Things To Do: Make space, start again, see two students draw 1,000 self-portraits, smell wet ash, biscuits and graves facing east

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Uplift

This evening, painter Desmond Kenny will be unveiling his new exhibition Uplift in Tøn Gallery.

Curated by artist and photographer Ishmael Claxton, Uplift is a new body of paintings and sculptures that Kenny has built around “colour, material and instinct” using paint, beads, gemstones and found items.

Kenny spent a good deal of his career working as a figurative artist. But twenty years ago, he stepped away from this practice and developed a new body of work out of his shed studio in Huntstown that focused on experimentation and unbridled freedom.

Uplift captures that sense of liberty in deciding to start again.

Kenny says he takes a lot of influence from watching his grandnieces make art without worrying about rules, expectations or what a finished artwork should look like. And Claxton says the exhibition isn’t looking at an artist who has discovered a new style, but rather it looks at “twenty years of work that has been developing quietly and largely unseen.”

Uplift opens today (Thursday, 1 October) at 6pm, and will run until 15 October.

Making Space

Over in the Fumbally Exchange this evening, a new not-for-profit visual arts initiative known as FEXA - Fumbally Contemporary will be opening its inaugural exhibition: Making Space.

The multidisciplinary exhibition features works by painters Natasha Conway, Frances Donnelly Jung and Stephen Dunne, photographer Conor Horgan, assemblage artist Caroline McCambridge and collagist David Newton, as well as a literary piece by the poet and writer Patrick Chapman.

As an extension of the exhibition, Hen’s Teeth will also be screening artist Luke Danniells’ film The How of Collage which takes as its subject Newton, and which will be showing on Saturday, 3 October at 1pm.

The following Saturday, from 1pm, the Fumbally Exchange will host a discussion with McCambridge, Horgan, Dunn and Donnelly Jung, followed by a poetry reading by Chapman, and finally, a postcard collage workshop with Newton.

The Making Space exhibition launches at 6pm today (Thursday, 1 October) and will run until 18 October.

For more information and to view the full schedule of events, visit the FEXA website here.

Cross//Ways Tallaght Performance Art Festival

Currently the fourth annual Tallaght Performance Art Festival is playing out in the Rua Red arts centre and neighbouring sites.

Following last year’s theme of “becoming”, this latest incarnation of the festival takes as its focus a crossroads, “not as a place of arrival or departure, but as a space of encounter.”

Titled Cross//Ways for its fourth edition, the festival is showcasing the work of nine performance artists over the course of four days.

Curated by Francis Fay and Olivia Hassett, the proceedings kicked off yesterday. But, there’s still plenty to catch before the festival wraps up.

Tomorrow (Friday, 2 October), visual artist Debbie Guinnane will present Cloud to Ground, a two-part piece that nods to the lightning which struck and split St. Maelruan’s Tree in the St. Mary’s Priory garden in 1797. Part one, “Flaming Trees” will begin in Rua Red at 12pm, before the second part “Widemouthed Flowers” will occur in St. Mary’s Priory at 3pm.

Also on the line-up for Friday is Beth Greenhalgh’s Noise from Over There at 1pm.

This one could go a lot of ways, all of which I am eager to see. In the description Greenhalgh mentions that she is in a new job where they are discussing time travel and listening to classic hits from the 80s. She is also “struck by the smell of biscuits and gravestones facing east.”

She intends to investigate sounds and the small buzzes that places emit to their surroundings, she says. “I’ll likely have a cardboard box, some green chalk and small sculptures that represent insects.”

She had me at “likely.”

At 4pm Selina Bonelli will be performing known unkowns at Talbot’s Leap. Using the opaque language of Donald Rumsfeld, Bonelli dives into landscapes “as a site of known unknowns”, and looks at the watercourses in Tallaght which once supplied the town’s old mills, and which is now used by the Amazon data centre.

On Saturday, the festival will draw to a close with a panel discussion at 12pm.

Admission for these events are free. For more information, visit the Rua Red event page here. 

This could have been a text.

This week, Dublin-based Chilean producer VaticanJail dropped This could have been a text., her second EP today.

This could have been a text. is seven tracks which narrate the journey that a lover goes through as dawns on them the realisation that “love’s eternity has an expiration date.” It is an exploration into the nature of attachment that is set against a rich backdrop of arpeggiated vocals, shuffling rhythms and glitchy synthesizers that feel like shards of glass, being both smooth and razor-sharp at the same time.

The EP is streaming now on Spotify.

You can follow VaticanJail on Instagram or support her via Bandcamp here.

Hyper Spastic Idiots Work Until Exhaustion

Since Wednesday, National College of Art and Design students Frankie Lowney and Oisín McGough have been residing in GalleryX below Hume Street.

Their objective is simple. Over the course of five days, the duo are attempting to complete 1,000 self-portraits. Equipped with sleeping bags and a lot of paper, this rather extreme version of an artistic residency has been given the charming, provocative and very frank title of Hyper Spastic Idiots Work Until Exhaustion.

Described as a live-in, durational performance, the event is intended to “explore the increasingly tenuous sense of self and of their standing in the world as young, supple, naive art students".

If you are curious, or have any questions or concerns, both Lowney and McGough will be cooped up in the basement below Hume Street until Saturday, 3 October.

For more information and to keep track of their progress, follow the GalleryX Instagram page here.

The Smell of Wet Ashes

Next Thursday, the Art Shelter collective will be staging their fourth group exhibition in Flux Gallery.

Curated by Feride Görmez and Svenja Michelle Behle, The Smell of Wet Ashes is described as an exploration of the relationship between the body and space. Drawing influence from poet and performance artist John Giorno’s “trans-disciplinary exhibition approach”, the show is set to feature artforms including dance, installation, expanded sculpture, paint, print, photography, video, sound and performance.

On the bill for the evening are DJ sets by Flying Fatima and sona, a dance performance choreographed and directed by Anastasiia Russ. Among the artists set to feature are Bassam Issa Al-Sabah, Paula Pleuser, David McGinn, Lucy Tarmey, Struàn Bell, Conor Campbell, James McLoughlin, Elif Belgen, Kate Clancy, Aoife Ní Dhuinn, Jack Ó Meara, Noémie Cursoux and Samy Martins.

During the course of the evening, there will also be a rare outing by the city’s foremost “post-punk, solopsism-core” band I Am The Main Character. Featuring artist and Earthslayer singer Sam Burton, experimental drummer Jason McNamara and Ben Bix of the “cult” five piece Meltybrains?, this will mark the first time that the group has performed in two years.

If you miss the opening however, there is also a follow-up event on Sunday, 11 October which will feature a sound and dance performance by Emily Aoibheann and sound artist Pink Thistle. Their performance will start at 3pm in the gallery space.

The Smell of Wet Ashes will run until 14 October.

For more information, follow the Art Shelter on Instagram here.

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Housing a Nation

Lorcan Sirr launches his new book, Housing a Nation: Seven Generations of Irish Land, Politics and Power at Hodges Figgis on Wednesday 7 October at 6pm.

In his book, the Housing policy analyst and TU Dublin senior lecturer examines seven generations of one Irish family to tell a wider story of land, housing and power in Ireland.

Presence by Sheila Naughton

On Sunday, 4 October, the Oliver Cornet Gallery will be launching Presence, a new exhibition by the abstract artist Sheila Naughton.

The artist will be in conversation with the gallerists to open the exhibition at 3pm.

Presence runs until 1 November.

For more information, visit the Oliver Cornet Gallery website here.

Temple Bar Gallery + Studios announces new book of art writing

Temple Bar Galley + Studios has announced the publication of a new book, Encounters, Vol. 1: Ten years of writing inspired by art, compiling the first decade of the TBG+S Writing Commission, 2015–2024.

This collection comprises thoughtful reflections, pithy abstractions, fantastical prose, and poetic forms which reflect a range of literary styles and approaches with contributions by Sarah Baume, Claire-Louise Bennett, Gavin Corbett, Nicole Flattery, Ian Maleney, Thomas Morris, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Padraig Regan, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, and a commissioned essay by Gustav Parker Hibbett.

Encounters, Vol. 1 is available to pre-order on the TBG+S Online Shop here, with an official book launch taking place in Studio 6 the evening of 14 October 2026.

The Dice Players One-Day Comedy Workshop

The Dice Players Performing Arts Studio in Palmerstown will be hosting a special one day comedy workshop on Saturday, 14 November.

Running from 10am to 6:30pm, the workshop will be held in Palmerstown Parish Hall on the Kennelsfort Road Lower, and will include an interview with Katherine Lynch and Father Ted co-creator Arthur Matthews, alongside intensive stand-up and improv masterclasses hosted by Willa White and Aideen McQueen.

Spaces are limited. Attendees can book by emailing diceplayers@gmail.com or by calling/texting 085 2550344.

For more information, follow the Dice Players on Instagram here.