A major exhibition by The Otolith Group called Xenogenesis and the accompanying Department of Xenogenesis is part of a rich and diverse programme taking place at IMMA in 2022. IMMA’s 30th Birthday exhibition, The Narrow Gate of the Here-and-Now, continues throughout the year in four themed exhibitions that explore the past three decades. Other significant highlights include the return of IMMA Outdoors presenting new artist commissions by Navine G. Khan-Dossos and Em’kal Eyongakpa; a four-day Eco Event celebrating people, place and planet; and an international research conference, examining the thematic of Self-Determination, presented as part of Ireland’s Decade of Centenaries Programme.
The Narrow Gate of the Here-and-Now is a major museum-wide exhibition that celebrates 30 years of IMMA. Presented in four Chapters, each one explores the past three decades through different thematic approaches - Queer Embodiment; The Anthropocene; Social Fabric, and Protest and Conflict. This exhibition showcases the significance of the IMMA Collection, presenting more than 200 artworks across four exhibitions. An extensive programme of talks, performances and events delves deeper into the themes arising from each chapter.
In July, The Otolith Group: Xenogenesis brings together a significant selection of works by The Otolith Group, the London-based artist collective founded in London in 2002 by Anjalika Sagar and Kodow Eshun. Curated by Annie Fletcher, Director of IMMA, this exhibition is the final venue of its international tour and features a cross-section of key works produced between 2011 and 2018. The exhibition reflects the artists’ ongoing commitment to creating what they think of as “a science fiction of the present” through images, voices, sonic images, sounds and performances which work to create forms of life that announce a devotion to an aesthetic of discrepant abstraction, post-cinematic blackness and post-lens based platformalisms. The Otolith Group’s pioneering artworks which include post-cinematic essay films, videos and multiple screen installations, address contemporary social and planetary issues, the disruption of neo-colonialism, the way in which humans have impacted the earth, and the influence of new technology on consciousness.
The Otolith Collective, The Otolith Group’s long-standing curatorial and research platform, will also enact the Department of Xenogenesis (DXG) at IMMA. DXG is a time space for convening public online and offline discussions, performance, screenings and exhibitions with artists, filmmakers, theorists and musicians. The DXG builds upon the exhibition and has developed throughout the tour.
From May the Museum will be turned inside out as the vibrant IMMA Outdoors programme activates the 48 acres of the museum’s site, the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, with artist commissions, performances, talks, workshops and tours. This year IMMA Outdoors will focus on the environment and includes a new site-specific installation by British artist Navine G. Khan-Dossos and an immersive sensory installation by Cameroonian artist Em’kal Eyongakpa, a commission by IMMA and Eva International. A new series of IMMA late nights will begin in May and run throughout the summer. We are also thrilled to announce the return of IMMA’s much loved Summer Party in July. This outdoor summer programme will culminate in a four-day Eco Event celebrating people, place and planet in September.
In the Autumn IMMA is hosting an international research conference to mark a century since the formation of the Irish Free State centered around the theme of Self-Determination. Titled 100 years of Self-Determination and taking place from November 10–12, this conference will delve into how this rhetorical term dominated the discourse of emergent democracies and freedom movements beginning in the interwar period of the early 20th century and how it resonated both nationally and internationally. It will focus on the role of art and visual culture in formulating the imaginary of the Irish state that emerged in the aftermath of the First World War. It will situate this work within a global context of artistic responses to emerging nation states and independence movements in this period. This conference is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012–2023.
