors at Venice is curated by Sara Damaris Muthi, Curatorial Fellow, Exhibitions, IMMA.

IMMA Talks – Hilary Heron Series

Symposium

Hilary Heron, Ireland’s Most Promising Sculptor

Thursday 23 May 2024, 10.30am – 4.30pm Offsite Trinity College Dublin – Long Room Hub

Ticketed – ticket link

Why was an extraordinary woman sculptor left in the shadows of Modern Art history? On Thurs 23 May 2024 from 10:30 – 16:30; IMMA & TCD Long Room Hub presents a symposium to coincide with the forthcoming IMMA exhibition, Hilary Heron: A Retrospective that celebrates the revolutionary work of modernist sculptor Hilary Heron (1923 – 1977). This one-day gathering brings together a milieu of voices to reflect and speculate on Heron’s overlooked legacy, in anticipation of the exhibition of Heron’s work in Ireland at IMMA.

Invited speakers include: Keynote – Penelope Curtis (author, historian, former director of Henry Moore Institute, Tate Britain, and Gulbenkian Museum, UK); Fionna Barber (Reader in Art History, Manchester School of Art, UK); Riann Coulter (art historian, curator, FE Mc William Gallery); Billy Shortall (art historian, leading Hilary Heron scholar, TCD); Mary Kelly (Programme Director, MA in Global Gallery Studies, UCC); Seán Kissane (curator, Exhibitions, IMMA); Barbara Knezevic (artist, lecturer); Sara Damaris Muthi (curatorial fellow, IMMA); Niamh O’Malley (artist) and others.

This symposium follows in the IMMA Modern Masters Series that offers a critical reappraisal of the work and ideas of lesser-known artists. The symposium is followed by the exhibition launch and preview of Hilary Heron: A Retrospective at IMMA. Refreshments are available to all event attendees on the day. See full details here https://imma.ie/whats-on/modern-masters-symposium-hilary-heron-irelands-most-promising-sculptor/

Curators Talk Series – Free & Drop In

Hilary Heron: A Retrospective with Seán Kissane

Sun 30 June 2024, 2 – 3pm, Meeting Point, IMMA Garden Galleries

Seán Kissane (Curator, Exhibitions, IMMA) gives and in-gallery introduction on a selection of works that comprise the exhibition, Hilary Heron: A Retrospective.

Admission free.

Redux: Contemporary Irish sculptors at Venice with Sara Damaris Muthi Sun 18 August 2024, 2 – 3pm, Meeting Point, IMMA Garden Galleries

Sara Damaris Muthi (Curatorial Fellow, IMMA) gives an in-gallery introduction to Redux: Contemporary Irish sculptors at Venice.

Admission free.

About the artist

Hilary Heron was born in Dublin in 1923, the same period which saw the establishment of the Irish Free State. Heron studied sculpture at the National College of Art, where she won the prestigious Taylor Art Scholarship Prize three years running in 1944, 1945 and 1946. With her Mainie Jellett travel scholarship, Heron bought a motorbike and travelled throughout Europe and to Paris, where her contact was Samuel Beckett. She was represented by Ireland’s most important commercial gallery, the Waddington Galleries, who presented her first solo exhibition in 1950. Heron’s international visibility as Ireland’s foremost modern sculptor was reinforced when she was selected to represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1956 alongside Louis le Brocquy. Heron’s key influences include the environment and art circles of Post War Paris, Existentialism, Alberto Giacometti, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Elizabeth Frink, and Leslie Waddington, amongst others.

IMMA presents We realised the power of it, an exhibition-project by Sara Greavu and Ciara Phillips, that deals with the history of the radical film collective, Derry Film and Video Workshop (DFVW), opening on Saturday 30 March 2024.

DFVW was a woman-led film production company established in Derry in 1983 that operated until 1990. Its members, most of whom had no prior experience of filmmaking, came together with a sense of urgency to make films addressing overlapping political tensions around gender, class, the Irish national question and legacies of colonialism.
  
We realised the power of it includes raw footage, photographs, and archival documents that trace a partial history of the workshop and its practice. Working through the archive and with former collective members Anne Crilly and Margo Harkin, the research begins to uncover the organic, reactive, and experimental methodologies of the collective. It considers the highly-charged context in which they were working, as well as the overarching political principles and energy that bound them together.

A DFVW document from 1988 states its purpose “Derry Film & Video Collective was legally formed as a Company in June 1984 as a logical extension of an idea which was being developed by a small group of people in the North West of Ireland. We observed that the North of Ireland had become one of the most media-biased areas of the world over the preceding fifteen years and that, for the most part, this media coverage was sensationalist, superficial, interventionist and censored. Derry Film & Video was formed, therefore, to make an indigenous contribution to media representation of our lives”.  

DFVW produced a number of films, including Stop Strip Searching (1984); Planning (1986); Mother Ireland (1988); Hush-a-Bye Baby (1990), as well as enacting various forms of cultural education including community screenings and filmmaking courses. Working to counteract the ‘slow violence’ of British TV news and cinema stereotyped depictions of the north of Ireland, members of DFVW sought to tell a different story about their lived political and social realities. The intersections and fractures between feminism and republicanism were the key area of interest that shaped their output. In doing this work of representation and crafting both documentary and fiction films, they learned methods of researching, filming, logging, collating, scripting, and editing through doing, driven by a sense of the pressing political need to speak on their own behalf.

We realised the power of it was originally commissioned for the Guest Programme of the 39th EVA International, curated by Merve Elveren.

– ENDS –

For further information and images please contact:   
Monica Cullinane E: [email protected]  T: 086 2010023 
Patrice Molloy E: [email protected]  T: 086 2009957 

Additional notes for Editors

We realised the power of it – Derry Film and Video Workshop 
30 March – 22 September 2024  
Admission Free

Open: 
Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday: 10am – 5.30pm.
Wednesday: 11.30am – 5.30pm.
Sunday: 12noon – 5.30pm.
Webpage: We realised the power of it – Derry Film & Video Workshop – IMMA 
 
About the project  
We realised the power of it is part of a long-term, ongoing research process that has involved working with former members of the collective, their supporters, peers, and fellow activists; helping to preserve, digitise, and archive the videotapes that only existed in their original U-matic format; and working with an extensive document and image archive that was preserved by former collective member, Margo Harkin. Other members of the collective, at different points in time, included Anne Crilly, Trisha Ziff, Geraldine McGuiness, Jim Curran, Stephanie English, Tommy Collins, Therese Friel, Brendan McMenamin, and Jamie Dunbar.

Receiving the bulk of their funding from Channel 4, the workshop was one of the companies formed under the terms of the 1982 Workshop Declaration (1), an initiative that sought to democratise the process of filmmaking and broadcasting, and amplify the voices of those who were marginalised on the basis of race, gender, geography, sexuality and class. As a newly established ‘publisher broadcaster,’ Channel 4 provided both significant financial support for production and the platform to distribute their works.

The work of DFVW amounts to more than its filmic outputs. Revisiting and reframing the project provides an opportunity to think beyond notions of the filmmaker-auteur and to think through practical and administrative aspects of this work as well. Within a broader frame, it is possible to consider context, infrastructure, physical space and those allies who were willing to hold political space for the work to be made. It admits, for instance, the stories of surveillance and raids, speaking as much to the increased administrative burden that this state oppression engenders as to its injustice. It points to the experience of being both incorporated and disavowed through financial and distributive dependence on a British broadcaster—albeit the most progressive of these, at that time. It touches on their story of collective organising, of the horizontal and equal distribution of resources among collective members; of the way that organising in collective structures and sharing resources equally amounts to a kind of speculation about what the future could be, prefiguring and proposing a different way of working.

(1) An initiative of The Independent Filmmakers’ Association, the British Film Institute, and ACTT (the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians).

Sara Greavu (she/her) lives and works between Derry and Dublin. A researcher, writer and organiser, she is the Curator of Visual Arts at Project Arts Centre, Dublin. In 2024, with Project Arts Centre, she is curator of Ireland’s Pavilion at the 60th International Venice Biennale, presenting Eimear Walshe’s work, ROMANTIC IRELAND.  

Ciara Phillips is an Irish and Canadian artist born in Ottawa, Canada in 1976. Her work has been exhibited in public institutions, artist-run spaces and private galleries worldwide including: Ciara Phillips at Trykkeriet in Bergen in 2019; The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; The Model, Sligo; Kunsthall Stavanger; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; Benaki Museum, Athens; TATE Britain, London; and Hamburg Kunstverein. She is the initiator of many collaborative projects including: Workshop (2010 – ongoing); Poster Club (2010 – 2017); Press Room (2019); and Åpent Trykkeri (2018 – 2019). In 2014, Phillips was nominated for the Turner Prize, and in 2020 she was awarded the Queen Sonja Print Award in Oslo. She is a Professor at the University of Bergen, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design.

Today IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) and Matheson LLP, are excited to announce the opening of a new community space created by Studio Makkink & Bey, The Matheson Creativity Hub in Memory of Tim Scanlon.  

Designed by internationally-renowned design practice, Studio Makkink & Bey, who were selected as the winning designers by a panel of judges in March 2023 after an invited architectural competition, the Matheson Creativity Hub at IMMA combines exceptional architecture and design to provide a welcoming and inclusive space that inspires creative engagement and fosters social connectivity for audiences of all ages. IMMA have been delighted to partner with Matheson to realise this new space. 

Michael Jackson, Managing Partner, Matheson, said: “We are proud to partner with IMMA to bring this innovative and inclusive space to life. The Matheson Creativity Hub is a tribute to Tim’s legacy and a symbol of our enduring partnership with the Museum, furthering our shared dedication to making a meaningful impact within our community. Delivered as part of the arts pillar of Matheson’s Impactful Business Programme, this project underlines our commitment to diversity and inclusion, and providing access to the arts for people of all ages and backgrounds. I would like to thank the volunteers of Matheson’s Arts Committee and the team at IMMA who gave their time and expertise to this initiative, as well as the designers, Studio Makkink & Bey, for creating a welcoming and engaging new space. We hope that the Matheson Creativity Hub will empower individuals of all walks of life to access and participate in the arts.” 

Sheena Barrett, Head of Research & Learning, IMMA said: “The Matheson Creativity Hub in Memory of Tim Scanlon is an exciting new addition to IMMA and supports our vision, to be the most dynamic and welcoming cultural destination in Ireland. At IMMA, we believe in the power of artistic practice to imagine and shape a different world—a world where every voice is heard, where communities thrive, and where unexpected experiences spark inspiration and change. The Matheson Creativity Hub in Memory of Tim Scanlon provides a bespoke space to drop-in, draw, make and enjoy taking time to invest in your creative self. Through a mixture of programmed events, workshops, performances and more casual drop-in times, these new spaces are inviting and radically public. Studio Makkink & Bey have designed the space to be flexible to accommodate our family Explorer and Schools programmes for families and children, our IMMA Horizons programmes for the lifelong curious, reading groups and seminars, silent disco drawing workshops, performances and more while also being open to visitors who’d like to spend some time delving into the boxes of art materials on offer to create responses to the exhibitions they’ve seen. The space is both playful and luxurious and invites visitors to spend time, be curious and explore their own creativity and foster imaginations.”  

Commenting on the new space, Studio Makkink & Bey said: “The design of the Matheson Creativity Hub provides endless possibilities to host diverse activities for an inclusive community. It acts as a place to inspire and be inspired by, while providing attributes to activate participation around modern art and artistic expression. Here, visitors indulge in experiencing the embodiment of diverse artistic practices. With and without programming, the space offers a soft invitation to participate.”  

Makkink & Bey is an internationally renowned design practice with over  20 years of experience in the spatial and artistic field. At the heart lies their  methodology to oversee the greater landscape of a project, reaching from social  and historical to material and environmental aspects.

Matheson has made a significant contribution to the cultural landscape in Ireland and has worked with IMMA since 2015, supporting over 50 artists through new commissions and major international exhibitions. Both partnerships – New Art at IMMA (2015 – 2018) and Irish Art at IMMA (2018 – 2019) were championed by Tim Scanlon (1965 -2020). As former Chairperson of Matheson and IMMA Board Member (2016 – 2020),Tim was an important influence on IMMA’s thinking. Tim encouraged progressive programming and change-making conversations that placed community engagement and inclusivity at the heart of the Museum’s activities.          

– ENDS – 

Contact: For further information and images please contact
Monica Cullinane, IMMA, E: [email protected]
Patrice Molloy, IMMA, E: [email protected]
Heather Yates, Matheson LLP, E: [email protected]
David Kinch, MKC Communications, E: [email protected]   

Additional Notes for Editors 

About Matheson 

– Matheson’s clients include the majority of the Fortune 100 companies and it advises 7 of the top 10 global technology brands, 7 of the world’s 10 largest asset managers, and over half of the world’s 50 largest banks.

-Matheson is headquartered in Dublin and also has offices in Cork, London, New York, San Francisco and Palo Alto.  The firm employs over 860 people across its six offices, including 122 partners and tax principals, and over 560 legal, tax and digital services professionals.

-Matheson was named Ireland Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year at the International Tax Review (ITR) EMEA Tax Awards 2023 in September 2023.

-In September 2023, Matheson was awarded the Best Energy Achievement in Financial & Professional Services award at the Business Energy Achievement Awards 2023.  Partner, Garret Farrelly received the Energy Leader Award, which recognises and honours outstanding leaders, at the same event.

-Also in September 2023, Matheson’s collaborative initiative to support Ukrainian refugees won the Partnership with Charity / Volunteering award at the Chambers Ireland Sustainable Business Awards 2023.

-Matheson won the Pro Bono: Outstanding Firm award at the Chambers Europe Awards 2023 in Milan in May 2023.

-Also in May 2023, Matheson was named Irish Firm of the Year at the IFLR Europe Awards.

-In April 2023, the firm was awarded the Net Zero Carbon Award at the Business & Finance ESG Awards 2023 for our innovative energy tracking app, CarbonCal.

-Also in April 2023, Matheson was awarded the Sustainability in Early Talent Recruitment Award and the Highly Commended Award in the Diversity Recruitment Award category at the gradIreland Graduate Recruitment Awards 2023.

-In February 2023 Matheson was ranked as Ireland’s Leading Funds Practice by assets under management for the twelfth consecutive year by the Monterey Insight Ireland Fund Report.

-Matheson was named Diversity and Inclusion Law Firm of the Year at the Irish Law Awards 2021 and 2022.  In November 2023, the firm’s female / male partner gender ratio was ranked the sixth most gender-diverse in Europe by The Lawyer in its European 100 report 2023.

-In 2019, Matheson became the first organisation in Ireland to receive the Investors in Diversity Gold Standard Award from the Irish Centre for Diversity in recognition of the firm’s development and implementation of a series of people-focussed D&I initiatives.  In March 2022, Matheson succeeded in retaining the Gold Standard.  Matheson is the only law firm in Ireland to achieve the Gold Standard.

-In 2021 Matheson became one of the first Irish law firms to establish a dedicated cross-sectoral and partner-led Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Advisory Group which assists companies in navigating and responding to the rapidly evolving ESG landscape.  Matheson clients have access to an online ESG resource hub of knowledge and insights.

-In 2020, Matheson became the first Irish-headquartered law firm to sign up to the Mindful Business Charter, a collaboration between financial services businesses and law firms in Ireland and the UK promoting healthy and effective ways of working.  In 2021, Matheson became a signatory to the Law Society of Ireland’s Professional Wellbeing Charter, which champions behaviours, skills and practices to promote and enable professional wellbeing in the workplace.

About IMMA
Founded in 1991, IMMA is Ireland’s National Cultural Institution for Modern and Contemporary Art located in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. Its vibrant, bold, and diverse programme comprises exhibitions, commissions and event-based projects by leading Irish and international artists, as well as a rich engagement and learning programme which together provides audiences of all ages the opportunity to connect with contemporary art and unlock their creativity. IMMA is also the home of the National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art of nearly 4,000 artworks by Irish and international artists. IMMA makes this national resource available through exhibitions at IMMA and other venues nationally and internationally, engagement and learning programmes and digital resources. 

About Studio Makkink & Bey
Studio Makkink & Bey is led by designer-architect Rianne Makkink and designer Jurgen Bey. The studio works in various domains of applied art and includes public space projects, product design, architecture, exhibition design and applied arts. Supported by a design team, they have been operating their design practice since 2002. 

The ambition of Studio Makkink & Bey is to see the role of the designer expanded to the most strategic function possible. To this end, their design team includes professionals from many different fields of knowledge; forming alliances with other designers, architects and experts. Their past projects include work with the Theatre Kunstmin 2014, the Rotterdam 2015, and their self-initiated project, the WaterSchool. studiomakkinkbey.nl