Things To Do: Assemble a zine, stew on some ruins, care about care, imagine an alternative future for Meath Street

Our Picks

Our recommendations – no sponsored content, or adverts, just stuff we like.

Nach Cuma? Who Cares?

While we were on a break last week, the artist, youth worker and Rialto Youth Project collaborator Aaron Sunderland Carey launched Nach Cuma? Who Cares? in The Lab Gallery on Foley Street.

Nach Cuma? looks at the politics of care and responsibility, examining this topic through the lens of class and race in the city’s working-class communities. Carey developed the show from a series of collaborative workshops with youth and adult groups in Rialto, Bluebell and Ballymun. Through those discussions, he created what is described as a response to the rise in “hate-driven rhetoric” and division, particularly within working-class spaces at present.

The exhibition follows on from, and expands upon, Carey’s previous work Stones, launched at Axis Ballymun last November, which looked at Ballymun’s community, asking how its people relate to each other and the ever-changing landscape around them.

Nach Cuma? Who Cares? is free to visit between Monday and Saturday until 30 September.

For more information on the exhibition, visit its page here.

What’s this here beneath me?

If, like me, a good weekend shop involves going to the Aungier Street Lidl to buy a tub of yoghurt, march over some Viking ruins, and listen to the intermittently rhythmic Ecliptic Newsletter mixtape, The Lidl Museum of Ancient and Contemporary Art Audio Tour, then we may have something for you.

Over in the Ormond Art Studios on Friday evening, artist Jonathan O’Grady is launching a solo presentation of new work titled What’s this here, beneath me?

O’Grady, a visual artist based between Naas and Dublin, fixes his attention on the sites of monuments and ruins, or places of "reconstruction and reimagining”. Through the use of drawing and image making, he investigates notions of ownership, preservation and purity in relation to heritage.

What’s this here, beneath me? opens at 18.00 on Friday evening, and will be free to check out on Saturday and Sunday until 17.00.

Zine workshop

Across the river in Temple Bar, it might be worth dropping into the TØN Gallery on Saturday afternoon.

Visual artist Alicia Donnan will be hosting a zine-making workshop from 14.00, demonstrating how to create personalised mini zines through the use of collage materials, while also guiding participants on different layout design techniques.

Donnan, back in July, launched her own zine Dublin Needs to Dance in the gallery as part of its new Mercado art fair. Those are currently on sale in the The Library Project and Photo Museum Ireland not too far away.

The workshop is beginner-friendly. Tickets are €11.70, and you can reserve a spot in her class here.

The Government of Life

While Dublin City Council carries out its regeneration of Meath Street, artist Rudi-Lee McCarthy has been reflecting on this process and its effects, asking “what would a more ground-up approach to city-making look like?”

In his effort to understand how urban design shapes our lives, McCarthy carried out months and months of intensive research, which included his own on-street consultation with Meath Street locals. The end result is The Government of Life, an investigation of “urban regeneration, symbolic violence and community resistance on Meath Street”.

The Government of Life will be showing in the National College of Art and Design’s Sculpture Department, and is set to feature interactive works, speculative design projects and reflections on the public engagement process.

McCarthy’s show opens tomorrow, Friday 29 August between 9.00 and 14.00, with the main event being held on Monday, 1 September at 17.00. It will also be open to the public until Tuesday, 2 September.

For more information, visit McCarthy’s Instagram page here.

Abhaile

If you’re up near Chatham Row this weekend, the Dublin Print Club will be in Flux’s exhibition space to launch Abhaile, its second group show on Friday evening.

Launched on culture night last September, the Dublin Print Club is a members-run screen printing studio and workshop, which operates out of Flux. For their latest exploration, they are looking at the themes of home and belonging - and how these relate to “personal, environmental, social and political concepts”.

Co-curated by DPC and AnneMarie Saliba, Abhaile will feature works by Clare Blackwell, Conor Nolan, Ciarán Crowe, Manal Mahamid, Sinead McCormack, Maria Baez Troin, Joanne Clerkin and Izzy Rose Grange.

The exhibition opens tomorrow, Friday, 29 August, at 18.00 and will run until Sunday.

For more information, follow the Dublin Print Club on Instagram here.

Centre for Land Use Interpretation, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios

Next Thursday, the Limerick-based artist-led organisation Askeaton Contemporary Arts will be hosting a discussion with Aurora Tang of the Centre for Land Use Interpretation in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios.

The CLUI, a non-profit research organisation, explores contemporary landscapes in the United States and how these reflect on the nation’s culture and economy. And Tang, as the Institute’s director, will be talking through some of their most recent curatorial and research projects, which you can find out about here.

The event will be on at 18.00. Entry is free, but booking is required. To reserve a spot, visit the event’s page here.

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Basic Income for the Arts Public Consultation

The Department of Culture, Communications and Sport is currently seeking the public’s view on the Basic Income for the Arts.

Its pilot research programme has been running since August 2022, in which 2,000 artists are in receipt of €325 per week in order to support their creative practice, and before this study concludes in February, the public is asked to share their opinions on the scheme.

For more information on the programme, the Department’s report is available here. The online public consultation can be accessed here, and will remain open until 5 September.

An ghaoth aniar / This too will pass, a solo show by Eoin Mac Lochlainn

On Sunday, 7 September, the Olivier Cornet Gallery will be launching Eoin Mac Lochlainn's sixth solo exhibition, titled An ghaoth aniar / This too will pass.

In An ghaoth aniar, Mac Lochlainn expresses his increasing concerns about nature and climate change, chiefly through the examination of the effects of wind and rain on old fence posts, a symbol of humankind’s belief that “we are in control  of the earth.”

The official opening is at 15.00, and as part of the launch TD Catherine Connolly will introduce the exhibition, while poet Geraldine Mitchell will read 'Keepers', her poem inspired by the artist's fence post paintings.  

Sometimes a rose is just a rose

Artist Glenn Matthews will be presenting a selection of his pop art portraits at Reds Gallery between 12 and 17 September.

Inspired by artists such as Andy Warhol and Shepard Fairey, Matthews’ solo show is curated by Tony Strickland, and will launch on Thursday, 11 September at 18.00.

Playwright David Gilna will be present as the opening speaker. For more information, contact Strickland at marginman1@gmail.com.

Life Expectancy: A Comedy in Three Trimesters

Playwright and TV writer Catherine Butterfield is bringing her new play Life Expectancy: A Comedy in three Trimesters to the Teacher’s Club in September.

Directed by Ron West (Third Rock from the Sun and Whose Line Is It Anyway) and starring Derbáil Kinsella and Dave McGowan, the play is about an Irish screenwriter and her husband who, while living in Los Angeles, attempt to navigate the surreal joys and hazards of a “geriatric” pregnancy.

Life Expectancy will run from 11 to 13 September at the Teacher’s Club on Parnell Square. Tickets can be purchased here.

Dublin Maker 2025

On 30 and 31, August Dublin Maker will be holding a “show and tell” at Leopardstown Racecourse where inventors and makers, sourced through an open call, will be showcasing their creations in a carnival atmosphere.

The showcase is family friendly, and tickets are free.

For more information, visit their website here.

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