This public talk takes place at IMMA housed in the historic Royal Hospital Kilmainham – a site originally built as a 17th-century care institution, and now reimagined as a national cultural space. Through initiatives like IMMA Horizons, an art and wellness programme at the intersection of creativity and health, IMMA seeks to be a catalyst for change – bringing together disciplines, communities, and new ways of thinking to support collective wellbeing.

This IMMA Talks event was developed in collaboration with IMMA Horizons and MISA through the Creative life pillar at St James hospital, and reflects a long standing partnership since 2017 that champions the role of the arts in enhancing health, wellbeing and quality of life in clinical settings and throughout the lifespan. More details here

Rose Anne Kenny, Regius Professor of Physic, Professor of Medical Gerontology Trinity College Dublin and Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing, St James’s Hospital Dublin.

Rose Anne Kenny is Regius Professor of Physic (Medicine) and holds the Chair of Medical Gerontology at Trinity College Dublin. She is the founding Principal Investigator of The Irish LongituDinal study on Ageing (TILDA) and Director of the Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing (MISA) at St. James’s Hospital, where she is also director of a large national falls and syncope and autonomic function laboratory. She is Director of the new WHO Collaborating Centre for Longitudinal Studies in Ageing and the Life Course.

She is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, London and Ireland, a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology, Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine Ireland, and was recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. She has received a number of international awards and has published widely, authoring over 600 publications including, her recently published book “Age Proof – The New Science of Living a Longer and Healthier Life” which was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2022. In 2020, she was elected President of the Irish Gerontological Society. In 2022 she was nominated 24th Regius Professor of Physic at TCD (1637), the first female nominee. More details here

Brian Kennedy is a leadership consultant and adviser to philanthropists and arts organizations. He is an adviser to E.A. Michelson Philanthropy on Vitality Arts, a major funding initiative to promote creative aging and address ageism in American art institutions. Brian received degrees in art history and history at University College Dublin (BA, MA, PhD). He was assistant director of the National Gallery of Ireland, and then director of the National Gallery of Australia (Canberra), the Hood Museum of Art (Dartmouth College, New Hampshire), the Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, Ohio) and the Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, Massachusetts). Currently he is an Atlantic Fellow at Trinity College in the Global Brain Health Institute (2024-25). More details here

Annie Fletcher is Director of IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art). Previously she was Chief Curator at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and a tutor at de Appel, Amsterdam, the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) and the Design Academy Eindhoven. She was co-founder and co-director of the rolling curatorial platform If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution with Frederique Bergholtz and Tanja Elstgeest (2005-10). In 2012, she was Curator of Ireland’s Contemporary Art biennale EVA International and is regularly called upon to sit on International juries, including the 2019 Preis der Nationalgalerie, Berlin; the 2016 Irish Pavilion at Venice; the 2015 Köler Prize, Estonia; the 2014 Turner Prize, UK; the 2013 Leopold Bloom Art Award, Hungary; and the 2011 BC21 Art Award, Austria. More details here

Bairbre-Ann Harkin, Curator, IMMA Horizons. Bairbre-Ann Harkin initiated IMMA Horizons in 2023, having worked as IMMA’s Art & Ageing Curator since 2020. IMMA Horizons aims to contribute to new thinking on how creativity can positively impact health and wellbeing through programming and partnerships. As part of this work, she has contributed to conferences and trainings including the Taiwanese National Forum of Museums, the EDI Global Forum (Naples), MoMA Outreach Refinery (New York), Northern Ireland Museums Council and dementia-inclusive museum networks in Italy, Lithuania and Germany. Prior to her time at IMMA, Bairbre-Ann spent six years as Butler Gallery’s Education Curator, where she established Ireland’s first dementia-inclusive art-looking programme and managed the Gallery’s diverse arts education offering. During this time, she became a founding partner of the European Project, ‘Museums, Art & Alzheimer’s’ and the national Azure Network, alongside the Alzheimer Society of Ireland, Age & Opportunity and IMMA.