Gallery Programme

Join Director Maoliosa Boyle in conversation with artist Domnick Sorace as they reflect on his artistic practice in general, recurring themes, influences, and the development of his current solo show When Stars Collide, following a residency in Assisi, Italy.

Domnick Sorace is an Italian/Maltese multimedia artist who has been based in Dublin since 2018. His practice is conceptually led, often exploring the imprints of belief, the authenticity of emotion, the experience of inhabiting a human body, the fragmentation of memory, and the ethereal made tangible through the physical. At the same time, Sorace’s approach to media remains receptive, guided by their symbolic or sensory qualities, often leading to the use of unconventional materials.

Recent achievements include Between Flesh and Reflection at Umberto Benappi, Sansicario Alto (2025); recipient of the SDCC Artist Bursary Award (2025); recipient of the Diversity Award by Solstice Art Centre & Creative Ireland (2025); Basic Talks speaker at The Hugh Lane Gallery (2025); and a writing residency at Arte Studio Ginestrelle, Assisi (2025), funded by Culture Moves Europe.

Photo by Serhii Shapoval

This workshop will explore the research and analysis behind “Artwork in anticipation of door knocking politicians," a site-specific public artwork that employs a series of texts and images relating to the housing crisis, in the form of doormats, for use in homes. It will delve into the rationale behind using doormats as the framing mechanism, the phrases and images used on the mats themselves and why they were chosen, as well as providing a deeper analysis about the type of financial flows that are distorting housing policy in Dublin - flows that, while profitable for a few, are socially negative and destructive for the many.

Featuring: Reuben Brown, Dee Byrne, Geraldine Carton, Emanuela Carvisiglia, Rayleen Clancy + Beatrice O'Connell, Paddy Critchley, Gemma Crowe, Jane Cummins, Alicia Donnan, Hannah Farrell, Sophie Gough, Susan Gogan, Nickie Harrington, Annie Hogg, Conor Horgan, Elizabeth Hogan, Jim Xi Johnson, Gary Kearney, Lucy Lambe, Sarah Lincoln + Andy Walsh, Sarah Long, Maeve Lynch, Maitiú Mac Cárthaigh, Maria Maarbjerg, Tadhg McGreevy, Constance McKenna, Joanna McNulty, Asha Murray, Aoife Ní Dhuinn, Augustine O'Donoghue + Conor McCabe, Tina O'Connell, Olivia O’Dwyer, Emily Roche, Jane Skovgaard, Oisín Tozer, Stephen Turner, Lorraine Walsh

Each year Rua Red holds an annual open-call exhibition of fine and applied arts. Work is invited from artists in any discipline and at all career stages. The Annual Open serves as a platform to support and encourage emerging and established artists. It is an opportunity to see the breadth and vibrancy of the work being created today and to find new and unexpected connections.

This year, Rua Red has invited artists to submit work that responds to the theme Right Here, Right Now. Work that speaks to the urgency of the present moment, that reflects lived realities, challenges inherited systems and reimagines futures from the ground up. Whether personal, political, poetic or protest-driven, we welcome proposals/work that is rooted in the here and now, work that speaks from within communities, that is unapologetically human.

left behind from When Stars Collide, the gallery is now a transitional space, altered for just a while.

A tunnel leads you, and a voice holds you within.

When Stars Collide is a multimedia installation that reshapes the gallery floor with paths of sand and heaps of gravel, where an array of fallen stars and a decapitated bronze head reside. The head becomes both relic and narrator, voicing its dilemmas and contemplations: the embodiment of the night sky, recalled fragments of memory, inherited beliefs, the body it lost, its disappointments, and its hope, all while waiting… waiting for what comes next. Drifting between analysis and poetry, the head loops back and forth, reflecting upon the spectrum of existence within the space and time it currently occupies.

Together with its company of abstracted stars, the bronze objects resist with their density the intangibility of what they signify, attempting to unify the ephemerality of the macrocosm with grounded, weighty matter.

Visitors are invited into this suspended landscape, where matter, memory, and meaning collide, and where uncertainty and awe linger.

Acknowledgements: Voice acting by Gabriel Adewusi. Audio Production by Bobby Aherne.

Participating Artists: Emma Brennan, Tara Carroll, Austin Hearne, Maryia Hoyin, Rachel MacManus, Shiro Masuyama, Katherine Nolan, El Putnam.

Becoming Tallaght Performance Art Festival will take place from 24—27 September in Rua Red and at various sites across Tallaght. This will mark the third in a series of Performance Art Festivals commissioned by Rua Red.

Curated by Olivia Hassett and Paul Regan Becoming Tallaght is an ambitious four-day Festival showcasing the work of eight performance artists, including three bespoke workshops, and culminating in an artists’ symposium. We are also delighted to announce that the first iteration of Xchange, an open improvised performance jam, will also form part of Becoming Tallaght, and will include performance artists from Bbeyond Belfast.

The state of becoming is a transformative process. Just as live performances often involve a transformation through embodied action at a specific site and in the presence of an audience, Tallaght is also experiencing a cultural evolution, reflected in its people and urban landscape. Join us in September as we embark on the journey of Becoming Tallaght.

To mark the final day of the programme, join us for a panel discussion with the curators of the Becoming Tallaght Performance Art Festival, Olivia Hasset and Paul Regan, alongside rapporteur Day Magee. Together, they will reflect on the week’s performances and explore the wider context of performance art in Ireland.

We are pleased to announce that the inaugural edition of Xchange, an open and improvised performance jam, will be held as part of Becoming Tallaght Performance Art Festival. For this event, we are honoured to welcome a group of performance artists from Bbeyond Belfast to join the Xchange. 

Inspired by the monthly meetings organised by Bbeyond and in response to the lack of similar opportunities to perform collaboratively and improvisationally in Dublin, Xchange was founded by Olivia Hassett and Paul Regan. Xchange seeks to provide a platform to create live art and to explore encounters not only between those who take part but also those who witness. Our objective is to promote performance art in the local community and beyond as an unconventional and vital art form for the times we live in. 

Future editions of Xchange will take place every two months at Rua Red. If you are interested in taking part in an Xchange event, contact: xchangeruared@gmail.com

Artist Rachel Macmanus will hold a workshop on the theme of Art Actions as Care. As a carer herself, Rachel’s work is deeply influenced by her identity as a carer/parent. In contemporary Ireland, carers come in all shapes and genders.

In our workshop, we’ll spend time discussing how the role of carer is valued by our society. Carers do different jobs — some work in the home, some in the community, some as professional carers. Deeply connected to caring is the notion of time passing. The job of caring is an endless one that goes on day in, day out, and it deeply affects how you relate to time. Time and how it passes is an interesting element of the carer’s life that I will address in the workshop through various exercises and group work. We will also take time to celebrate and value the work of caring.  In the workshop, we will use discussion, group and solo exercises, experimental action making, objects of power, observation and response exercises.

Anyone with caring experience or interest in the workshop is invited to attend.

As a Japanese artist based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Masuyama has converted the interior of a caravan into two parts: one half related to Irish culture and the other half to British culture. Many of the items, symmetrically displayed on their respective sides, have counterparts in both cultures. Since relocating to Belfast in 2010, Masuyama has often grappled with the nuances of what separates Irish and British identity within the region’s complex society. This project has become a way of learning and exploring those cultural subtleties through conversations with people who step inside the caravan. The work is continually evolving, as the artist adds new objects, refines the display, and adapts it in response to dialogue. Approaching the project from an outsider’s perspective, neither religious nor politically aligned, Masuyama brings a sense of neutrality to the inquiry. While the caravan can be difficult to entice people into, given its association with private space, those who do enter are invariably intrigued. Visitors often begin reflecting on Irish and British culture, wider society, and their own personal histories.

About Shiro Masuyama
Originally from Japan, Masuyama studied architecture to MA level, a background that continues to shape his art practice through site-specific and architectural interventions. Drawing on both his architectural training and his Japanese identity, he creates socially engaged works that connect people and society in meaningful ways. Interaction is central to his practice; he regards dialogue and participation as vital processes that can lead to unexpected and transformative outcomes. Following international residencies at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2006), and Flax Art Studios (2009), Masuyama settled in Belfast, where he has lived and worked ever since. His multidisciplinary practice spans performance, sculpture, installation, photography, and video. As a Japanese artist rooted in Northern Ireland, Masuyama occupies a unique position from which to question how personal and cultural identity are shaped by the region’s dominant political forces.

The performance explores the ways that sacred, disability and transgender embodiment(s) are all structured by reference to notions of wholeness, perfection and cure. The social order dreams of a cure for both disabled bodies and trans bodies. Their existence challenges the notions of completeness and transcends bodily possibilities.

The performance will take place at the bulán stones in St.Mary’s Priory Garden. Bulán stones are said to be where saintly bodies have touched or rested on. The disembodiment of a sacred body on their journey to sainthood offers completeness, either through the reunion of parts into a whole or through the assertion of a part to become whole. The saintly body is produced by and shared among a community.

The performance challenges the fixed senses of community, instead creating asynchronous communities through ripples, touches and interflows. It pivots on the transference of touch; we are in community with others we might never meet. 

About Tara Carroll
Tara Carroll is an artist with a social practice which takes the form of performance, installation & creative social spaces. Their practice rests upon the perception of the body, impacted by socio-political narratives, and its placement in society. During difficult times of embodied conflictions as a queer non-binary disabled person, their community supports them in creating new pathways of care. Exploring ways in which we seek solace and autonomy, Tara uses their work as a site to create communities and collaborations to advocate for people to access art.

Projects and exhibitions include: ‘Art as Pilgrimage’ [2022-25]; ‘84 Steps to Solace’ Planta Alta, Madrid; ‘(Dis)Comfort’, Planta Baja, Madrid [2023]; ‘Seeking Solace’, Temple bar Gallery + Studios[2024]; ‘Just There’, TBG+S [2024], Recent awards include: Arts Council’s Arts Participation Bursary [2023-24] & Agility Award [2022]; Creative Ireland Bursary [2023]; Create AIC R&D Award [2022]; and Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Project Studio Award [2024].

Nowadays, exercise has become a marketed, commercialised commodity. Fitness and weight loss are equated to being good, and the lack of being perceived as bad. Trying to find a middle ground is not always easy for people, and in Ireland, we struggle with high obesity levels. According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and severe asceticism, leading to freedom from ignorance, craving, rebirth and suffering. In Keep Fit Tallaght, exercise is neither a punishment nor a panacea. The Buddha as exercise instructor teaches a middle way between ultra marathons and staying on the couch. Our fitness class will be a community experience, a joyous spectacle, a middle way where your instructor invites you to consider: who do we worship and what brings us joy? What is valuable to us?

Participation: Please join in, for as little or as long as you like. The class will repeat every 30 minutes, and participants can join at any time. Suitable for all levels of fitness and accessible for differently abled audience members.

About Rachel Macmanus
Based in Co Clare, Ireland, Rachel’s practice spans drawing, performance and public art. She holds an MA in Fine Art, OCA (UCA) 2019 and a BA in Vis Com, NCAD 1997. A former fitness professional and competitive lifter, Rachel returned to art in 2016 and has been exhibiting and performing nationally and internationally since. Rachel co-facilitates Creative Circles, a monthly meeting for Clare-based Creatives. She founded the art collective Negative Space, which has painted over 42 public artworks in Co. Clare since 2022. In 2023, Rachel founded Here and Now, a performance art collective, and facilitates p(art)y Here and Now— a monthly participatory performance art event in Co Clare. Rachel is the founder and co-director of the annual Here and Now Performance Art Festival, Co. Clare. 

(Dis)Comfort is a participatory workshop with artist Tara Carroll, exploring the embodiment of discomfort and the ways we combatively seek comfort individually and collectively. How do you distinguish the feelings? Why do we need discomfort to go beyond our comfort zones to enact change? How do we create comfort for other people? We will engage with these themes through creative exercises that utilise the body, text, and spoken word. 

The artist asks for each person to bring one object that represents or gives their body/mind comfort and one object that represents or gives their body/mind discomfort. As a disabled, trans and queer artist, Tara will discuss themes through the lens of disability/illness, gender and queerness. The workshop openly invites anyone to join. 

Carroll’s art practice advocates for inclusivity and accessibility for all in the arts and society. They want to ensure the inclusion of our disabled and high-risk friends by making this a masked event to ensure the safety of everyone in the space. This is to practice harm reduction and community care during a time when capitalism and individualism often take precedence. They ask everyone who can mask to do so. High-quality FFP2 masks will be provided on entry, and a HEPA filter will be present in the space.

It will be a relaxed environment with breaks and snacks provided. The exercises are adaptable to suit individual capacity. 

In exploring the history of the name Tallaght, I discovered its Old Irish roots, meaning “a place of burial” or “a high grave.” Its etymology is stark: one part linked to death, contagion, and impurity; the other to stones, monuments, and remembrance. These weighty, archetypal associations connect deeply with my reflections on the war in Ukraine; now in its eleventh year, including seven years of hybrid conflict and over three years of full-scale invasion. This war is about loss and suffering, about bodies that no longer breathe and hearts that struggle to trust. It is about scars — visible and invisible — etched into the body of a nation, into memory, language, and the architecture of silence. 

My performance seeks to bring together the visible and the invisible, to show how war imprints itself on cities and on the human body. It lingers in the cracks of buildings, in inner fractures, in memories that disturb sleep, and in silence that echoes across generations. This silence is not emptiness, but the roar of pain without words. Performance as memory. An archaeology of suffering. Ecocide. The ethics of presence.

About Mariya Hoyin
Mariya Hoyin (Ukraine, 1982) is an artist working across digital photography, analogue, performance, video, collage, and graphic media. She graduated from the Lviv National Academy of Arts. Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, she has been creating an ongoing daily photography art project titled Diary in Times of War. The project has continued for over three years and will be sustained until the war ends. As a deeply personal ritual, Mariya marks each anniversary of the war’s outbreak by tattooing a new number onto her forearm—an act of remembrance and resilience.

A mother walks through Tallaght village, laden down with little bodies, their arms clutching at her neck and legs dangling as she moves. Both visceral and absurd, this performance asks viewers to consider what it is like to bear the weight of care. Mothers' bare bodies in their bodies, sometimes those bodies are lost or never come into being, sometimes mothers are unable to nourish the bodies they are tasked with caring for. The physical and emotional burden can be at times unbearable, and yet invisible.  The Mother Load makes the weight of motherhood visible, in all its burden, messiness and absurdity. Travelling from the mundanity of the supermarket, this performance drags motherhood through the streets to the elevated heights of the arches at St. Mary’s Priory. 

Audience members can choose to bring and donate an object of their relationship to motherhood if they wish: a baby grow outworn or one never worn, something sullied, something precious – if it’s hard to let go, the Mother Load will bear the weight for you.

About Katherine Nolan
Katherine Nolan is an artist, lecturer, and curator. She works primarily in live and lens-based performance, investigating themes of gender and embodiment in live and digital spaces. Her recent project Fluid Flesh explored the maternal and the mortal through embodied experiences across performance, photography, and audio-visual installation. She has performed extensively at international venues such as Supermarket Art Fair Stockholm, MeinBlau Projecktraum Berlin, Mobius Boston and Panoply Performance Lab New York. Other notable performances include a twelve-hour durational performance as part of Future Histories at Kilmainham Gaol (2016). Solo exhibitions include Fluid Flesh (2021) and The Mistress of the Mantle (2017) at MART Dublin. Recent group shows include The Irish Contemporaries (2023) at the Centre for Irish Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and Hold on Tight (2022) at The Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast. She is currently a Lecturer in Creative Digital Media at Technological University Dublin and co-curator with Livestock: Performance Art Platform.

Oh dear Tallaght Priory, your brutal 1970s concrete arches loom over the new families of husbands, wives and the many children that make up this growing townland. Behind you, frock-clad men spew forth twisted ideas about women, the family, sexual morality, contraception, abortion and homosexuality. My peachy baby head was dowsed with holy water over your baptismal font in 1973. I didn’t ask to become a member of your rotten organisation, and I have no recourse to leave. So 52 years later, I’m back to prance and dust away cobwebs from your concrete arches like the big pansy that you abhor. This is, after all, my church.

About Austin Hearne
Austin Hearne is an artist from Dublin. He holds an MFA from NCAD (2016). His film work Whispers won Best Irish Short at the Gaze film festival (2022). Recent solos shows include Love Letters to Cardinal Raymo at Gorey School of Art (2021), Slabs at The Complex (2021), Requiem For Raymo at The Royal Hibernian Gallery (RHA)(2022-2023), Slabs II and Whispers at The Mermaid Arts Centre (2023) and Raymo’s Spawn at Garter Lane (2024). Recent group shows Images Are All We Have at PhotoIreland Festival (2022), Speech Sounds at Visual (2022), Confessions at Lismore Castle Arts (2023), Mysterious Ways at The Glucksman (UCC) (2024) and Staying With the Trouble at IMMA (2025).  Austin is a founding member and one half of the experimental queer goth music act Satin Shadow, they have released 4 albums to date. He is currently a 3 year studio member at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios.

This workshop invites participants to explore performance art and embodied practices as a means of self-care. It offers a supportive space grounded in the interconnectedness of body and mind. Through breathing, movement, free-writing, visualisation, and gentle peer sharing, participants will be guided in practices that nurture wellbeing.

All are welcome, with particular care extended to those in caregiving roles, whether for children, relatives, friends, or colleagues, who are often focused on the needs of others.

No prior experience is required.

We give them data–they give us hot air.

Terra is an android technological diviner who has been hired to map the route of heat produced from the AWS data center through the public utility system that is used to warm select municipal buildings in Tallaght. Her embodied actions create a double tracing through footsteps and collected breaths; bodily rhythms keeping pace with machinic tempos. The performance culminates in a Ritual of Tracing to be presented outside the South Dublin County offices.

Hot Air asks what happens when we attune ourselves to the invisible flows of our computational infrastructures, drawing attention to our unacknowledged entanglements and complicities with these systems.

This performance is part of an ongoing collaboration between Putnam and author Mike McCormack, initially presented as Under the Feet of Shadows, which merges science fiction with folklore, imagined and actual mythologies, and histories of technology in Ireland as a multimedia speculative inquiry.

About EL Putnam
EL Putnam is an artist working predominantly in performance art and digital technologies. Their practice focuses on borders and entanglements, particularly the interplay of human embodiment with the machinic. EL actively presents artworks and performances across the United States, Europe, and beyond. They have received funding from Culture Ireland, the Arts Council of Ireland, and Westmeath County Council.  Exhibitions of note include Under the Feet of Shadows with Mike McCormack at Mart Gallery in Dublin, Ireland (2024) and CIACLA in Los Angeles, CA (2025), the solo exhibition PseudoRandom at Emerson Contemporary in Boston, MA, USA (2023), and Living Canvas in Dublin, Ireland (2022). They are Associate Professor of Digital Media at Maynooth University and reside in Co. Westmeath.

Thresh/Hold is a site-responsive performance rooted in the grotesque as a methodology of excavation, disruption, and transformation. Set within the Losset at St. Maelruain’s Church, the work stages a charged encounter between Tallaght-born poets Katharine Tynan and Alice Furlong. Through live action, text, and ritual, it explores entangled legacies of empire, faith, land, and gendered voice.

The performance draws a sharp contrast between Tynan’s Palestine: 1917 and Furlong’s The Warnings. The friction between the two becomes a way to confront ongoing histories of erasure. The Losset once a vessel of communal sustenance, becomes altar, protest, and threshold. This performance act is an embodied gesture of resistance and solidarity, calling attention to what is being omitted in our histories, our present narratives and our potential future records. 

About Emma Brennan
Emma Brennan is an interdisciplinary artist based between Dublin and Belfast. The core of her practice is in the cyclical processes of breathing and living is formed upon the pillars of; gestation, birth, life and death. These moments centred on the female body are within a specific context of Ireland. Emma’s research explored methods around space where making and ritural, landscape and the body fold into one another. Feminist readings of ancient Ireland explore traditional practices, mythology through the space in which she occupies. 

SPECTRUM is a high-energy evening takeover of Rua Red and Parthalán Place, co-produced by SoFFt Productions, Rua Red and South Dublin County Council as part of Culture Night Late 2025. Celebrating fluidity, transformation, and the thrill of shared experience, SPECTRUM blurs the lines between performer, audience, and environment in a constantly shifting landscape of sound, movement, and visual art.

With music collectives BPM and Burner Records at the helm, Rua Red’s gallery transforms into a dynamic live performance space, featuring live sets from artists across both collectives. Meanwhile visual artist Robin Price produces a spectacle of laser and projected visuals that appear as one unified kinetic experience. From large-scale projections to roaming performances and immersive sound zones, the night promises a blend of spontaneity and spectacle.

Outdoors in Parthalán Place, a block party-style celebration unfolds with live graffiti art, contemporary and hip-hop dance, and engaging performances, creating a buzzing atmosphere that invites everyone to get involved.

SPECTRUM also proudly features performances from young artists from NOISE Music, South Dublin County Council Arts Office’s inclusive music programme for 8—18 year olds, as well as community-based performers from Creative Places MacUíllíam - a three-year initiative rooted in Tallaght. This programme supports and develops local arts projects that grow from the strengths of the MacUíllíam community itself.

SPECTRUM will feature the SoFFt Space, a breakaway space designed with neurodivergent audience members in mind. Offering a moment of calm within this thrilling Culture Night programme.

Expect cross-disciplinary collaborations, shifting spaces, and unexpected encounters. SPECTRUM invites you to move, witness, and become part of something electric — an event that offers something for everyone. Come and experience a night of creativity, energy, and connection.

Proudly funded by the Arts Council’s Culture Night Late Fund and South Dublin County Council.

Xchange is a two-hour event, which will provide space for collaboration among live art practitioners, dancers, poets, activists, and sound artists who are interested in experimenting as part of a performance art jam. 

The Xchange launch event will see co-founders Olivia Hassett and Paul Regan perform with Lauren Kelly, Fenia Kotsopoulou, Marian Marcote, and other invited artists, whilst also providing space for others to join the group performance.

Supported by Rua Red, Xchange will then occur every two months beginning in November with the exception of an event on September 27 as part of Becoming Tallaght Performance Art Festival. 

Xchange aims to promote live art locally and beyond as an important and unconventional art form.

Exhibiting Artists: David Beattie, Ala Buisir, Cecilia Bullo, Pauline Cummins, Lauren Kelly, Maria McKinney, and Fiona Whelan

Together in Commune, is the first exhibition of Rua Red’s Studio Programme, curated by Marysia Więckiewicz and featuring work by Rua Red’s current resident studio artists: David Beattie, Ala Buisir, Cecilia Bullo, Pauline Cummins, Lauren Kelly, Maria McKinney, and Fiona Whelan.

This exhibition marks an important moment for Rua Red, highlighting the depth and breadth of the practices nurtured and supported within these walls. Working closely with the curator in the months leading up to the exhibition, each artist presents work that reflects their individual practice, while collectively exploring themes central to socially engaged contemporary art.

Rua Red’s Studio Programme, awarded through panel selection for a period of one to three years, is a core pillar of the organisation’s mission; to support artists at every stage of their career. The studios at Rua Red provide artists with time, space, and a supportive community that encourages sustained and critical artistic practice. In turn, the presence of these artists in the building fundamentally shapes Rua Red as a centre for enquiry and experimentation. Their work contributes to a vibrant and evolving ecology of ideas that extends beyond the studio walls, enriching both the organisation and the wider cultural landscape of South Dublin County and beyond.

This workshop explores the creation of sculptural talismans and garlands as gestures of protection, healing, and connection. Rooted in ecofeminist ideas, cross-cultural folklore, and ritual practices, participants are invited to work with natural materials such clay, fibre, botanical elements, and found objects to develop tactile forms that hold personal or collective meaning.

Participants will be encouraged to consider what rituals or protective gestures feel relevant to them within contemporary urban life, migration histories, or ancestral memory. The resulting works (written intentions, small symbolic objects/sculptures) will be activated throughout the exhibition and could become part of a time-durational installation as part of the artist’s exhibited work.

In this ‘In Conversation’ event, artist Fiona Whelan will reflect on the content and process of making The River – a large-scale visual mapping of the processual features of her arts practice which engages with systemic power relations and inequalities through long-term collaborations.

Fiona will be in conversation with artist and researcher Dr Ciaran Smyth who supported her in a process of recursive mapping, as the pair explored new cartographic strategies for visualising this collaborative and socially engaged practice.

The conversation will be moderated by Carolann Courtney (Create).

Rua Red’s annual open call is an opportunity for graduates, emerging and established artists, living on the island of Ireland, to submit their work to be shown as part of a group exhibition.

Theme: Right Here, Right Now

Rua Red invites artists to submit work that responds to the theme Right Here, Right Now. Work that speaks to the urgency of the present moment, that reflects lived realities, challenges inherited systems and reimagines futures from the ground up. Whether personal, political, poetic or protest-driven, we welcome proposals/work that is rooted in the here and now, work that speaks from within communities, that is unapologetically human.

Artworks submitted may be in any discipline: painting, sculpture, print, ceramics, glass, photography etc, from artists living on the island of Ireland, or who identify Ireland as home. 

All work submitted will be considered by a selection panel that will meet and select the work. 

Not all work submitted will be selected. 

The panel will also select a ‘Judges Choice’, that awards one of the selected artists with a solo show in Rua Red’s gallery 2 during the ensuing 12—month period.

The sale of artworks during the exhibition is subject to 25% commission. Sales will be managed by Rua Red.

Each application must include the following:

• A fully completed application form

• Between 1 and 3 artworks for consideration

When completing the application form, please note the following:

• You may include 1 to 2 images per artwork

• Image files must be clearly labeled with the artist’s name and artwork title (e.g., JaneDoe_ArtworkTitle.jpg)

• JPG files only will be accepted

• Do not send video files directly. Video works should be submitted as a link (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo)

Part of the Fabric invites migrant and/or second-generation communities to take part in a one-day workshop exploring collective and archival ancestry through a guided sublimation printing process. Images of family heritage and cultural motifs will be embedded into the fabric of the Irish flag, reclaiming space, resisting exclusion, and redefining belonging. It's a declaration: we are here, and we are part of the peace the flag promises.

Participants are asked to bring materials to create individual ancestral maps: this can include photographs of family members and ancestors, documents, objects, or anything that may represent your culture. We will use a copy machine and printer to ensure that original photographs are not damaged; digital images/documents are welcome; there will also be online resources available for ancestry research and image finding.

The flags will be taken home by each participant; those willing will also have their finished pieces documented for the ongoing project.

Part of the Fabric challenges who gets to claim Irish identity by reimagining the national flag as a shared symbol, not a gatekeeping tool. It highlights the presence, histories, and contributions of migrants in Ireland, showing that their stories are not separate from the national narrative—they are woven into it.

Artists are invited to engage in a reflective one-day workshop to explore the methodological and processual features of their practice as an artist. Facilitated by Fiona Whelan, each workshop will begin with participants being introduced to The River, a large scale drawing that visualises the continuous processual features of her collaborative arts practice. Each artist will then be invited to engage in a visualisation of their own practice, leading a focused critical dialogue that considers the labour and processes, both visible and invisible, that underpin artistic practice.

As part of Cattle and Capital, artist Maria McKinney invites visitors to take part in a short survey in response to her gallery installation. Visitor feedback will contribute to ongoing research by Teagasc, helping us explore the connections between art, agriculture, and society.

Share your perspective and be part of the conversation.

Join curator Marysia Więckiewicz for a walk-around gallery tour of Together in Commune as she explores the processes of research, dialogue, experimentation, and collective exchange that unfold within the artists’ studio.

Against the Oppressor is a live performance by Lauren Kelly as part of her gallery installation that highlights the current political conflict in Ireland. The flag that represents all backgrounds shows us the path to peace. Kelly calls on people to remember the original meaning and history of the Irish flag. 

In a climate of blame toward the individual victims of an unjust system Kelly advocates for a middle ground where we can coexist peacefully and instead direct our focus towards the source of the power that oppresses us all. Ireland is now a home to many, but once the Irish had to emigrate. Refugees in Ireland are falling victim to anger that should be directed at the government. 

Whose flag? Our flag.

Exhibiting Artists: Monika Crowley, Szymon Minias, Aoife Nolan, Melissa O'Donnell, Eileen O'Sullivan, Guia Rossi and Lana Zubovic.

Presenting the work of seven artists graduating from the MFA Fine Art programme at NCAD in partnership with Rua Red. The show features contemporary art ranging across painting, print and installation addressing themes of ecology, craft and DIY repair culture, mortality and domestic time, the collective unconscious and post digital networks and systems culture.

The MFA Fine Art supports a range of practice-based inquiry and discursive approaches across the field of contemporary art including public art, performance, moving image, digital media, painting, print, sculpture, expanded participatory and emergent practices. The MFA at NCAD is aimed at creative practitioners who want to develop advanced art projects responsive to contemporary contexts. MFA students develop individual research pathways, connecting their projects to the visual arts and wider audiences and situations. NCAD has been honoured to build a partnership with Rua Red to showcase the work of MFA Fine Art students over the last few years. NCAD shares Rua Red’s ethos and commitment to connecting with the diversity of local communities. 

An invitation to an exchange between Francis Halsall writer and educator and MFA graduate, artist Melissa O’Donnell supported by co Arthology Collective artists Eileen O’Sullivan and Monika Crowley, with audience participation encouraged.

Building on Francis Halsall’s earlier experiments in dialogue with Basic Space: Dirty Solutions and his performative conversation with Mark O’Gorman at the Hugh Lane, Decoder Loop continues to explore conversation as a site of communication and control. For this event the staging of conditions and assignment of roles serve as both structure and provocation. Vocal projection techniques, syncopated rhythms, and metronomic tempos form a musical underpinning, which is intentionally disrupted—inviting glitches, interruptions, and moments of failure as integral to the process.

Francis Halsall is a lecturer in Visual Culture at National College of Art and Design, Dublin where he is co-director of the Master Program: Art in the Contemporary World. He works on ideas of systems and their cultural and philosophical significance. His book Contemporary Art, Systems and the Aesthetics of Dispersion (Routledge, 2024) recently came out in paperback. Melissa O’Donnell is an interdisciplinary artist whose MFA work examines the societal impact of powerful systems and institutional marginalisation through painting and her self-devised De:Coding Framework. By combining cognitive strategies with experimental processes, she explores how we perceive and respond to systemic issues. Using repurposed materials, coded visuals, and moving images, her practice invites reflection, resistance, and re-engagement with dominant narratives—often through a lens informed by neurodiverse cognitive approaches

**Please be aware that this event is being recorded.

NCAD Works: A Curators Response is a public walk-around of the NCAD MFA Fine Art Graduate Show with Georgie Thompson (Irish Museum of Modern Art), and participating artists; Monika Crowley, Szymon Minias, Aoife Nolan, Melissa O'Donnell, Eileen O'Sullivan, Guia Rossi, and Lana Zubovic.

Welcome to the MPDA Degree Show 2025 at Rua Red, proudly presented by the School of Media, TU Dublin. The work showcased here represents just a small sample of projects completed by final year students – please note that much of the work on display is excerpted from larger portfolios of work and is intended to give a flavour of the breadth of production from our degree programme.    

Previously known as BA (Hons) Audio Visual Media and then BA (Hons) Creative Digital Media, the programme is now running for 30 years in Tallaght. The Media Production & Digital Arts degree at TU Dublin Tallaght is a unique programme in which students take practical modules across a range of media subjects, for example TV and Digital Video Production, Design, Multimedia and Animation, Photography and Digital Imaging, Audio and Radio Production and Emerging Media Theory and Practices.

Students design and develop their own portfolio websites and many students are involved in managing and broadcasting on the college radio station.  Practical work is complemented by study in modules such as Screen Studies, Media Politics, Media Law and Culture & Technology. This unique mix provides students with a dynamic skill-set, and many of our graduates go on to work throughout regional, national and international creative and cultural industries, and to complete postgraduate studies in related disciplines. 

Students will be invigilating throughout the week.

Array Collective presents The Goose and the Common, a new exhibition commissioned by Rua Red. Upending the language of protest, surveillance, defence and displacement the collective invites the viewer to journey through a series of spaces where organising and collaboration are encouraged.

As we find ourselves in this polemic moment of “ussuns” vs “themmuns” it is important that we continue to find our voices and make noise. It’s equally important to recognise those who are restricted from speaking up and how acts of solidarity exist beyond the streets.

Visitors to the gallery can make use of the wearable pieces and take a moment of rest, work together in weaving or sing out in solidarity.

The exhibition takes its title from the 18th century poem The Goose and the Common, a reaction to a colonial legislative act that privatized common land. The central theme of the poem revolves around the hypocrisy of laws that punish individuals for minor thefts while allowing the elite to steal communal resources for their own personal gain without any consequence.

Are you an aspiring poet, an activist interested in experimenting with creative ways to respond to injustice, or someone looking to try something new, using words as your toolkit? Come along to Rua Red for an evening poetry workshop with acclaimed writer and activist Sarah Clancy.

No professional experience or training required: this workshop is open to beginning to intermediate writers. Please bring along two printed copies an ‘in-progress’ piece of writing for workshopping and feedback.

About Sarah Clancy
Sarah Clancy is an award-winning poet and activist. Clancy has published three poetry collections, Stacey and the Mechanical Bull (Lapwing Press 2011), Thanks for Nothing, Hippies (Salmon Poetry 2012) and The Truth and Other Stories (Salmon Poetry 2014) and has had her work published in ‘Queering the Green’ (The Lifeboat 2022) and ‘The Art of Place – People and Landscape of County Clare’ (Liffey Press 2021).

In 2021 her poem Cherishing for Beginners was the subject of a poetry-film collaboration between the Aidan Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation and IMMA and was shown as part of the Ghosts from the Recent Past Exhibition. Her work has been published and anthologised in Ireland, Canada, Mexico, Nicaragua, Slovenia, Spain, Poland and the USA.

She works in community development and has been involved in many campaigns including those concerning socio economic rights, marriage equality, reproductive and migrant rights.

Sarah’s essay Array Say Relax, which responds to Array Collective’s exhibition The Goose and the Common, is available for free at Rua Red’s reception desk.

Join us for a screening of Wholly Trinity followed by a chat and Q & A with Dr. Emma Campbell, Array Collective Artist and co-convenor of Alliance for Choice, and Dr. Peter Keogh, Professor of Health and Society, School of Health Wellbeing and Social Care, The Open University in Ireland.

"…art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation." - Angela Davis

This short film, produced collaboratively by The Open University, Alliance for Choice and Array Collective explores the role that artists and creatives played in campaigning for abortion rights in Ireland. Art has always been a powerful vehicle for social justice and the struggle for abortion rights throughout the island of Ireland was no exception. This beautiful short film depicts the commitment, creativity, colour and emotion that artists brought to the Irish abortion campaigns. Through interviews with the artists themselves, it describes how artists used creativity and performance to inspire people to action, ignite powerful conversations and build communities of solidarity. It explores how art can change opinions, transcend barriers, shape narratives and make history, her story and their story.

• Narration: Emma Campbell (Alliance for Choice, Array Collective, Ulster University)

• Contributors: Alice Maher, Laura O’Connor and Alessia Cargnelli (Array Collective), Helena Walsh

• Director/Camera/Editor: Gerard Black

• Producer: Naomi Connor (Alliance for Choice)

• Academic Consultant: Professor Peter Keogh (The Open University)

• Graphics and titles: Brendan Morris

Special thanks to Array Collective, Speaking of IMELDA, Abortion Rights Campaign, Alliance for Choice, My Body My Life, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, The Ulster Museum. Every single woman and person refused, denied and forced to travel to access their right to abortion healthcare and bodily autonomy, and every single artist and activist who made decriminalisation of abortion a reality in Ireland.

This screening is presented as part of Rua Red's Belonging Film Programme, which further investigates themes of the Gallery's exhibition programme through curated film screenings and artist talks.

Join us for the launch of Array Say Relax by Sarah Clancy at Rua Red on Feb 27, 6pm talk with Array Collective + Q&A. Following the launch of The Goose and the Common by Array Collective at Rua Red, we are pleased to present a new publication featuring a critical response by acclaimed poet and activist Sarah Clancy.

To celebrate the launch of the publication, join us for an engaging discussion between members of Array Collective and Sarah Clancy, followed by an audience Q&A.

This event is free and open to all, come be part of the conversation!

About Sarah Clancy
Sarah Clancy is an award-winning poet and activist. Clancy has published three poetry collections, Stacey and the Mechanical Bull (Lapwing Press 2011), Thanks for Nothing, Hippies (Salmon Poetry 2012) and The Truth and Other Stories (Salmon Poetry 2014) and has had her work published in ‘Queering the Green’ (The Lifeboat 2022) and ‘The Art of Place – People and Landscape of County Clare’ (Liffey Press 2021).

In 2021 her poem Cherishing for Beginners was the subject of a poetry-film collaboration between the Aidan Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation and IMMA and was shown as part of the Ghosts from the Recent Past Exhibition. Her work has been published and anthologised in Ireland, Canada, Mexico, Nicaragua, Slovenia, Spain, Poland and the USA.

She works in community development and has been involved in many campaigns including those concerning socio economic rights, marriage equality, reproductive and migrant rights.

Featuring: Olga Anacka, Aurelie, Ella Bertilsson, Missy Brinkmeyer, Ala Buisir, Cecilia Bullo, Niamh Coffey, Patrick Colhoun, Michael Croghan, Gemma Crowe, Pat Curran, Anca Danila, Karen Donnellan, Neva Elliott, Ann Ensor, Breege Fahy, Gavin Fahy & Anna Heisterkamp, e l fitzell, Paula Fitzsimons, Harry Walsh Foreman, Jane Fogarty, Louise Gambrill, Betty Gannon, Sophie Gough, Fiona Hackett, Michelle Harton, Dorothy Hunter, Myra Jago, Barbara Lee, Nathan Lowry, David Lunney, Lydia MacBride, Jan McCullough, Roisín McGuigan, Colleen Eilìs Murphy, Jillian Murphy, Fionna Murray, Ste Murray, Sorcha O'Brien, Vicky Ochala, Sorca O'Farrell, Fiona O'Neill, Róisín O'Sullivan, Venus Patel, Rae Perry, Ben Reilly, Donna Romano, Domnick Sorace, Lily Walkington, Tina Whelan, Selena Quilligan

Each year Rua Red holds an annual open-call exhibition of fine and applied arts. Work is invited from artists in any discipline and at all career stages. The Open serves as a platform to support and encourage emerging and established artists. It is an opportunity to see the breadth and vibrancy of the work being created today and to find new and unexpected connections.

This year's exhibition explores the theme of borders and boundaries. A border separates one thing from another. The part or edge of a surface or area that forms its outer boundary, verge, periphery, or rim. A line, limit, or geographic feature separating one space from another.

Domnick Sorace is the recipient of the 2018 Annual Open Judge’s Choice Award.

The sun rises; a brand new day begins. And sometimes it starts with the word 'Unfortunately.' A word that signifies the mismatch between hopes and reality. 'Thank you for your efforts, but unfortunately…' Many of my mornings start with finding this word in my inbox.

I get it. Living in society isn’t always an easy game to play, but unfortunately. Sometimes I just want to scream! Maybe that’s the true way to use unfortunately. Do you feel the same?

Sun of Unfortunately is Seiko’s latest interactive artwork for Rua Red, inviting audiences into a reflection on this shared sentiment. She sculpted 100 clay “Brain Human” figures, each gazing toward the srising sun, each hand-molded, their imperfect shapes making each of them human.

Seiko’s work highlights contrast: light and shadow, new beginnings and harsh realities, human imperfection and incomplete feelings. It’s an exploration of her core practice, “World In Between,” a meditation on the dualities in everyday life.

Featuring: Olga Anacka, Aurelie, Ella Bertilsson, Missy Brinkmeyer, Ala Buisir, Cecilia Bullo, Niamh Coffey, Patrick Colhoun, Michael Croghan, Gemma Crowe, Pat Curran, Anca Danila, Karen Donnellan, Neva Elliott, Ann Ensor, Breege Fahy, Gavin Fahy & Anna Heisterkamp, e l fitzell, Paula Fitzsimons, Harry Walsh Foreman, Jane Fogarty, Louise Gambrill, Betty Gannon, Sophie Gough, Fiona Hackett, Michelle Harton, Dorothy Hunter, Myra Jago, Barbara Lee, Nathan Lowry, David Lunney, Lydia MacBride, Jan McCullough, Roisín McGuigan, Colleen Eilìs Murphy, Jillian Murphy, Fionna Murray, Ste Murray, Sorcha O'Brien, Vicky Ochala, Sorca O'Farrell, Fiona O'Neill, Róisín O'Sullivan, Venus Patel, Rae Perry, Ben Reilly, Donna Romano, Domnick Sorace, Lily Walkington, Tina Whelan, Selena Quilligan

Each year Rua Red holds an annual open-call exhibition of fine and applied arts. Work is invited from artists in any discipline and at all career stages. The Open serves as a platform to support and encourage emerging and established artists. It is an opportunity to see the breadth and vibrancy of the work being created today and to find new and unexpected connections.

This year's exhibition explores the theme of borders and boundaries. A border separates one thing from another. The part or edge of a surface or area that forms its outer boundary, verge, periphery, or rim. A line, limit, or geographic feature separating one space from another.

Domnick Sorace is the recipient of the 2018 Annual Open Judge’s Choice Award.

The sun rises; a brand new day begins. And sometimes it starts with the word 'Unfortunately.' A word that signifies the mismatch between hopes and reality. 'Thank you for your efforts, but unfortunately…' Many of my mornings start with finding this word in my inbox.

I get it. Living in society isn’t always an easy game to play, but unfortunately. Sometimes I just want to scream! Maybe that’s the true way to use unfortunately. Do you feel the same?

Sun of Unfortunately is Seiko’s latest interactive artwork for Rua Red, inviting audiences into a reflection on this shared sentiment. She sculpted 100 clay “Brain Human” figures, each gazing toward the srising sun, each hand-molded, their imperfect shapes making each of them human.

Seiko’s work highlights contrast: light and shadow, new beginnings and harsh realities, human imperfection and incomplete feelings. It’s an exploration of her core practice, “World In Between,” a meditation on the dualities in everyday life.

Marianne Keating is a London-based Irish artist whose practice examines intersecting and overlooked narratives of Irish emigration—initially through indentured labour—to the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica, where the Irish were recruited as a new labour force after the abolition of enslavement. and the broader legacies of British imperialism in Ireland, Jamaica, and beyond. Keating's film installations combine a range of archival materials, found footage, newly shot footage, text, and sound.

An Ciúnas / The Silence traces Irish migration to Jamaica and Britain, from before the Great Famine of 1845–52 to the present day. It identifies key moments in British imperial history, showing how past events shaped contemporary politics and society. The work offers a radical account of Ireland and Jamaica’s struggles for self-determination, the social conditions of nineteenth-century Ireland and today, and the evolution of Jamaica’s political system.

An Ciúnas / The Silence is presented as a multichannel film installation and collages a myriad of moving and still images (often manipulated), either drawn from or referencing public records, online videos and photographs, and newspaper articles. The montage of fragmentary episodes moves back and forth in time and incorporates various creative modes, including textual graphics and audio effects. The overlaying of information, visuals, and sonic outputs amplifies the depicted perspectives, and the work's installation as a continuous loop undermines typical storytelling and the notion of a single official, dominant narrative.

To mark the final day of the programme join us for a panel discussion with Re-rooting Tallaght curators Paul Regan and Lauren Kelly, who will be discussing the week of performances and the wider context of performance in Ireland.

Following the talk, there will be a performance jam in the Rua Red Performance Space starting from 2pm with the artists that took part in Re-rooting Tallaght. The aim of this performance jam session is to create dialogs between artists without rehearsals and focus purely on the live action. You are invited to come along and watch to mark the ending of this years Tallaght Performance Art Festival.

Featured Artists: Venus Patel, Wioletta Ratajczak, Tuqa Al Assarj, Preema Nazia Andaleeb, Fergus Byrne, Áine Phillips, Alastair MacLennan, Deej Fabyc Curated by Lauren Kelly and Paul Regan

Re-rooting Tallaght, Performance Art Festival 2024 invited us to reimagine and approach Tallaght in new ways, whether through different techniques or in a different setting. The featured artists drew deep inspiration from Tallaght’s history and evolving present, and brought a range of personal responses and individual artistic action to the festival.

Tallaght has long been a site of migration, and the selected artists engaged with its diverse, multifaceted communities. Their work centred on stories of belonging and displacement, enriched by the experiences of refugees who have recently joined this community. These diverse perspectives add depth to Tallaght's evolving cultural identity, weaving new narratives into its cultural legacy.

Over the last 18 months Luxembourg artists Stéphanie Rollin and David Brognon have embedded themselves within the community of Tallaght as part of a residency and new commission for Rua Red. The commission titled ‘Templates of Chance’ engages with the process of recovery from addiction and demonstrates how failure, pushing through and progression are an essential part of the process.

Brognon Rollin have been working with people who are on the journey of recovery, with support from addiction services in South Dublin County, specifically JAAD (Jobstown Assisting Drug Dependency) and Tallaght Drug and Alcohol Taskforce, and local community leaders Senator Lynn Ruane and Councillor Mick Duff.

The legacy and importance of what is left behind following a commission is central to Brognon Rollin’s practice. These tokens will be distributed into the centres of recovery and used throughout the county by the community that designed them.

Alternative Ways of Seeing was an exhibition of artwork created by people in custody in classrooms and cells across 14 prisons and 3 post-release centres in Ireland. The work was selected and curated by artist Eddie Cahill, a former prisoner and an inspirational figure in the world of prison arts.

The work selected was informed by Cahill’s lived experience of incarceration and his belief in art’s therapeutic power to overcome trauma. The resulting body of work spanned Ireland’s prisons and showcased the skills taught within the prison education system. Pieces included large, glazed ceramic vases adorned with intricate gold work, canvases of landscapes imagined from confinement, and intricate works in fabric, leather, and beaten copper. Highlights include works crafted from found materials within prisons, such as soap, bread, and stones, transformed into meaningful sculptures reflecting resourcefulness and creativity. The exhibition reflects how the absorbing activity of making art changes lives, boosts self-esteem and improves attitudes, leading to a reduction in offending behaviour and reduced recidivism.

A Good Night’s Sleep was a bold, colourful, immersive intervention created by artist Morag Myerscough with the community of Rua Red.

Rua Red commissioned Myerscough to collaborate with the Irish Refugee Council’s Youth Service, DoubleTake Studio, New Horizon HUB, and the Tallaght Ukrainian community to explore the multifaceted theme of ‘belonging.’

Over 10 months, participants shared their hopes, dreams, fears, and struggles through a series of intensive workshops led by the artist. The groups connected through the power of colour, word, and sound to express themselves. Weaving together the diverse journeys and perspectives of all involved, Morag designed a series of built enclosures that symbolised safe, secure, and warm spaces, forming the foundation of A Good Night’s Sleep. What emerged was a space of warmth and joy, embracing the beauty and richness of each individual experience.

A Good Night’s Sleep was a bold, colourful, immersive intervention created by artist Morag Myerscough with the community of Rua Red.

Rua Red commissioned Myerscough to collaborate with the Irish Refugee Council’s Youth Service, DoubleTake Studio, New Horizon HUB, and the Tallaght Ukrainian community to explore the multifaceted theme of ‘belonging.’

Over 10 months, participants shared their hopes, dreams, fears, and struggles through a series of intensive workshops led by the artist. The groups connected through the power of colour, word, and sound to express themselves. Weaving together the diverse journeys and perspectives of all involved, Morag designed a series of built enclosures that symbolised safe, secure, and warm spaces, forming the foundation of A Good Night’s Sleep. What emerged was a space of warmth and joy, embracing the beauty and richness of each individual experience.

Love Story (2016), a seven-channel video installation, interrogates the mechanics of identification and the conditions under which empathy is produced. The work is based on the personal narratives of six individuals who have fled their countries in response to a range of oppressive conditions: Sarah Ezzat Mardini, a competitive swimmer who escaped war-torn Syria; José Maria João, a former child soldier from Angola; Mamy Maloba Langa, a survivor of sexual violence from the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Shabeena Francis Saveri, a transgender activist from India; Luis Ernesto Nava Molero, a political dissident from Venezuela; and Farah Abdi Mohamed, an idealistic young atheist from Somalia. 

The personal accounts shared by the interviewees are articulated twice by Love Story. In the first space of the installation, re-performed fragments from the six interviews were woven into a fast-paced montage featuring Hollywood actors Alec Baldwin and Julianne Moore (who are cast in the work as themselves: ‘an actor’ and ‘an actress’).

Uprooting Tallaght was the inaugural edition of the annual Performance Art Festival commissioned by Rua Red. Pauline Cummins and Lauren Kelly curated a week-long series of performances featuring artists Elvira Santamaria Torres, Day Magee, The Ljilja, Francis Fay, Michael Dignam, Sinéad O’Donnell, Paul Regan, and Frances Mezzetti.

The group of artists along with the curators themselves created a series of performances that responded to the theme of displacement and belonging with an emphasis placed on locational context. The resultant work from each artist was personal, individually telling of their own experiences with and relationship to their surroundings. This included performances taking place in Rua Red, as well as at historically significant locations across Tallaght such as Bohernabreena, St. Mary's Priory, and St. Maelruain's Monastery.

Rua Red is hosting a retrospective exhibition of the work of the late Jim Cathcart, a local artist and activist. The exhibition features a selection of works from Cathcart’s extensive practice spanning over 30 years. Jim Cathcart graduated from Glasgow School of Art, living and working in Dublin since 1998, and was a resident studio artist in Rua Red from 2011 - 2015.

As a visual artist, Cathcart’s work included printmaking, drawing, painting, murals, banners, and poster design. In addition to exhibiting in galleries in Scotland and Ireland, his work found its way into a variety of public, community, and commercial spaces. Throughout his practice Jim was involved in a long-term quest for socially relevant approaches to art. This led to a number of innovative roles in youth and community-based arts in Scotland and Ireland.

Ala Buisir explores previously untold narratives of Muslim women affected by the War on Terror. In her photographic series Tint of Trauma, Buisir captures the isolation and fear felt by women whose lives have been forever altered by the campaign.

Buisir utilises a camera obscura to produce a dream-like, soft focus, that evokes an otherworldly sense of mystery and fragmented memories while simultaneously serving to preserve the anonymity of her subjects. Accompanying testimonials from the women themselves provided a candid insight into their lived reality.

The 2023 Graduate Degree Show for the TU Dublin (Tallaght Campus) Media Production & Digital Arts. Titled Within, the show highlighted the creative talent of 4th-year students. The graduate showcase featured projects created across the key production areas of the degree programme, including Multimedia, Photography, Video, Audio, and Emerging Media Practices, all grounded in the Critical and Cultural Contexts strand that underpinned the degree's structure.

Projects explored numerous platforms and technologies such as AI, Projection Mapping, 3D Animated Films, and Video Games. The work delved into topics like gender expectations, mental health, LGBT issues in schools, the housing crisis and vacant properties, as well as love, family, and our sense of belonging.

Featured Artists: Walker Shaw, Tallon McGinn, Fiona Somers, Marco Di Sante, Stephanie Rowe, Katie Whyte, Irina Mc Auley, Tammy Quane, Kate Hynes, Evan Dow, Justyna Doherty and Mia Shattock.

MFA students of NCAD presented Bigger Than Us, a group exhibition where 12 artists came together to demystify the creative process and transcend boundaries of difference. Individual artistic endeavours took on a life of their own, extending beyond the studio walls to offer insight into the chaos and uncertainty that shape our contemporary and artistic experiences.

Through paint, media, sculpture, and installation, the exhibition explored diverse outcomes of expectations, embracing humanity in the search for ultimate wonder. Passing a thread through themes of growth, trauma, myth, and fantasy, Bigger Than Us elevated the collective effort to grapple with all that is larger than ourselves.

The Spring Open 2023 at Rua Red showcased the work of 48 artists selected through an open-call, inviting submissions from artists at all stages of their careers across Ireland. This annual exhibition serves as a platform to highlight the breadth and vibrancy of contemporary fine and applied arts, fostering connections between emerging and established artists.

This year’s theme, Displacement and Belonging - Home, explored the multifaceted concept of 'home'; its meaning, location, and emotional resonance. The selected works delved into personal and collective experiences of migration, dislocation, and the shifting sense of belonging in today’s uncertain socio-political landscape. Artists addressed these issues through diverse mediums, reflecting both intimate connections to place and broader societal disconnections.

Featured Artists: Sarah Jayne Booth, Sorcha O’Brien, Mary Burke, Rayleen Clancy, Niamh Clarke, Ishmael Claxton, Lorraine Cleary, John Conway, Michael Croghan, Gemma Crowe, Órlaith Cullinane, Beata Daly, Susan Dolan, Cara Donaghey, Blaine O’Donnell, Karen Donnellan, Olivia O’Dwyer, Mary Fahy, Chris Finnegan, David Fox, Mel French, Emily McGardle, Nasrin Golden, Caoimhe McGuckin, Roisín McGuigan, Seiko Hayase, Aoife Herrity, Sylvia Hill, Edel Hogan, Conor Horgan, Myfanwy Frost Jones, Lauren Kelly, Sharon McKeown, Jo Killalae, Jackie Hudson Lalor, Maelisa Lennon, Eve Li, Jeanette Lowe, Daithi Magner, Ciara McMahon, Bernie Masterson, Sheena Malone, Janet Morris, Joanne Murphy, Olivia Normile, Naomi Sex, Derval Tubridy, Vidya Vivek

I Will Follow You Into The Dark showcased a body of work rooted in painting and sculpture, exploring the emotional resonance of public spaces such as places of worship, stadiums, and sensory rooms. Drawing inspiration from how these environments are designed to channel energy and evoke specific auras, McGrane’s work is also deeply personal, influenced by memories of family and the places he frequented during his upbringing.

While secular in nature, the work often references religious and spiritual themes. Sculptures incorporate visual elements from Christian and mythological art, while the vibrant, layered colours in the paintings are reminiscent of stained glass. The repetitive physical movements involved in creating the works lend a meditative quality to the process, blurring the line between art-making and ritual.

McGrane’s focus on subjective emotion is expressed through abstraction. His paintings emphasise colour, shape, light, and shadow, using a meticulous technique of layering thin washes of pigment. Long, vertical and horizontal brushstrokes create textured surfaces that evoke both the tranquillity and intensity found in the public spaces that inspire his practice.

Starring: Jordanne Jones, James O’Driscoll, Louise Lewis, Pom Boyd, Sean Dyas, and Ciara Byrne.

Mary Magdalene; A prostitute, a mad bitch, a woman only important because Jesus forgave her. Up until now, men have painted the picture of Mary Magdalene. Tina Malone is on a mission to clear her name.

It’s 2022, we’re in an imaginary Tallaght. Neoliberalism is the prevailing faith based religion, and money gives men the power to buy any experience they want. John Brophy TD, a community activist with a Jesus complex, orders Tina to deliver ‘A Mary Magdalene Experience’. He wants Tina to play her as a fallen woman that he can save, but she won’t play that part. She’s discovered the ‘lost’ Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and she has a better idea.

A Mary Magdalene Experience a film by Grace Dyas, correcting the record once and for all.

Starring: Jordanne Jones, James O’Driscoll, Louise Lewis, Pom Boyd, Sean Dyas, and Ciara Byrne.

Mary Magdalene; A prostitute, a mad bitch, a woman only important because Jesus forgave her. Up until now, men have painted the picture of Mary Magdalene. Tina Malone is on a mission to clear her name.

It’s 2022, we’re in an imaginary Tallaght. Neoliberalism is the prevailing faith based religion, and money gives men the power to buy any experience they want. John Brophy TD, a community activist with a Jesus complex, orders Tina to deliver ‘A Mary Magdalene Experience’. He wants Tina to play her as a fallen woman that he can save, but she won’t play that part. She’s discovered the ‘lost’ Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and she has a better idea.

A Mary Magdalene Experience a film by Grace Dyas, correcting the record once and for all.

The Tower is a new film installation by Jesse Jones and the third exhibition in The Magdalene Series at Rua Red. This work is the second part of Jones’ trilogy, following Tremble Tremble, for the Irish Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017.

Collaborating with Rua Red’s dancers in residence, Junk Ensemble, and featuring a cast including Olwen Fouéré and Naomi Moonveld-Nkosi, The Tower delves into the figures of mystics and heretics, posing the question: Who came before the witches? Drawing from the writings of medieval female Christian mystics, it explores the women persecuted as heretics before the 17th-century witch trials, uncovering lost knowledge of devotional and ecstatic visions.

Through immersive visuals, music by Hildegarde of Bingen, and the writings of Marguerite Porete, The Tower reclaims the radical spiritual potential of women, challenging historical narratives shaped by patriarchy and shame, while envisioning alternative futures rooted in divine love and mystical power.

The Map is a monumental textile sculpture by Alice Maher and Rachel Fallon, presented as the second exhibition in The Magdalene Series at Rua Red.

Spanning the vast space of Gallery One, The Map creates an alternative world with its own continents, winds, and constellations. Its richly worked surface is an epic Mappa Mundi where the structures and languages of cartography are used to imagine and re-imagine the life, legacy, and mythology of Mary Magdalene and her impact on women’s lives. An alternative topographic and psychic landscape is uncovered in this witty, complex un-picking of the established narrative of Mary Magdalene.

Hand-embroidered, sewn, painted, and crocheted over two and a half years over three lockdowns, the work embodies the often-invisible labour of women. Utilising the iconography of Renaissance maps and medieval tapestries, as well as the language of Victorian ‘cartes de tendre’ and moral schemas such as 'the Pilgrim's Progress', The Map subverts and challenges the very belief systems and power structures that these maps were established to uphold.

We Are The Map; is an ekphrasis / intimate, immersive sound response to The Map by writer Sinéad Gleeson and composer Stephen Shannon. Their incantatory sound quest is narrated by an ‘everywoman’ who moves around new terrain. The everywoman’s freedom of movement is in contrast to the many women who were unable to escape the laundries, mother & baby homes, or homes where they worked non-stop. We Are The Map is divided into 24 sections echoing the 24 books of the Odyssey. It's a journey, a pilgrim's progress, a quest through new lands and terrains.

Gleeson and Shannon collaborated on the sound and texture of the piece, adding music from Mary Barnecutt, Sadhbh Sullivan, and Matthew Nolan. It builds to a final chorus of 36 individual voices united in a mantra; their herstories filling areas of Mahers and Fallon’s Mappa Mundi. 

The Map is a monumental textile sculpture by Alice Maher and Rachel Fallon, presented as the second exhibition in The Magdalene Series at Rua Red.

Spanning the vast space of Gallery One, The Map creates an alternative world with its own continents, winds, and constellations. Its richly worked surface is an epic Mappa Mundi where the structures and languages of cartography are used to imagine and re-imagine the life, legacy, and mythology of Mary Magdalene and her impact on women’s lives. An alternative topographic and psychic landscape is uncovered in this witty, complex un-picking of the established narrative of Mary Magdalene.

Hand-embroidered, sewn, painted, and crocheted over two and a half years over three lockdowns, the work embodies the often-invisible labour of women. Utilising the iconography of Renaissance maps and medieval tapestries, as well as the language of Victorian ‘cartes de tendre’ and moral schemas such as 'the Pilgrim's Progress', The Map subverts and challenges the very belief systems and power structures that these maps were established to uphold.

We Are The Map; is an ekphrasis / intimate, immersive sound response to The Map by writer Sinéad Gleeson and composer Stephen Shannon. Their incantatory sound quest is narrated by an ‘everywoman’ who moves around new terrain. The everywoman’s freedom of movement is in contrast to the many women who were unable to escape the laundries, mother & baby homes, or homes where they worked non-stop. We Are The Map is divided into 24 sections echoing the 24 books of the Odyssey. It's a journey, a pilgrim's progress, a quest through new lands and terrains.

Gleeson and Shannon collaborated on the sound and texture of the piece, adding music from Mary Barnecutt, Sadhbh Sullivan, and Matthew Nolan. It builds to a final chorus of 36 individual voices united in a mantra; their herstories filling areas of Mahers and Fallon’s Mappa Mundi. 

They Come Then, The Birds is a powerful body of work by Amanda Coogan, commissioned by Rua Red as part of The Magdalene Series. Coogan draws inspiration from the Wrens of the Curragh, a group of 19th-century women who lived on the fringes of society near the military camp at the Curragh, County Kildare. Viewed as outcasts and prostitutes, the Wrens lived communally in makeshift nests among the furze bushes, supporting each other through shared resources and earnings from sex work. Coogan parallels their experiences with the historical treatment of Mary Magdalene, both marginalised as wayward women who defied societal norms.

The performance incorporates Christian and pagan rituals, sign language, and evocative symbolism. Performers wear costumes of torn net curtains, scarlet fabric, and stretched nylon, blurring identities while referencing judgment and surveillance. Rich metaphors, golf balls, chocolate offerings, and looking glasses, enhance the multisensory experience. The gallery space was infused with the scent of furze bushes and the deep cello sounds of Mary Barnecutt’s soundtrack, creating an immersive exploration of social exclusion, resilience, and feminine power.

These Four Walls was a showcase of work created by Media Production & Digital Arts students from Technological University Dublin (Tallaght Campus), reflecting on life during a global pandemic, physical and mental restrictions, and the joy and sadness that the students experienced in their final year of university. The collection consisted of impressive photography, audio, multimedia, and film production projects created by students within the four walls of their homes.

Katherine Sankey’s art works investigate mutation, adaptation, colonisation and power. They explore structure, supply, and degradation; asking questions about nature, the natural, the body, and function. It is both a deeply serious and lightly playful project. Abstract, cerebral, visceral and immediate, it expresses both stagnation and catharsis.

Sankey uses natural and human-made media–whittled tree-trunks, polished and re-used plumbing pipes, discarded medical and electrical components, porcelain. Her sculpture is sprawling and minutely-detailed. She works with waste materials and detritus to produce unique creations, technically finessed termite mounds of piping, wood and minerals; supply systems that begin underground and replicate in unforeseen patterns, parasitically invading the host space.

Containment at Rua Red seeks to challenge assumptions about both the boundaries of the human and what constitutes the ‘natural’ object. It holds a grimy, distorted mirror to ‘the real’. In its uncanny representations of embodied experience, it is about dis-ease, disturbance, anxiety, illness, and repair.

2020 was a year like no other. It took away freedom of movement but provided time to stop and reflect, it curbed emotions and touch but made every human interaction valued. It created fear and anxiety but brought consideration and care. It quietened voices through masks but made demonstrations stronger.

Not only was 2020 the year of the pandemic, it was also the year when George Floyd was brutally murdered by police and people turned out on mass to fight for justice and equality. It was a year when forest fires ravaged land and lives, and Greta Thunberg echoed her generation’s anger on future devastation unless ways are changed. 2020 was also the year that Donald Trump fell, a toxic time of corruption, injustice and racism ended. Hindsight is 2020 explored the events and impact of this pivotal year through the work of 36 artists selected via open call.

Featured Artists: Lee Hamill, Denis Burke, Sinéad O’Neill-Nicholl, Spencer Glover, Dave Madigan, Irene O'Neill, Kerry Guinan, Aisling Ní Aodha, Season Dailey, Ann Ensor, Paul McGrane, Jason Deans, John O’Reilly, Jack Knowles, Natalie Pullen, Conan McIvor, Alan Raggett, Sanja Todorović, Daithi Magner, Sheila McCarron, Garvan Corr, Anna Donovan, Celine Sheridan, Simon McDermott, Basil Al-Rawi, Sarah Edmondson, Saidhbhín Gibson, Matthew Wilson, William Bock, Jeanette Lowe, Ciaran Harper, Blaine O’Donnell, Augustine O Donoghue, Miriam Mc Connon, Laragh Pittman, Clodagh Emoe & Crocosmia

Katherine Sankey’s art works investigate mutation, adaptation, colonisation and power. They explore structure, supply, and degradation; asking questions about nature, the natural, the body, and function. It is both a deeply serious and lightly playful project. Abstract, cerebral, visceral and immediate, it expresses both stagnation and catharsis.

Sankey uses natural and human-made media–whittled tree-trunks, polished and re-used plumbing pipes, discarded medical and electrical components, porcelain. Her sculpture is sprawling and minutely-detailed. She works with waste materials and detritus to produce unique creations, technically finessed termite mounds of piping, wood and minerals; supply systems that begin underground and replicate in unforeseen patterns, parasitically invading the host space.

Containment at Rua Red seeks to challenge assumptions about both the boundaries of the human and what constitutes the ‘natural’ object. It holds a grimy, distorted mirror to ‘the real’. In its uncanny representations of embodied experience, it is about dis-ease, disturbance, anxiety, illness, and repair.

2020 was a year like no other. It took away freedom of movement but provided time to stop and reflect, it curbed emotions and touch but made every human interaction valued. It created fear and anxiety but brought consideration and care. It quietened voices through masks but made demonstrations stronger.

Not only was 2020 the year of the pandemic, it was also the year when George Floyd was brutally murdered by police and people turned out on mass to fight for justice and equality. It was a year when forest fires ravaged land and lives, and Greta Thunberg echoed her generation’s anger on future devastation unless ways are changed. 2020 was also the year that Donald Trump fell, a toxic time of corruption, injustice and racism ended. Hindsight is 2020 explored the events and impact of this pivotal year through the work of 36 artists selected via open call.

Featured Artists: Lee Hamill, Denis Burke, Sinéad O’Neill-Nicholl, Spencer Glover, Dave Madigan, Irene O'Neill, Kerry Guinan, Aisling Ní Aodha, Season Dailey, Ann Ensor, Paul McGrane, Jason Deans, John O’Reilly, Jack Knowles, Natalie Pullen, Conan McIvor, Alan Raggett, Sanja Todorović, Daithi Magner, Sheila McCarron, Garvan Corr, Anna Donovan, Celine Sheridan, Simon McDermott, Basil Al-Rawi, Sarah Edmondson, Saidhbhín Gibson, Matthew Wilson, William Bock, Jeanette Lowe, Ciaran Harper, Blaine O’Donnell, Augustine O Donoghue, Miriam Mc Connon, Laragh Pittman, Clodagh Emoe & Crocosmia

We Are Solitary showcased the work of 12 artists whose creations reflected a diverse range of approaches, capturing the essence of our cultural moment during an unprecedented time in history. The artists in the exhibition embraced a variety of styles and impulses, addressing issues that spanned the personal and the communal. Their works explored themes such as colonialism, the impact of ‘alien’ tree species, and the transient nature of existence, while also playing with perception by creating fictional worlds that mirrored the realities of today.

Through connotations and associations, the works suggested to viewers the fleeting nature of life. Contemplative and assertive, the pieces struck a balance between profound reflection and moments of lightness and humour, offering an engaging and thought-provoking experience.

Reset was the second part of a collaboration between artist, educator, and activist Joe Caslin and a group of young people from South Dublin. The project reflected their thoughts and fears as they navigated the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reset launched online with a documentary film capturing the story of the project, the voices of the young participants, and a series of music and spoken word performances by some of Ireland’s leading artists, including Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Ailbhe Reddy, Sasha Terfous, and MayKay.

The artwork and film provided audiences with an insight into the young people’s experiences during the pandemic while offering the South Dublin community an uplifting cultural moment in a difficult year.

Resilient • Resilience is a street art project for Cruinniú na nÓg 2020, led by street artist, illustrator, and activist Joe Caslin.

The project explores the positive ideas of being, becoming, and belonging to the theme of resilience. Through online workshops, Caslin guided nine young people from South Dublin in creating personal images reflecting this theme, culminating in a large-scale artwork.

The young participants' creations will also contribute to a monumental street art installation on the outer wall of Rua Red, visible to thousands of passers-by. This work serves as a beacon of new possibility informed by a new resilient generation of young people as we emerge out of this dark era.

Sonder is the realisation that each friend and passer-by is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. The term is unfamiliar to many, much like the word COVID-19 once was. During the lockdown, we came to recognise the multitude of unique lives unfolding around us.

This year, the Media Production & Digital Arts degree show took place on May 30th in a new format. The graduating students launched their own online exhibition platform, where viewers could explore films and productions created during the semester.

‘Work’ is a vital component of both social and personal identity, providing a daily routine, a sense of self-worth, and supporting physical and mental well-being. Yet, in Ireland, less than 33% of working-age people with a disability are employed.

Artists and performers from DoubleTAKE supported artist studio and the integrated drama ensemble, Doors to Elsewhere, came together in a vibrant exploration of disability and employment through film, performance, sculpture, collage, and mixed media. Perceptions 2020 looked at diverse narratives and experiences around employment, the pursuit of a ‘dream’ job, and the discrimination encountered every day.

Andrei Molodkin’s Bloodline marked the end of Rua Red’s partnership with a/political with a five-week intervention in the gallery. Evolving from the controversial work Young Blood, which saw Andrei Molodkin collaborate with prosecuted London Drill musicians at BPS22 Museum in Belgium (2019), this new work for Rua Red, Bloodline, shifted focus away from music lyrics that European governments deemed unsafe for popular consumption. Through the medium of human blood, Molodkin’s work analysed the language used by different groups within the volatile political system.

Working between his studio in The Foundry near Lourdes, France, and Tallaght, Dublin, Molodkin produced a series of sculptural works that were pumped full of human blood donated by individuals who wished to be part of the artwork.

My Activity reflected on how we interact with and transfer our thoughts to a virtual entity. This entity, capable of surviving our death, continues to learn and grow beyond our physical lives. Exploring the web as a form of “augmented eternity,” which makes our digital footprint increasingly significant, Van Gelderen examined his online persona through the archive of his Google browsing history and activity.

The installation functioned as a funeral for the artist’s virtual self. A psychological self-portrait was constructed from his virtual identity: a eulogy solicited from an anonymous online user based solely on Google data without additional context; and images and video data from his browsing history, memorialising his virtual life since 2011. Through this process, the artist reclaimed his public history, creating a reflective and deeply personal exploration of his digital legacy.

Each year, Rua Red hosts an annual open submission exhibition, in which artists from across the country, working in any discipline and at all career stages, are invited to participate. The Annual Winter Open 2019 provided a unique glimpse into the collective creative psyche, exhibiting works that reflected concerns within the artistic community. By placing these diverse pieces together in the gallery space, the exhibition fostered new and exciting connections and dialogues, offering a vibrant snapshot of contemporary artistic practice.

Featured Artists: Richard Andreucetti, Rachel Clarke, Deirdre Burke, Spencer Glover, Di Hu, Joanna Hopkins, Sarah Edmondson, Kate Plum, Fergus Smith, Pat Curran, Eoin Mac Lochlainn, William O'Neill, Deirdre Nolan, Caitriona Dunnett, Katherine Sankey, Jason Deans, Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Siobhan O'Callaghan, Gintaras Varnagys, Michael Durand, Dónal Geheran, Pauline Clancy, Sarah Murphy, Andy Osborne, Jason Minsky, Peter Bradley, Dave Madigan, Róisín O'Sullivan, Pauline Rowan, Bennie Reilly, Diarmaid Costello, Vera Ryklova, Sahaja Budzilla, Claire O'Keeffe, Judy Foley, Anna Maye, Remco de Fouw, Aileen Hamilton, Joseph Fogarty, Giorgia Graf, Aoife Herrity, Catherine Mac Bride, Susan Montgomery, Tommie Lehane, James Hayes, Myra Jago, Breda Stacey and Kate Fahey

My Activity reflected on how we interact with and transfer our thoughts to a virtual entity. This entity, capable of surviving our death, continues to learn and grow beyond our physical lives. Exploring the web as a form of “augmented eternity,” which makes our digital footprint increasingly significant, Van Gelderen examined his online persona through the archive of his Google browsing history and activity.

The installation functioned as a funeral for the artist’s virtual self. A psychological self-portrait was constructed from his virtual identity: a eulogy solicited from an anonymous online user based solely on Google data without additional context; and images and video data from his browsing history, memorialising his virtual life since 2011. Through this process, the artist reclaimed his public history, creating a reflective and deeply personal exploration of his digital legacy.

Each year, Rua Red hosts an annual open submission exhibition, in which artists from across the country, working in any discipline and at all career stages, are invited to participate. The Annual Winter Open 2019 provided a unique glimpse into the collective creative psyche, exhibiting works that reflected concerns within the artistic community. By placing these diverse pieces together in the gallery space, the exhibition fostered new and exciting connections and dialogues, offering a vibrant snapshot of contemporary artistic practice.

Featured Artists: Richard Andreucetti, Rachel Clarke, Deirdre Burke, Spencer Glover, Di Hu, Joanna Hopkins, Sarah Edmondson, Kate Plum, Fergus Smith, Pat Curran, Eoin Mac Lochlainn, William O'Neill, Deirdre Nolan, Caitriona Dunnett, Katherine Sankey, Jason Deans, Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Siobhan O'Callaghan, Gintaras Varnagys, Michael Durand, Dónal Geheran, Pauline Clancy, Sarah Murphy, Andy Osborne, Jason Minsky, Peter Bradley, Dave Madigan, Róisín O'Sullivan, Pauline Rowan, Bennie Reilly, Diarmaid Costello, Vera Ryklova, Sahaja Budzilla, Claire O'Keeffe, Judy Foley, Anna Maye, Remco de Fouw, Aileen Hamilton, Joseph Fogarty, Giorgia Graf, Aoife Herrity, Catherine Mac Bride, Susan Montgomery, Tommie Lehane, James Hayes, Myra Jago, Breda Stacey and Kate Fahey

Franko B has long championed the rights of the “unloved,” beginning with his seminal bleeding performances in the 1990s. At a time when Ireland is interrogating the Church and State for widespread abuse, the artist confronts us with his advocacy for those betrayed by institutions meant to protect them. The artist’s iconic red cross, tattooed on his heart and repeated across his body synonymous with care-giving, particularly the ‘protected persons’ helping the sick and wounded in areas of armed conflict. For Franko B, it reflects the trauma of his youth and his personal, political and poetic desire to undo the wrongs imposed on him as a vulnerable child. Having been raised in an orphanage and subsequently in a boarding school run by the Italian Red Cross.

Throughout Unloved, Franko B foregrounds photographs of victims of atrocities that the press and digital media relentlessly force us to consume. Thirty-three stitched canvases, each embodying pain inflicted on his own body. Stripped of identity markers like captions and skin colour, the works eliminated prejudice, connecting the war-front and home-front in a shared narrative of suffering and humanity.

Open Minds, curated by artist Brian Maguire, showcased work by people in custody in Ireland. Visitors were invited to approach the work with an open mind, looking beyond the convictions of the artists. By bringing these pieces into the public arena, the exhibition reminded us that those in prison have not disappeared but remain part of the community to which they will eventually return.

Maguire visited prison schools to select work in the context and environment in which it was created. He deliberately chose pieces that made bold personal, social, or political statements. His visits sparked productive discussions within the prison art community, offering students the chance to engage with a renowned Irish artist. Engaging with the creative arts gives people in custody a means of self-expression. By developing artistic skills, individuals uncovered their creative potential, with some finding career opportunities through art.

A full three centuries after William Conolly purchased Montpelier Hill, the Hell Fire Club celebrated a second coming in County Dublin. For a few months between the Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox, from a week before Litha to a week after Lughnasadh, the temple opened anew to the public within the galleries at Rua Red. Although, the Hell Fire Club never closed and has continued to run, discreetly and through the underground stream of our imaginations, from urban legend to popular culture, until this very day, for the first time since the 18th century the flame burns bright again for all to behold.

Visitors were invited to join with their eyes wide, or shut, the open call to attend the burning of the mysteries, to be initiated into joining the Orders of the Third Circle, a secret society of famous people who include actors, musicians, entrepreneurs, artists, statesmen, millionaires, gamblers and Casanovas. There is only one simple law inside the Temple of The Second Coming. DO WHAT THOU WILT!

Each May, the graduates of Media Production & Digital Arts, TU Dublin (Tallaght Campus), showcase their latest work in the annual degree show. 2019 marked a significant milestone as the 10th anniversary of the event brought a new dimension to the exhibition. For the first time, both Gallery One and Gallery Two were transformed to host this student-led showcase, offering an expansive and immersive display of creative talent. Visitors were invited to explore the work of the graduates, reflecting a diverse range of themes and media.

Come Back To Me was an exhibition showcasing new work by 14 first-year MFA Fine Art students from the National College of Art and Design. The exhibition featured a diverse range of media, including performance, video, painting, printmaking, and installation. This body of work, an interruption into space and time, engaging with the complex predicaments of contemporary culture and society. Each piece a contribution to a larger dialogue, challenging viewers to reflect on and reconsider the evolving dynamics of the world around them.

Local showcased Pete Smyth’s ongoing photography project documenting life in Tallaght. Spanning over 30 years, Local reflects Smyth’s political concerns and experiences as a community arts worker and social activist. His deep connection to the area grants him unique access to portray his subjects with authenticity and intimacy, capturing bittersweet moments of reflection and celebration. Through unsentimental and nuanced representations, Smyth documented Tallaght’s transformation from a socially deprived suburb to a thriving urban centre with a strong community spirit. Local is a compelling portrait of change, resilience, and identity, shaped by the lives and stories of its people.

What happens to the mind and body when waiting becomes an instrument of torture? Drawing from Nedeljkovic’s experience of Direct Provision, Killing Time work examines the psychological effects of institutionalisation, the historical structures enabling systemic abuses within the Irish State, and the bureaucracy behind indefinite incarceration. This immersive performance challenged viewers to confront the profound impacts of waiting, isolation, and the dehumanising effects of prolonged uncertainty, offering a powerful exploration of resilience, vulnerability, and survival.

Performed by Matt Szczerek and Michelle Cahill.

Finnegans Woke points a sharp finger at those in power, exposing the hypocrisy, greed, and trauma driving today’s world politics. Echoing themes of cyclic history explored by James Joyce in Finnegans Wake (1939), the exhibition urged viewers to learn from the past and remain vigilant against emerging social injustices.

At the exhibition's core stood a monumental raft symbolising civil resistance and the fight for a better future, surrounded by 107 portraits (Untitled Men in Suits, 2018) representing bureaucratic systems perpetuating power. The raft also acknowledged survivors of migration journeys, many now living in Tallaght. The War on War Room, an open studio adjacent to the gallery, served as the exhibition’s beating heart. Here, kennardphillipps and collaborators created new works with Dublin residents, incorporating them into the evolving installation throughout the exhibition.

Proverbs is a long-term multimedia project by Robert Ellis, that combines audio with still and moving images to engage with the contemporary landscape of Uganda while delving into its layers of memory and history. While traditional proverbs distil ethnic wisdom, this project does not aim to visually represent these age-old sayings. Instead, it offers a platform for reimagining them within the context of modern Uganda.

The imagery lingers on the people and landforms, contemplating their relationship with their environment. Fluid in its approach, Proverbs avoids fixed narratives or conclusive outcomes, favouring an open-ended exploration of how place is experienced. The project examines Uganda’s landscapes not just for their aesthetic qualities but also for the deep layers of memory and cultural history they embody. Through this meditative journey, Proverbs invites viewers to consider the interplay between environment, memory, and identity in a constantly evolving cultural landscape.

Robert Ellis is the recipient of the 2017 Annual Open Judge’s Choice Award.

Featured Artists: Daithi Magner, Desmond Kenny, Beatrice O'Connell, Grainne H. Dowling, Elaine Grainger, Mary Furlong, Kevin Judge, David Begley, Austin Hearne, Natasha Pike, Bridget Flinn, Paul Gaffney, Sorca O'Farrell, Helen Bermingham, Helen Mac Mahon, Myra Jago, Siobhan Hehir, Helen G Blake, Ciaran Bowen, Daire O'Shea, Kirsti Kotilainen, Sean O'Rourke, Siobhan O’Callaghan, Aurelie, Cecilia Moore, David Smith, Jenny Mc Connell, Luke Van Gelderen, Harry Walsh Foreman, Tommy Feehan, Mann de Lacy, Aine Phillips, Jennifer Trouton, Noel Hensey, Pablo Jean and Aoife Herrity.

The Annual Winter Open 2018 provided a platform for artists from across the country to showcase their work. The exhibition was multidisciplinary, featuring a wide range of artistic practices, including sculpture, painting, photography, and digital/multimedia. With contributions from 36 talented artists, the 2018 Winter Open celebrated the diversity and vibrancy of contemporary art in Ireland.

Proverbs is a long-term multimedia project by Robert Ellis, that combines audio with still and moving images to engage with the contemporary landscape of Uganda while delving into its layers of memory and history. While traditional proverbs distil ethnic wisdom, this project does not aim to visually represent these age-old sayings. Instead, it offers a platform for reimagining them within the context of modern Uganda.

The imagery lingers on the people and landforms, contemplating their relationship with their environment. Fluid in its approach, Proverbs avoids fixed narratives or conclusive outcomes, favouring an open-ended exploration of how place is experienced. The project examines Uganda’s landscapes not just for their aesthetic qualities but also for the deep layers of memory and cultural history they embody. Through this meditative journey, Proverbs invites viewers to consider the interplay between environment, memory, and identity in a constantly evolving cultural landscape.

Robert Ellis is the recipient of the 2017 Annual Open Judge’s Choice Award.

Featured Artists: Daithi Magner, Desmond Kenny, Beatrice O'Connell, Grainne H. Dowling, Elaine Grainger, Mary Furlong, Kevin Judge, David Begley, Austin Hearne, Natasha Pike, Bridget Flinn, Paul Gaffney, Sorca O'Farrell, Helen Bermingham, Helen Mac Mahon, Myra Jago, Siobhan Hehir, Helen G Blake, Ciaran Bowen, Daire O'Shea, Kirsti Kotilainen, Sean O'Rourke, Siobhan O’Callaghan, Aurelie, Cecilia Moore, David Smith, Jenny Mc Connell, Luke Van Gelderen, Harry Walsh Foreman, Tommy Feehan, Mann de Lacy, Aine Phillips, Jennifer Trouton, Noel Hensey, Pablo Jean and Aoife Herrity.

The Annual Winter Open 2018 provided a platform for artists from across the country to showcase their work. The exhibition was multidisciplinary, featuring a wide range of artistic practices, including sculpture, painting, photography, and digital/multimedia. With contributions from 36 talented artists, the 2018 Winter Open celebrated the diversity and vibrancy of contemporary art in Ireland.

Field Recording brought together new works by Mit Jai Inn and Sven Anderson at Rua Red, exploring how we observe and respond to the complex events unfolding around us. Curator Jennie Guy created a unique dialogue between the artists’ practices, where their works intersected and extended beyond traditional frames, engaging with both surface and time.

Mit Jai Inn presented five massive canvases layered with textured, vibrant colours, while Sven Anderson’s work featured a network of small black-and-white video screens displaying fleeting, fragmented footage. Together, their works invited viewers to engage with a “periphery,” challenging them to see beyond what is directly in front of them.

The concept of field recording, capturing dynamic, external environments, acted as both metaphor and method, suggesting a space full of interference that resists singular perspectives. The exhibition's energy emerged from the interplay between Jai Inn’s colourful expanses and Anderson’s flickering video sequences, creating a topological drama that blurred the boundaries between landscape and mediascape.

Through this immersive installation, Field Recording encouraged viewers to reconsider how they perceive and process events beyond the gallery, embracing a decentralised approach to observation and understanding.

Featured Artists: Gaspard Bébié-Valérian, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Feminist Internet, GASH Collective, Lovelace Space, Steve Maher, Open Knowledge Ireland, Simon Price, Nicolas Sassoon, Caroline Sinders, and Isabella Streffen.

Glitch 2018 brought together leading artists, curators, and theorists at the intersection of art and technology to foster critical dialogue on how digital tools shape contemporary society. This year’s festival focused on technology’s role in questioning and critiquing institutional systems and urgent social issues, from the housing crisis and Brexit to immigration rights in Ireland’s evolving socio-political landscape.

As traditional democratic systems face growing challenges, Glitch 2018 spotlighted grassroots movements and collective actions that propose alternative, socially informed solutions. Through exhibitions, talks, and performances, the festival examined how power dynamics and democratic processes are being reshaped in the age of algorithms and data-driven governance.

Artists and activists explored new ways to engage with the materiality of politics in the digital era, revealing technology’s potential to both disrupt and influence political change. By merging art with activism, Glitch 2018 challenged audiences to reconsider the role of technology in shaping society’s future.

Land / Sea / Signal explored the materiality of internet infrastructure and the socio-political complexities embedded within it. In an era of continuous flux, where online interactions shape political, economic, and emotional dynamics, the exhibition reflected on how the internet permeates daily life, conditioning human experiences and perceptions. Governed by algorithms and reliant on physical infrastructures like servers, satellites, and sea cables, the internet shapes our identities, relationships, and interactions.

Bringing together artists who meditated on these themes, Land / Sea / Signal offered insights into the intersections of humans, technology, and the environment. Through their practices, the artists revealed human connections and technological relationships, unpicking the complexities of living within and seeing ourselves reflected in technology’s vast, adaptive systems.

Raw Portraits is an intimate film installation by Ailish Claffey and Cathy Coughlan, exploring vulnerability, instability, and the porous boundary between our inner selves and the external world. Through a series of film studies featuring performers Joanna Banks, Glenna Batson, Tobi Balogun, and Ailish Claffey, the work focuses on the intrinsic grace found within human fragility. The films were screened continuously in the gallery.

Accompanying the installation, Resonating Raw delved into the fundamental need for connection and relationships. This live performance integrated electronic music and was inspired by Michael McCarthy’s poem The Grief and Claffey’s residency in an Age-Related Healthcare Unit. The work resonated particularly with caregivers and those interested in the intersections of arts and aging.

The performance brought together a diverse group of international artists, including Tobi Balogun, Joanna Banks, Paddy Cullen, Leonia McDonagh, and others, blending dance, music, and film to create a living, breathing exploration of human connection. By highlighting both physical and emotional landscapes, Raw Portraits invited audiences to engage deeply with the complexities of vulnerability and care.

Madrid-based collective DEMOCRACIA premiered their operatic film installation ORDER at Rua Red. Known for large-scale interventions that politicise public spaces, DEMOCRACIA utilised the medium of opera to critique capitalism and societal power structures.

Filmed across Dublin, Houston, and London, ORDER unfolds in three acts; Eat the Rich/Kill the Poor, Konsumentenchor, and Dinner at the Dorchester. The work juxtaposes shopping malls, open-carry demonstrations, and opulent dinners to dramatise the enduring tensions between oppressors and the oppressed. Presented as both film and installation, ORDER subverts traditional opera's cultural elitism, transforming it into a vehicle for radical political commentary.

The libretto draws from Hesiod’s Works & Days, particularly the Myth of Five Ages, which describes a world marred by labour, sorrow, and moral decay; paralleling contemporary social crises. By re-contextualising this ancient narrative, DEMOCRACIA delivers a scathing critique of modern capitalism, exposing its inherent injustices and cultural contradictions.

In Fallout Pattern, Andrei Molodkin presented cartographic drawings, government reports, and unseen sketches that explore themes of cyberespionage, propaganda, and global power dynamics. The exhibition featured drawings based on leaked Wikileaks documents detailing the impact of a hypothetical US nuclear missile strike on Russia, including fallout patterns and projected destruction. The leak spurred Russia to commence an aggressive modernisation of their militarised forces, described as a "new generation" army by Vladimir Putin in 2017. A highlight of the exhibition was a never-before-seen proposal for a state-commissioned statue located outside the Kremlin walls on Moscow’s iconic Red Square. Failed Utopia; the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty.

The exhibition also examined the U.S. Justice Department’s 2017 decision to register Russia-backed media outlets RT and Sputnik as foreign agents under FARA, exposing the escalating tensions between Russia and the U.S. over propaganda and election interference.

Students from the Institute of Technology, Tallaght contributed to the exhibition by creating data visualisations projected onto the modular fabricated steel girders in the centre of the gallery. In placing issues of global concern in Tallaght, Molodkin emphasises that we are all part of a worldwide system, and we all have the power to change it. Being human depends on our commitment to active participation and independence of mind.

In his first solo exhibition, Oscar Dempsey presented a series of large-scale sculptural works exploring the psychology of pride as a collective emotion. Through critical research, Dempsey questioned why national pride persists in a globalised world and how merging individual identity into a collective can lead to both pleasure and extreme behaviour. He examined pride as an artificial sentiment that heightens self-importance and, when threatened, can provoke aggression and antisocial reactions.

Drawing visual inspiration from hyenas and their matriarchal dominance hierarchies, Dempsey’s sculptures echoed limbless Roman and Renaissance torsos. These figures, while adopting the stance of classical male nudes, conveyed weakness through their dangling limbs,

Oscar Dempsey is the recipient of the 2016 Annual Open Judge’s Choice Award.

The Annual Winter Open 2017 provided a platform for artists from across the country to showcase their work. The exhibition was multidisciplinary, featuring a wide range of artistic practices, including sculpture, painting, photography, and digital/multimedia. With contributions from 44 talented artists, the 2017 Winter Open celebrated the diversity and vibrancy of contemporary art in Ireland.

Featured Artists: David Turner; Lorraine Cleary; Patricia McCormack; Aurélie; Phill Foley; Paul Hallahan; Bennie Reilly; Emma McKeagney; Laura Wade; Daithi Magner; Victoria J. Dean; Shea Dalton; Ray Murphy; Marvin Baldemor; Brian Hanlon; Eva Walsh; Mark Kelly; Beatrice O'Connell; Clare Lyons; Jane Cassidy; John Cullen; Martin Redmond; Gerry Davis; Dermot Hallahan; Danny Kelly; Sean O Rouke; Karl O Reilly; Celine Sheridan; Yvanna Greene; Fiona Finlay; Niamh Porter; Fiona Reilly; Kieran Gallagher; Gergely Eortzan Nagy; Cara Donaghey; Roisin O Sullivan; Rory Tangney; Michael Power; Robert Ellis; Mario Sughi; Rodger Hudson; Robert Dunne; Ian Cumberland; Belinda Deutinger and Olivia Hassett

In his first solo exhibition, Oscar Dempsey presented a series of large-scale sculptural works exploring the psychology of pride as a collective emotion. Through critical research, Dempsey questioned why national pride persists in a globalised world and how merging individual identity into a collective can lead to both pleasure and extreme behaviour. He examined pride as an artificial sentiment that heightens self-importance and, when threatened, can provoke aggression and antisocial reactions.

Drawing visual inspiration from hyenas and their matriarchal dominance hierarchies, Dempsey’s sculptures echoed limbless Roman and Renaissance torsos. These figures, while adopting the stance of classical male nudes, conveyed weakness through their dangling limbs,

Oscar Dempsey is the recipient of the 2016 Annual Open Judge’s Choice Award.

The Annual Winter Open 2017 provided a platform for artists from across the country to showcase their work. The exhibition was multidisciplinary, featuring a wide range of artistic practices, including sculpture, painting, photography, and digital/multimedia. With contributions from 44 talented artists, the 2017 Winter Open celebrated the diversity and vibrancy of contemporary art in Ireland.

Featured Artists: David Turner; Lorraine Cleary; Patricia McCormack; Aurélie; Phill Foley; Paul Hallahan; Bennie Reilly; Emma McKeagney; Laura Wade; Daithi Magner; Victoria J. Dean; Shea Dalton; Ray Murphy; Marvin Baldemor; Brian Hanlon; Eva Walsh; Mark Kelly; Beatrice O'Connell; Clare Lyons; Jane Cassidy; John Cullen; Martin Redmond; Gerry Davis; Dermot Hallahan; Danny Kelly; Sean O Rouke; Karl O Reilly; Celine Sheridan; Yvanna Greene; Fiona Finlay; Niamh Porter; Fiona Reilly; Kieran Gallagher; Gergely Eortzan Nagy; Cara Donaghey; Roisin O Sullivan; Rory Tangney; Michael Power; Robert Ellis; Mario Sughi; Rodger Hudson; Robert Dunne; Ian Cumberland; Belinda Deutinger and Olivia Hassett

Featured Artists: Petr Davydtchenko, Democracia, Kendell Geers, Leon Golub, Franko B, John Heartfield, IRWIN, Peter Kennard, kennardphillipps, Barbara Kruger, Oleg Kulik, Andrei Molodkin, Gustav Metzger, Shirin Neshat, Arsen Savadov, Andres Serrano, Santiago Sierra, and Ai Weiwei.

HOW TO SAY IT THE WAY IT IS! marked the first exhibition of selected works from the a/political collection, held at Rua Red. Curated by pioneering performance and visual artist Franko B, the exhibition coincided with Rua Red’s director Maolíosa Boyle’s inaugural program and launched a year-long partnership with a/political.

Rejecting moral didacticism, the exhibition showcased raw, unapologetic works from some of the most influential socially and politically engaged contemporary artists. Through defiance, resistance, and disorder, these artists presented alternative narratives that challenge the political status quo. In a world consumed by war, genocide, and looming nuclear threats, HOW TO SAY IT THE WAY IT IS! became a platform for urgent, unfiltered expression, reflecting how artists perceive and confront global crises.

The Core Project is a large-scale video installation featuring over 150 participants from around the world, each filmed responding to the same unseen question: “What is going to happen next?”

By withholding the question until the moment of filming, Nevin captures unfiltered, spontaneous reactions, revealing cultural, emotional, and behavioural nuances in a global context.

Since 2010, Nevin has been developing this multifaceted project, selecting one individual from each sovereign state to participate. The focus lies not only on verbal responses but also on participants’ attitudes toward the unknown, offering a glimpse into the diversity and complexity of human perspectives.

The exhibition serves as both an artistic and cultural experiment, aiming to dismantle barriers in how art is perceived, created, and experienced. Participants become collaborators, shifting from passive viewers to active contributors. By merging online and physical spaces, The Core Project blurs the lines between artist and audience, creating a collective work that critiques dominant political and economic structures while fostering global engagement and dialogue.

Featured Artists: Jeanne Briand, Adam Gibney, Fabien Leaustic, Helen McMahon, Rasa Smite, and Paula Vitola.

Echo Chamber explored how digital spaces, like social media, create closed environments where ideas are rarely challenged. This project aimed to break that cycle by fostering accessible dialogue between digital arts and broader interpretations of politics, culture, and society across Europe.

The exhibition took place simultaneously in three art centres in Ireland, Latvia, and France, featuring two contemporary artists from each host country. Their practices, deeply rooted in digital technology, pushed the boundaries of traditional gallery spaces, challenging the idea of digital art as exclusive to a tech-savvy audience.

Through this curatorial platform, the artists produced powerful, experimental works that engaged with political and cultural issues, provoking audiences to rethink their preconceptions of contemporary art and its societal relevance. By reinventing materials and technologies, Echo Chamber encouraged new, radical ways of viewing art through a digital lens.

Featured Artists: David Beattie, Livestock, Cliona Harmey, Robin Price, David Lunney, Richard Forrest, Cathy Coughlan, and Cécile Babiole.

Celebrating its 6th year, Glitch Festival 2017 solidified its position as Ireland’s leading digital arts festival. The festival showcased innovative digital art practices, bringing together prominent media and technology artists, curators, and collectives.

Through a dynamic program of exhibitions and events, Glitch explored the evolving intersections between art, culture, and technology. The participating artists presented works that engaged with critical debates on how technology shapes artistic expression and audience interaction, fostering a deeper understanding of contemporary digital practices.

Featured Artists: John Beattie, Sarah Browne, Ella de Búrca, Priscila Fernandes, Mark O’Kelly, Maria McKinney, and Sarah Pierce.

It's Very New School confronted the longstanding stagnation in the Irish Leaving Certificate arts curriculum, which has seen little change in over 30 years. As a result, students are left disconnected from language, modalities and potential of contemporary art. The exhibition explored this educational isolation, advocating for reform not just within the art curriculum but across broader educational institutions.

Each participating artist created work that engaged with these themes, reflecting on the gaps in arts education and proposing alternative perspectives. While the Art School platform traditionally brings artists into school environments to make the school itself a site of production, this gallery exhibition served as a reflective space to critique and reimagine the role of education in shaping contemporary art discourse.