Autumn at Kunstverein Aughrim

Kunstverein Aughrim is proud to present the closing event of Vaari Claffey’s major public programme, The Clearing. Coming to life through an exhibition, nobody ever brings anything small into a bar at Kunstverein Aughrim; a live event, Fly Specks, at Aughrim’s Craic in the Granite Music & Arts Festival; and a performance and screening programme, Buried with the Machine, at The Courthouse Arts Centre, Tinahely, The Clearing has marked a summer-long pitstop in Claffey’s actively artistic curatorial practice. Through a series of new commissions developed in close collaboration with artists, and supported by an Arts Council Project Award, Claffey has devised encounters that invite pause for reflection, before continuing on possible and unknowable journeys ahead.

Together with Claffey and Brian Hand we discovered time as an active agent in a batch of abandoned teaching slides. Lucy Andrews introduced a bloom of misplaced jellyfish, washed over a disused gas station like an oil spill. Liss Fenwick mounted pinhole cameras made from beer cans and acupuncture needles, to capture 60 days of sun streaking through the village skyline. Sam Keogh paraded and parodied in a paper-thin garb of early modern junk. Joseph Noonan-Ganley summoned us to dance in a bandstand, among lovers, strangers, masked companions and other animals. Tina O’Connell returned us to a moment where bitumen dripped between worlds, and Julia Dubsky caught it all on paper, drawing everything together with a pencil in real time.

Now as the end of summer approaches, you are invited to Wicklow, Ireland, for the closing event; an evening of ghosts tinkering with machines, curated by Claffey and Todd Sekuler. Featuring screenings, performances and amuse bouches by Rebecca Barten, Matt Calderwood, Jem Cohen, Megan Conery, David Crowley, Brian Dillon, Amelia Durac, Mikala Dwyer, Liss Fenwick, Barbara Hammer, Brian Hand, Bea McMahon, Jasmine Parsley, Elizabeth Price, Elisabeth Subrin, Nathan Truesdell, and Yuyan Wang, Buried with the Machine takes place from 7–10pm (chasing dusk) on Saturday September 5, at The Courthouse Arts Centre, Tinahely.

Later in the season Kunstverein Aughrim presents a new exhibition by Jenny Brady. Reference Library 2010–2026 brings together ten moving image works by the artist, presenting them collectively for the first time. Attuned to the politics of looking and representation, Brady’s practice examines the unstable structures through which meaning is produced. A specially commissioned live performance by collaborator and composer Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh will accompany the opening from 6–8pm on Friday September 18, between Kunstverein Aughrim and the Church of St John the Evangelist, as part of Culture Night 2026.

In October Kunstverein Aughrim presents What is Creative Production? – an international symposium as part of the Culture Programme for Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2026. Shaped by participants of the Creative Producer Programme, this discursive event convenes artists and producers to think about the practice, potential, and mechanics of creative production in the visual arts. The schedule includes interventions in hospitality by Bia! Zine Community, The Domestic Godless, Jennie Moran/Luncheonette, and ideas around archives by Clodagh Assata Boyce and Sarah Hayden. A public forum takes place from 10am–5pm on Thursday October 8 2026 between the BrookLodge & Macreddin Village and Kunstverein Aughrim. See the website for full list of contributors.

For details on booking, access, press and further information please visit Kunstverein’s website and/or join the mailing list. 

Established by Kate Strain in 2022, Kunstverein Aughrim is a curatorial production office located in a small town in County Wicklow, Ireland. Over the past four years the Artistic Programme has developed a model of curatorial accompaniment, collaborating with three artists each year across multiple projects. Since 2025 and together with Michelle Darmody, Kunstverein is piloting a new Creative Producer Programme, an 18-month training and development initiative for independent curators and freelance producers working in the visual arts. Kunstverein Projects CLG is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.