Location: Lecture Room
Free, Drop-in

Screening 1: Artaud On Aran
(2010, 28mins, IE) 
Directed by Rossa Mullin
This documentary traces the fateful journey of Antonin Artaud across Ireland in 1937 and explores the Theatre of Cruelty and Ireland’s impact on Artaud’s life after his deportation and incarceration.

Conversation 
This screening is followed by a Q&A conversation with guest Paul Smith, Arts Event Producer and Christina Kennedy, Head of Collection, IMMA others. 

Paul has a long history as an arts event producer who has brought together leading contemporary arts institutions (Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Frieze Art Fair, ICA London, Lyon MoMA) with pioneering artists (Sonic Youth, Throbbing Gristle, Michael Clark, Iain Sinclair). At an event in 2010, called Simultaneous Conjugation of Four Spirits in a Room, Smith was able to realise large scale paintings by J.M.W. Turner, & John Martin in a small room with spoken text by writer Alan Moore & “drone metal” guitarist Stephen O’Malley. 

Luke Gibbons’ has taught as Professor of Irish Studies at Maynooth University and the University of Notre Dame, USA. His most recent book is James Joyce and the Irish Revolution (2023). He shared a panel at the Once Upon a Time in the West seminar on Artaud, Galway, 2013, and at the Artaud on Aran Symposium, Irish College, Paris, 2017.

Click here to read more about Artaud On Aran.

Screening 2: Une histoire de fantôme: le voyage irlandais d’Antonin Artaud 
(1999, 43mins, FR)  
Directed by Mathias Sanderson/Laurent Gwrenrolé
An artistic French documentary travelogue rendering of Artaud’s 1937 visit to The Aran Isles. Interviews with Islanders recall their observations on ‘The Frenchman’ as he is still known on Inis Mor.