IMMA Archive: 1990s, From the Edge to the Centre celebrates an ambitious IMMA Collection and Archive Digitisation Project initiated in 2017 and made possible by the support of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

In advance of IMMA’s 30th anniversary in 2021, the exhibition considers the rich early history of IMMA’s programme and Collection and offers a space to reflect on the Museum’s formative years through the lens of the archival material it has amassed.

The exhibition presents digitised material from the archive and revisits IMMA in its first years to consider the aims and challenges of the new museum as it sought to bring contemporary art from the edge, to the centre of Irish society and contemporary life, which it continues to serve. The exhibition also showcases the conservation and digitisation of IMMA’s Collection of time-based media artworks – these include video, sound, slide, film, software and other digital artworks – allowing new access to a selection of artists’ film and video made in the 1990s.

IMMA Archive: 1990s is also a statement of intent, an articulation of the possibilities of the long-term development of the Collection and Programming Archives as a resource for research, presentation and learning, which will be fully realised in IMMA’s future Collection & Learning Centre.

Through the exhibition, we hope to encourage our audiences, new and long-standing, to respond and enhance the story of IMMA, allowing the museum to restage, reconsider and represent the legacy of its remit as Ireland’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary art.