Aughrim Co. Wicklow Y14 K120
Ireland
Hours: Thursday–Sunday 10am–5pm
office@kunstverein.ie
Throughout 2026 Kunstverein Aughrim will accompany the practices of three artists across multiple projects.
Sibyl Montague lives in West Cork where she makes daily observations of dairy cows as they move through their cycles of labour and seasonal rhythms. Montague practices from ó dheas, her studio and site of material production. Here fleshy animal hides meet zoomorphic digital animation for projects that work to rouse the underbelly of our world, reaching towards the dreams and incantations of another. In Spring 2026 Montague comes to Aughrim to present 'Son of honey-bag', a new body of work in development. As part of this Montague will undertake a series of exercises and conversations, responding to the landscape through the perspective of divining, milk production, mythologies and acupuncture for land.
Vaari Claffey is a curator and cultural producer who never shies away from a scene. Her projects are often monumental in scale, harnessing knowledge and energy to create performative moments with transformative consequences. She works both in-sync and in tension with the art histories, social contexts, and contemporary conditions of production. In Summer 2026 Claffey and a cohort of collaborators will present a major new public art project in and around Aughrim. 'The Clearing' will activate a series of vacant or derelict sites, inserting itself into events and institutions to look at the dynamics of spectatorship and withdrawing. Featuring an exhibition at Kunstverein Aughrim, a sculptural performance through the village, and an interruption into the Craic in the Granite Music & Arts Festival, the project culminates in a screening programme at the neighbouring Courthouse Arts Centre in Tinahely.
Jenny Brady makes moving image artworks that interrogate communication through the language of cinema, and the sensory and perceptual conditions of sound. Her works are measured adventures in uncertainty, often involving unreliable narrators, missed or mistranslations, questioning both how we speak and listen, and who has the right and capacity to be heard. In Autumn/Winter 2026 Brady will develop a Reference Library for Kunstverein Aughrim. This project will take the shape of a viewing room, enabling access to previous work, occasional screenings of relevant material, and pathways into some of the research, recurrning themes, influences and ideas that continue to inform the artist's patterns of work.
Founded by Kate Strain in 2022, and operating from a rural townhouse in County Wicklow, Ireland, Kunstverein Aughrim is a curatorial production office that develops durational collaborations with artists to support the production of new artistic work, bringing audiences as close to the creative process as possible. In 2025 Kunstverein Aughrim accompanied the practices of Marie Farrington, Bea McMahon, and Ruth E Lyons, through activities such as multi-platform projects, production shoots, screening previews, collaborative workshops, seasonal exhibitions, and off-site events. The public programme was further shaped by a month-long residency with Eslam Abd El Salam, an Ultimology Summer School with Fiona Hallinan, a publishing project for Suppose a Stone, and the launch of a new sales initiative: House of Kunst.
Alongside the artistic programme, in 2026 Kunstverein Aughrim will commission an approach to institutional archival practice with Clodagh Assata Boyce, host a micro residency with Aster Reem David, maintain material collaborations with Forerunner, and continue to pilot the Creative Producer Programme with participants Aisling Murray, Fatoumata Gandega, Iarlaith Ní Fheorais, Nathan O’Donnell, Rachel Botha, Seán Ward and Sara Muthi. As part of this programme an event titled What is a Creative Producer? is set to take place on February 3rd 2026 at the Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray. This day-long event is designed to interrogate the rise of the term 'Creative Producer' in the context of contemporary art production in Ireland.
For more information please visit Kunstverein Aughrim's website, contact the team directly at office@kunstverein.ie, and/or subscribe to the mailing list for irregular digital updates. Currently showing at Kunstverein Aughrim Until You Become Weightless by Ruth E Lyons is on view until February 20th 2026. Visits are welcome by appointment.
Kunstverein Aughrim’s Artistic Programme is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland. Kunstverein's Creative Producer Programme is supported by the Arts Council through the Creative Production Supports scheme, Fingal County Council Arts Office and Wicklow County Council Arts Office through the annual Strategic Project Award Scheme.
