Birthday Commissions
To celebrate IMMA’s 30th birthday, we commissioned three projects across the site as part of a dramatic expansion of IMMA Outdoors in the summer months, while a colourful graphic examining IMMA’s 30-year history within the global context was installed in the galleries. These were followed by a mesmerising installation which transformed the Courtyard through the dark winter months.
Outdoor Summer Commissions:
Mark Clare: Ping Pong Diplomacy
26 Jun- 03 Oct 2021
We were delighted to recommission Ping Pong Diplomacy, a work originally made when the artist Mark Clare was on IMMA’s residency in 2007 – 2008. This recreational installation reignited the meaning of negotiation through the popular game of table tennis.
Located on the Terrace of IMMA’s Formal Gardens, Ping Pong Diplomacy, 2021, consisted of two table tennis tables constructed with a combination of re-cycled wood pallets and commercial flooring boards. The tables were built to official dimensions but they took a bit more than skill to maximise their full potential. One half of the table had the appearance of a superior finish in contrast to a more worn characteristic of a re-cycled side. Both surfaces had their qualities and foibles that needed to be negotiated and understood, add to these elements the individuals’ skills to affect a positive outcome in the game.
A visit to any Communist or ‘former’ Communist bloc country will be met with the familiar sight of table tennis tables placed outdoors in public arenas for recreational use by the local community, actions that at one time offered a new political hope. The title of this project was taken from a political event in 1971 when America and China were engaged in a cold war and Nixon was looking for ways to make a breakthrough in political relations. Ping Pong became an activity for both countries to bond over.
Niall Sweeney, Club Chroma Chlorologia
26 Jun 2021–Ongoing
Created by artist, designer and nightclub pioneer Niall Sweeney, Club Chroma Chlorologia was a newly commissioned series of site-specific works installed in the gardens and grounds of the 17th-century Royal Hospital Kilmainham, which combined to create unlikely interventions that you could encounter, discover and take part in throughout the summer months. The second iteration which opened in June expanded beyond its dazzle-patterned gateway installed in October 2020, down into the historic gardens at IMMA.
Born on the grassroots dancefloors of the marginalised, Chlorologia merged the mythologies and desires of the combined settings of the formal garden and underground nightclub — as a place of projected fantasy, collective emancipation and transformational power. The title Chlorologia is a playful reference to the energy transformations of light in plant biology, tuning in to the diverse forces of nature in a universal desire to dance freely again. With its language of signs set amongst the flickering eyes and raging tongues of the polychromatic creatures of the labyrinth, Chlorologia lured you through the geometries of the garden with theatrics of visibility & invisibility, protest & parade, joy & disorientation — inviting you to be present, to show your colours, to move together, and to have some fun.
This latest iteration by Niall featured several new artwork configurations that draw on an array of sources that includes DIY clubbing, signage, placards, protest and public speech. Niall’s graphics have beaten the radical hearts of some of the most pivotal campaigns for equal rights of the LGBTQ communities in Ireland. To coincide with Dublin Pride on 26 June 2021, IMMA was delighted to unwrap its second phase of Club Chroma Chlorologia in the formal gardens as part of our year of birthday celebrations. The presentation of this project was kindly supported by the Office of Public Works (OPW).
Forerunner: YOUNGFOSSIL
26 Jun 2021–Ongoing
To celebrate the 30 th birthday and make the grounds a more convivial and welcoming space, IMMA commissioned a project, titled Y O U N G F O S S I L, with the collaborative arts practice Forerunner. They developed a suite of bespoke seating and convivial gathering structures which were positioned across IMMA’s grounds.
Forerunner’s projects often play to the inherent use value, aesthetics and evolution of the materials and environments they work with. Embodied in Y O U N G F O S S IL’s materiality and making-process was a prompt for wider discussions relating to the politics of housing, ecology, consumption and the environment. From the millions of years it takes for fossilisation to occur to the 25- year lifespan of modern dwellings, Forerunner’s work criticised notions of material permanence.
Y O U N G F O S S I L also functioned as a modest domestic space, constructed when all the seating and gathering structures were assembled together, and as such it showed a promise of future potential. The collective Forerunner was founded by Tanad Aaron, Andreas Kindler von Knobloch and Tom Watt in 2016. With Y O U N G F O S S I L, the collective expanded beyond the founder members and feature artist additions to the seating structures by David Lunney, Liliane Puthod, and Daniel Tuomey. A series of live performances, or gestures, also took place across IMMA’s grounds with artists Stéphane Béna Hanly, Fiona Gannon, Matthew Lenkiewicz and Pauline Payen. This project was made possible with the support of the Public Service Innovation Fund and was presented with the kind support of OPW.
Exhibition Commission:
Niall Sweeney: IMMA 30 Setting out
25 May–26 Sept 2021
IMMA’s 30th birthday provided a special moment to look at the huge achievements and ambitions set out in 1991, but also to imagine how this national institution could continue to experiment, connect and transform into the future.
IMMA’s history was explored in a vibrant wall graphic by Niall Sweeney that mapped the Museums recent history, reminding us of the great shifts in society over the last 30 years. These events were set against a selection of equally notable transformations in the international art landscape as artists and institutions globalised and mobilised artistic production and expanded their audiences in the 21st Century.
Winter Commission:
DREAMSPHERE by Aoife Dunne
18 Dec 2021–28 Feb 2022
DREAMSPHERE was a stunning immersive installation devised by IMMA artist-in-residence, Aoife Dunne.
Hypnotically staged in the IMMA Courtyard, DREAMSPHERE transported spectators to an immersive mindscape. Exploring the notion of consciousness as an exteriorised shared space in which to roam and reside, audiences were encircled by arresting sounds and screens. The ensuing visualisations, unfolded at a frenetic pace, sent viewers on a surreal trip through the tumultuous mind; teasing future prospects of consciousness-sharing whilst exploiting technology to stretch the psychological parameters of human experience.
Dunne’s long-standing penchant for melding physical and digital disciplines was manifested by the onscreen projections. From the material splendour of her costuming to the tactility of obscure found objects, a miscellany of palpable textures was transported to this virtual dimension, stoking visual- haptic sensations within the viewer.
