Arts and Creativity Editor Laura Molloy spotlights art exhibitions for students to visit in Dublin.
With the Spring semester well underway, students are starting to feel the pressures of assignments and reading lists. To take a break from these demands, why not take a stroll around one of Dublin’s galleries and visit one of the many art exhibitions on offer? This is the ultimate guide for current art exhibitions that are both affordable and accessible for students.
Walled Unwalled, Hugh Lane Gallery
In Walled Unwalled, Lawrence Abu Hamdan works as both an artist and audio investigator. Through his work, he explores the politics of listening, and the connection that sound and voice have to the fields of law and human rights. As part of Hamdan’s work, he creates audio-visual installations, lecture performances, audio archives, photography, and text. He uses his work to translate in-depth research and investigative work into affective, spatial experiences.
For Walled Unwalled, Hamdan was approached by Amnesty International to investigate a variety of testimonies from prisoners about their experiences inside Sednaya Prison, Syria. He began to work with the multi-disciplinary research group Forensic Architecture. While carrying out his work, he discovered that sound had become one of the essential tools to digitally reconstruct the interior of the prison. The aim was to interlink a series of prisoner narratives that he had collected to serve as evidence. The evidence was used for investigating human rights and violations that were either heard or experienced through walls of the blindfolded detainees cells.
Walled Unwalled is on display at the Hugh Lane Gallery until May 23rd, and entry is free of charge.
Ludovico Mazzolino’s The Crossing of the Red Sea, The National Gallery
Ludovico Mazzolino’s 16th century masterpiece, The Crossing of the Red Sea, is on display at the National Gallery of Ireland in the Sir Hugh Lane Room. The National Gallery is located on Merrion Square West, making it easily accessible for UCD students.
A celebration of the conservation and redisplay of Mazzolino’s rarely seen work, the exhibition has received funding from the TEFAF Museum Restoration Fund, a grant aimed at supporting the restoration and research of artworks awarded to the National Gallery for 2024. This painting has formed part of the National Gallery’s collection for over a century, and in this time has undergone extensive research and conservation. Prior to this restoration, the painting’s fragile state made it impossible to display to the public - until now. A work from Renaissance-era Italy, this fabulous exhibition is certainly not one to miss.
Ludovico Mazzolino’s The Crossing of the Red Sea can be viewed at the National Gallery for free of charge until July 6th.
Bafushia (a physically bound process of forward movement), Hugh Lane Gallery
Bafushia is an exhibition defined by collaboration. It features a variety of contemporary artists from an Irish Traveller background, with a focus on the lived experience of the Traveller community. Born from a collaborative creative project initially organised by artist Séamus Nolan and Sligo Traveller Support Group, the exhibition features works by Chloe McDonagh, David McDonagh, Frank McCarthy, Leanne McDonagh, Paddy Collins and William Cauley. Alongside this, the Hugh Lane Gallery opened its collection to members from the Traveller community, who selected artworks to be displayed alongside the contemporary pieces through a series of workshops. The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Emma Blain, opened the exhibition on January 29th.
Bafushia is curated by Séamus Nolan in collaboration with Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, and is on display at the Hugh Lane Gallery until April 27th. Entry is free of charge.