Location: Matheson Creativity Hub
Free, book here.  (Booked Out)

Join us for a workshop in mark making in response to different building interiors & exteriors within the IMMA site through painting and drawing.   

This workshop will be facilitated by Artist Stephen Taylor particularly focusing on form, line, colour and pattern using water-based materials.   

As part of the workshop will be held outdoors, appropriate dress and footwear is advised.  

All levels of creative experience are welcome. Places for this workshop are free but limited. all materials provided.  

Location: Matheson Creativity Hub
Free, All welcome, Book here  (Booked Out)

Explore plant based dying and printing as a method of archiving local ecologies and histories. Participants will gather plants, flowers and food scraps and learn to dye and print while considering what these plants bear witness to – human intervention, systems of extraction and care, neglect and resilience.

During our time together you’re invited to reflect on your relationship with textiles- not only as personal or familial objects, but as carriers of memory, labour and cultural inheritance. You may wish to share a story about a meaningful heirloom, your interactions with plants and land, or how these materials hold histories shaped by displacement, resistance, care, and inherited forms of knowledge.

During the workshop, you’ll also learn how to prepare fibres for optimal colour uptake, extract colour from plants, and apply it to textiles to ensure long-lasting results. You’ll also get to try out some basic tie-dyeing techniques to create a variety of effects.

Biography:
Malú Colorín is a Mexican natural dyer and designer living in West Wicklow, Ireland. She inherited her name and a calling for textile art from her mother and grandmother. With a background in graphic design and fine arts, in 2018 she began her experimentations and research into natural dyes. She has studied with master dyers in Mexico, Ireland, the US and Japan. 

Her work draws inspiration from the traditional garments of her native Mexico, while embracing the rich heritage of Irish textiles. By working slowly and mindfully, she aims to build an intimate connection with each of her dye sources, as well as the land where they grow. Malú is a founding member of Fibreshed Ireland and the founder and CEO of Talú – A natural dye house and educational hub, rooted in regenerative practice. At Talú “it’s all been about developing a much closer relationship to the Land, to our non-human siblings, and eventually to our true selves. We strive to share that understanding through everything we do.” 

Rooted in the rich textile traditions of both Mexico and Ireland, Talú is determined to provide soil-based solutions to the environmental crisis. “We believe that by healing the relationship between agriculture, textile production and conscious consumption, we can actually have a positive impact on our planet, without compromising on comfort and beauty.” Our continual acknowledgement, respect and gratitude to the indigenous communities all over the world that have kept alive the textile heritage upon which we base our production methods and philosophy.

Location: Studio 9 & 10
Booking required, Book here.

Created by artist Thaís Muniz, Turbante-se is a hands-on workshop exploring the history, meaning, and everyday practice of turbans and headwraps across Afro-Atlantic cultures.

Participants are introduced to key figures, traditions, and the layered symbolism of headwear—examining its role in identity, politics, art, and non-verbal communication.

The session also includes guided tutorials on how to tie various headwrap styles and create clothing variations using a single scarf.

While the workshop is free, there is a discounted cost for a scarf. This is €5 per person.

Location: Matheson Creativity Hub
Free, booking required. Book here.

This workshop explores the interplay between the nervous system and inquiry-based art looking practice, engaging with artworks form IMMA’s Permanent Collection. Participants will encounter concepts of nervous system navigation to explore how embodied practices interpret the body as the first “land” to which one connects. They will apply these insights through reflective, inquiry-driven art-looking. The workshop will be facilitated by Dr Oana Sânziana Marians.

Biography:
Dr Oana Sânziana Marians academic background is in theology, poetry, and the poetics. Her doctoral work explored possibilities for collective healing at the intersection of contemporary poetry and critical feminist theology in Ireland. She works periodically with institutions as a creative neurodiversity consultant and as a trauma-informed facilitator of grief work for groups and individuals. Literary and visual art practices continue to shape her research and facilitation. Currently she is a postdoctoral researcher in the Pregnancy Loss Research Group, INFANT Centre at University College Cork, within Cork University Maternity Hospital.

Location: Studio 9 & 10
Free, booking required. Book here.

In this workshop, participants are invited to share their food memories and explore how they are connected to our sense of self and cultural grounding through zine-making, collage art and storytelling. Together, we’ll respond to guided prompts and readings and create mini-zines and collage art as a way to archive our memories and honour our personal stories. This workshop is brought to you by Bia! Zine.

Location: TBC
Free, booking required. Book here

Join us for a workshop in mapping in response to different artworks and the historic landscape within the IMMA site through drawing and walking.    

This workshop will be facilitated by Barry Kehoe and Aidan O’Sullivan from IMMA’s Visitor Engagement Team, who will focus on artworks currently on display in IMMA that use mapping techniques in their execution and will engage with the mapping of the site of IMMA through the centuries.   

As part of the workshop will be held outdoors, appropriate dress and footwear is advised.   

All levels of creative experience are welcome. Places for this workshop are free but limited.  All materials provided.   

Location: Matheson Creativity Hub
Free, booking required. Book here.

Come play in the sun with botanical forms and colour with eco artist Ashleigh Ellis! Cyanotype is an elemental process of printing blueprints onto paper. It works by harnessing the energy of the sun, water, botanical forms and UV sensitive iron salts to create stunning works of art.  

Ashleigh brings her expertise in naturally dyeing with plants and will show you how to colour these traditional blueprints with botanical dyes.  We will have fun exploring this alchemic and magical process, and spend time drawing with ink made from plants. 

Location: Studio 10
Free, booking required. Book here

Wild systems: Urban ecologies and the politics of growth   

In this second workshop from the IMMA Horizons Edible Cities series we examine the politics of weeding and the aesthetic regulation of urban space – how efforts to impose order often obscure or eliminate the generative possibilities of wildness. 

Drawing from ecological approaches to cultivation, we explore strategies such as mulching, interplanting, companion planting and seasonal planning as practical methods that support biodiversity, improve soil health and challenge dominant paradigms of control in both gardening and public space 

Through participatory learning we ask how growing with, rather than against, spontaneous ecologies might reshape our relationships to place, collective labour and the possibility of the urban commons.

The workshop is facilitated by Jean Walker and will be followed by a tour of “The Model Plot” a participatory artwork by Deirdre O Mahony located in the grounds of IMMA, where participants will have the chance to engage directly with the piece, becoming active contributors rather than passive viewers 

Biography:
Jean Wallace is a Horticulturist and educator whose work is grounded in organic growing, community and ecological care. Based in Dublin 8 she teaches Horticulture with the City of Dublin ETB advocating for regenerative methods that reconnect people to place and promote more just and resilient social and environmental ecologies.

Join us at three special edition IMMA Explorer, where three artists participating in the Engagement Hub: Art in Action programme will deliver their workshops for families.  

Location: Matheson Creativity Hub
Drop-in, no booking required.

Staying with the Trouble – Sun 20 July
Workshop by Silvina Sisterna
In this workshop, we invite participants to join us as we explore the exhibition Staying with the Trouble. This workshop invites children to imagine the world we might live in 50 or 100 years from now. Through sci-fi-inspired collage, participants will create new environments where humans, animals, plants, and machines coexist. Using magazines, recycled paper, and pre-cut figures, children will craft visual narratives that explore themes of inclusion, transformation, and multi-species life. What kind of shelter will we need? What new beings might exist? A space for curiosity, invention, and rethinking how we belong to the planet and to each other. 

IMMA’s Flower Garden – Sun 27 July
Workshop by Scheider Gwei
Join us for this fibre arts programme designed for children aged 4–13, hosted in the inspiring environment of IMMA and the flowers found in the Grounds and the Formal Gardens. Drawing on crochet as a contemporary medium, children will explore texture, shape, colour, and pattern by designing and crocheting floral-inspired fibre sculptures. 

Kith & Kin The Quilts of Gee’s Bend – Sun 10 August
Workshop by Clodagh Boyce
In this workshop, participants will learn about the work of Gee’s Bend, explore their identity and heritage, within their relationship with their accompanying adult(s). They will use collage and assemblage with recycled fabrics to create a mini quilt exemplifying how identity is formed through community making. Join us as we explore questions such as how can we be resourceful and build something beautiful that resembles where we come from and who we are as a community? 

This programme is a partnership between Superprojects, Angelica Network and us, to empower racialised and ethnic diverse artists to participate in arts education for children and young people. The programme is funded through the Ireland against Racism Fund 2024 by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth 

Location: Matheson Creativity Hub
Free, All welcome, Drop In

Visit IMMA on Sunday afternoons and enjoy some creative time with your family. Based on artworks from IMMA’s exhibitions, families can discover their inner artist while having fun and creating amazing masterpieces. Led by our Visitor Engagement Team, this is a wonderful family experience. Art materials are provided by IMMA.

These workshops will take place in our Project Spaces. Upon arrival, please ask a member of our staff at reception in the Main Building for directions to the workshop.

Our Explorer at Home activities are also available for you to discover, there are lots of creative activities for families to do at home.

To get the latest updates about any upcoming Explorer events, follow our social media channels and join our mailing list for families.