Orla Barry
10.07.26 – 26.09.26

About
In 2024, Rua Red Director/Curator Maolíosa Boyle invited Orla Barry to create a new work in response to the rural communities of South Dublin. Through this commission, Rua Red sought to open up new connections with the farming communities of the area, creating space for conversation, exchange and interaction within the gallery, its education programme and wider public context.

The research began by connecting Barry with farmers living and working in the nearby Glenasmole and Bohernabreena and Glencullen. As both an artist and a shepherd, she brought a particular sensitivity and lived understanding to these encounters. Conversation, shared experience and the tradition of walking the land became central to the development of the work, allowing the commission to emerge through acts of listening, observation and exchange.

With humour, respect and close attention to rural knowledge, The Collie, The Cheviot and The Crouched Skeleton considers the farm walk as a means of entering into relation with land, labour, memory and community.

Brian Maguire
06.03.26 – 09.05.26

About
These Beautiful Men was a Rua Red commissioned body of work and exhibition by artist Brian Maguire.

From October 2025 to March 2026, Maguire drew portraits of men temporarily residing at an International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) centre, a primary reception and processing centre for international protection applicants.

Maguire and Rua Red established a temporary art studio within the IPAS centre where artist Michael Mangan ran workshops three times a week. While Brian drew portraits of the men, participants in Mangan’s workshop were invited to paint their understanding of home and hopes for the future. Maguire’s portraits were presented in Rua Red's Gallery One, while Gallery Two featured audio recordings of the men's experiences and journeys to Ireland.

Junk Ensemble
12.12.25 – 14.02.26

About
Patient Labyrinth, a new artwork and exhibition from Junk Ensemble in Rua Red Galleries, is both a maze and a labyrinth - exploring the delicate boundary between two worlds: the one in which we lose our way, and the one we try to find our way out of.

The exhibition weaves together myth, folk magic, and ritual to explore how we navigate uncertainty, entrapment, and transformation. As our constructed and natural world unravels to near collapse, we rely on storytelling as a tool for connection, a tool for protection. The labyrinth is a mirror, a code, a key, a tensabarrier, a narrative and a fabrication, a reflection of ourselves and our worlds.

The exhibition was marked by durational performances with dance artist Róisín Harten on Friday, 12 Dec, and Friday, 16 January, who threaded, wound, and rewound her way throughout the spaces on a loop.

BA (HONS) Media Production & Digital Arts
23.05.26 – 30.05.26

About
RÚNTA RISING was an exhibition of emerging creative voices from the Media Production & Digital Arts BA (Hons) degree at TU Dublin, Tallaght Campus. Inspired by the subversive nature of the speakeasy, the Degree Show opens into an intriguing world of creativity and discovery. Like the veiled, peripheral, and underground spaces that inspired the students, this exhibition explores unseen and overlooked moments of joy, kinship, intimacy, openness, loss, and vulnerability, inviting viewers to immerse themselves completely within the space.

Working across a diverse range of media and digital arts including design, film and video, visual effects, audio, animation, screenwriting, photography, and emerging media technologies, students of the class of 2026 have honed their creative skills through critical research and cultural contexts, to produce this Degree Show exhibition.

NCAD MFA Fine Art Graduate Show 2026
06.06.26 – 20.06.26

About
A new group exhibition of graduate work from the MFA  Fine Art programme at the National College of Art and Design opened at Rua Red South Dublin Arts Centre on 6th June 2026. The show featured work by fourteen artists including  painting, media, print, glass and installations reflecting diverse approaches to material, process, and critical inquiry. Moving between public and private experience, the works explore how contemporary life is shaped through shifting conditions of social relations and  identity.

The MFA Fine Art programme 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 built 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.

Exhibiting Artists: Amelia Caulfield, Hugh Cooney, Luke Donnelly, Ríoghnach Hardiman, Rebecca Gleeson, Barbara Healy,  Katie McCloskey, Evan McKenna, Helena Murray, Jennifer Rylands, Elizabeth Shaw, Moynagh Sullivan, Emma Wills, Evan Wilson

Domnick Sorace
03.10.25 – 15.11.25

About
When Stars Collide was a multimedia installation that reshaped the gallery floor with paths of sand and heaps of gravel, where an array of fallen stars and a decapitated bronze head resided. 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.

Annual Open Exhibition 2025
03.10.25 – 15.11.25

About
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. In 2025, Rua Red 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 welcomed work that is rooted in the here and now, work that speaks from within communities, that is unapologetically human.

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

Peformance Art Festival 2025
24.09.25 – 27.09.25

About
Becoming Tallaght Performance Art Festival was the third in a series of Performance Art Festivals commissioned by Rua Red.

Curated by Olivia Hassett and Paul Regan, Becoming Tallaght was an ambitious four-day Festival showcasing the work of eight performance artists, including three bespoke workshops, and culminating in an artists’ symposium. The festival also featured the first iteration of Xchange, an open improvised performance jam, which included performance artists from Bbeyond Belfast.

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

Rua Red Studio Programme Exhibition
27.06.25 – 13.09.25

About
Together in Commune was 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 marked 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 presented work that reflects their individual practice, while collectively exploring themes central to socially engaged contemporary art.

Array Collective
14.02.25 – 03.05.25

About
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.

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.

Annual Open Exhibition 2024
22.11.24 – 25.01.25

About
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.

The 2024 exhibition explored 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 spaces.

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

Seiko Hayase
22.11.24 – 25.01.25

About
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 invited 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
13.09.24 – 10.11.24

About
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.

Performance Art Festival 2024
25.09.24 – 28.09.24

About
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.

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

Brognon Rollin
07.06.24 – 31.08.24

About
Luxembourg artists Stéphanie Rollin and David Brognon embedded themselves within the community of Tallaght as part of a residency and new commission for Rua Red. The commission 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 work 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.

Anonymous
19.03.24 – 22.04.24

About
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.

Morag Myerscough
01.12.23 – 03.03.24

About
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.

Candice Breitz
25.08.23 – 11.11.23

About
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’).

Performance Art Festival 2023
01.08.23 – 05.08.23

About
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.

Annual Open Exhibition 2023
24.02.23 – 22.04.23

About
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

Paul McGrane
24.02.23 – 22.04.23

About
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.

Grace Dyas
04.11.22 – 04.02.23

About
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.

Jesse Jones
27.05.22 – 24.09.22

About
The Tower is a 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.

Alice Maher and Rachel Fallon
18.10.21 – 12.03.22

About
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 and 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.

Amanda Coogan
25.06.21 – 18.09.21

About
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.

Katherine Sankey
11.12.20 – 24.01.21

About
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.

Annual Open Exhibition 2020
11.12.20 – 24.01.21

About
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. 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

Joe Caslin
18.09.20 – 22.10.20

About
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.

Joe Caslin
28.06.20 – 26.09.20

About
Resilient • Resilience was 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.

Andrei Molodkin
14.02.20 – 27.03.20

About
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.

Annual Open Exhibition 2019
20.12.19 – 24.01.20

About
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
18.10.19 – 13.12.19

About
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.

Anonymous
06.09.19 – 05.10.19

About
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.

Kendell Geers
14.06.19 – 16.08.19

About
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!

Cat Phillipps & Peter Kennard
25.01.19 – 29.03.19

About
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.

Robert Ellis
07.12.18 – 10.01.19

About
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.

Annual Open Exhibition 2018
07.12.18 – 10.01.19

About
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.

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.

Sven Anderson & Mit Jai Inn
05.10.18 – 01.12.18

About
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.

Ailish Claffey & Cathy Coughlan
05.07.18 – 07.07.18

About
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.

DEMOCRACIA
27.04.18 – 23.06.18

About
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.

Andrei Molodkin
09.02.18 – 06.04.18

About
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.

Oscar Dempsey
14.12.17 – 20.01.18

About
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.

Annual Open Exhibition 2017
14.12.17 – 20.01.18

About
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

Various Artists
07.10.17 – 02.12.17

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 Executive 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.

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.

Matthew Nevin
19.08.17 – 23.09.17

About
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.

Various Artists
16.06.17 – 15.08.17

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

Various Artists
02.05.17 – 10.06.17

About
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.

Various Artists
04.03.17 – 22.04.17

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.

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