Coinciding with IMMA’s upcoming international research conference, 100 Years of Self-Determination, we are thrilled to welcome IMMA Collection artists, Alastair MacLennan and Sandra Johnston to perform their collaborative work Avert Avow in our Garden Galleries on Saturday, 12 November 2022. The live performance will commence from 1pm and will run throughout the day.

During this event the artists will perform simultaneously, responding to the scale of the historic architecture and working through alternating actions, echoing, and coinciding in relation to one another and tracing residues (real and intuited), of how the building was originally inhabited.

This intimate exploration of the site will also underpin a quiet process of reflection on ideas of historical union, partition, and independence, as factors of state workings that can also be applicable to interpersonal relationships.

Alastair MacLennan and Sandra Johnston have been developing collaborative actions together since 2009. These duets occur only occasionally and are characterized by openness and a shared desire to keep each situation direct and without contrivance. This collaboration is a method for both to reappraise their working processes whilst producing singular situations of connectivity and experimentation. The energy (inward/outward) experienced in the (space/place), simultaneously, being what informs their actions.

IMMA’s International Research Conference, 100 Years of Self-Determination, takes place from the 9 – 12 November 2022. This conference, which marks a century since the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922, will explore the artistic responses to the theme of self determination through a global lens. The programme features presentations from invited keynote speakers alongside selected papers and proposals as part of an open call. To register your free place click here.