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Talks & Events Information

Once you have made a booking, you will receive a notification by email with information about your event. If you have general queries about attending Talks at IMMA please see our Frequently Asked Questions page below.


Join Christina Kennedy, Senior Curator, Head of Collections at IMMA, for an engaging lecture on IMMA Collection: Art as Agency, an ambitious new exhibition from IMMA’s Permanent Collection featuring over 100 artists from the 1960s to the present. As we explore art’s evolving role in shaping our understanding of action in the world, discover the evolving connections between past and present, and how key artworks from the collection continues to challenge norms and tackles global themes like gender, de-colonialism, climate change and hybridity.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, we will gain insight into selected works that narrate the foundational story of the Irish art scene, highlighting the material innovation and socially engaged practices that confront the hierarchies of the modernist era. The talk also looks to recent practices where memory and storytelling become vital. A focal point of the lecture highlights key moments, such as the specially created ‘white cube’ gallery space, inspired by Brian O’Doherty’s critique of the gallery, to works by Post-War American women, Marcel Duchamp, Andrea Geyer and major installations by Daphne Wright and Alice Maher. This lecture invites audiences to reflect on contemporary art’s evolving role in shaping our understanding of action in the world, while making connections across time, geographies and artists’ media.
This exhibition welcomes engagement and research over time, allowing for a rich durational experience of Ireland’s Modern and Contemporary Art Collection.

This talk coincides with the launch of two new exhibitions at IMMA, IMMA Collections: Art as Agency, a major three-year display from IMMA’s Permanent Collection and and the Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers. 


About Speaker

Christina Kennedy, Senior Curator, Head of Collections, IMMA
Christina Kennedy has been the Senior Curator, Head of Collections, at IMMA since 2008. Prior to that she was Head of Exhibitions at Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane (DCGHL). She has curated and co-curated many exhibitions, edited publications and contributed texts to numerous catalogues, notably: Beyond the White Cube: A Retrospective of Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland, DCGHL, 2006; The Studio, co-curated with Jens Hoffmann, DCGHL, 2007; Tacita Dean, DCGHL, 2007; The Burial of Patrick Ireland, IMMA, 2008; The Moderns: The Arts in Ireland from 1900s – 1970s, IMMA, 2010-2011, Postwar American Art: the Novak/O’Doherty Collection, IMMA 2010; Hello Sam by Brian O’Doherty, National Gallery of Ireland as part of Dublin Contemporary, 2011; Changing States: Contemporary Irish Art & Francis Bacon’s Studio, Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, co-curator, 2013, Art as Argument: Brian O’Doherty and the Novak O’Doherty Collection, Kunstmuseum Bayreuth, 2013. Patrick Scott: Image, Space, Light, IMMA 2014; Lucian Freud Project at IMMA 2016-2021, Lead Curator; Editor of The Narrow Gate of the Here-and-Now: IMMA: 30 years of the global contemporary.


About Exhibition

IMMA Collection: Art as Agency
6 Feb 2025– 6 Feb 2028.
Gallery 1

IMMA Collection: Art as Agency is a major three-year display celebrating IMMA’s Permanent Collection showcasing over 100 artists from the 1960s to the present, highlighting key works including many recent acquisitions. Featured artists include; Jo Baer, Aideen Barry, Sarah Browne, Gerard Byrne, James Coleman, Giorgio de Chirico,  Willie Doherty, Marcel Duchamp, Lucian Freud, Ellen Gallagher, Andrea Geyer, Siobhan Hapaska, Frances Hegarty, Shirazeh Houshiary, Patricia Hurl,  Derek Jarman, Joan Jonas, Jesse Jones, Yazan Khalili, John Lalor, Alice Maher, Brian Maguire, Ronan McCrea, Sibyl Montague, Juan Munoz, Brian O’Doherty, Deirdre O’Mahony, Betty Parsons, Howardena Pindell, Paula Rego, Nigel Rolfe,  Sakiya Collective, Philip Taaffe,  Daphne Wright, Nil Yalter.