Things To Do: Search for UFOs, admire the vampires, reluctantly return to the Golden Age of Hong Kong cinema

Our Picks

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

A Note for Nature

To mark the twentieth anniversary of Coimisiún na Meán’s Sound and Vision Broadcasting Funding Scheme, which supports broadcasters and independent producers, the Irish Film Institute is hosting a special screening of filmmaker Cepa Giblin’s 2023 documentary A Note for Nature this evening.

Reflecting on the disappearance of nature in Ireland through spoken word and music, the film celebrates the country’s wilderness and the people who dedicate themselves to protecting it. Described by Cepa as “both a celebration of wild Ireland and a call to arms”, the film brings together artists like Christy Moore, Niamh Regan, Iarla Ó Lionáird and Tolü Makay to perform in a variety of locations that connect the viewer with our fragile natural heritage.

A Note for Nature screens at 6:20pm today, Thursday 23 April, and it will be followed by a Q&A with Giblin.

Tickets are available here.

Underground

Meanwhile, over in A4 Sounds Gallery, artist Kat Lalor is set to launch their new solo exhibition Underground this evening at 7pm.

Informed by Irish Vampiric Mythologies, the exhibition is billed as a recognition and celebration of “existence beneath the surface”, which entangles underground cultures, Queer infrastructures, and the quiet, regenerating presence of the vampire.

Paying homage to Drag as a “resilient political power,” Lalor’s exhibition features a performative film “set within soil; the living renewing, connective tissue, humanised and tenderised by processes of decay”. It is a study of immortality, which makes reference to silent film, Queer Club and Ballroom scenes, and the “deep and unyielding” roots of community, activism and political resistance.

Underground will run until 24 May. For more information, visit the exhibition page here.

Artists at Work in Irish Health Research and Care

On Friday, UCD Parity Studios is hosting a day-long conference that will explore how contemporary art practices can operate within healthcare, health research, clinical and community contexts.

Kicking off at 10am in the Trapdoor @ UCD theatre on the Belfield campus, this special event will bring together six artists with healthcare practitioners and health researchers to discuss the relationship between art, creative research and healthcare.

Among those who will appear throughout the day are artists Lorna Donlon, Siobhán Clancy, John Conway, Yvonne Cullivan, Manuala Corbari and Emma Finucane, alongside Mary Grehan, the former Arts in Health Curator for Children’s Health Ireland and Dr Andrew Darley, Assistant Professor at theUCD School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems.

The conference will run until 4pm, and you can register to attend here.

A Phenomenon Only Slightly Strange

After collaborating with artist Cillian Finnerty on an online exhibition about digital hoarding, clutter and memory caches last year, Cóilín O’Connell has resurfaced with another wildly entertaining, thought-provoking deep dive into the “datacombs” of the internet.

His new zine, A Phenomenon Only Slightly Strange casts its focus on the unidentified flying object, the history of these phenomena, the culture that has sprouted from them, their symbolism and spectral presence in media. Conceived of while on a research residency in Cyprus, O’Connell’s jumps down the rabbit hole when he learns that on 9 November 2018, there were reports of UFO sightings over both Larnaca in Cyprus and Kerry.

From there, he processes this inexplicable event through the lens of postcolonialism. Parallels are drawn between the histories of Ireland and Cyprus as subjects of the British Empire. The presence of UFOs in Unionist murals in the North is explored, and amateur photographs of anomalous lights over Shannon airport are studied.

Over the course of three short texts, O’Connell wonders “where are all our UFOs?” He studies Oliver Sheppard’s Cú Chulainn statue in the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, rediscovering the alien, shapeshifting powers of Cú Chulainn, and contemplating how an otter – that “greedy water dog” – who feeds off the dying “humanoid” might process their close encounter with this magical entity.

Whether you are someone who wants to believe, or simply have a keen interest in left-of-field takes on art, history and mythology, this is a zine that should be put straight to the top of your reading list.

You can read it here here, and if you want to secure a copy, head over to O’Connell’s Instagram page here.

Substrata

Way out yonder in Dublin Port, there is currently a contemporary art group exhibition showing in The Substation.

Presented in partnership with The Five Lamps Arts Festival, Substrata features new works by artists Claire Halpin, Katherine Sankey, Maree Hensey and Sohrab Uduman, and invites visitors to explore artworks that respond to the architecture, infrastructure and histories of Dublin Port.

Each artist has created a new piece to reflect The Substation’s physical space and wider, industrial, environmental and social context. Through sculpture, painting, video and installation, Substrata examines themes of migration, labour, trade routes, ecology and memory that are connected to the port and its surrounding communities.

Substrata launched earlier this month, but it will remain open to visitors until Thursday 30 April. Admission is free. A trip on the Luas’ Red Line, on the other hand, isn’t, unless you’re willing to pay a fine to keep a pandemic-era meme alive.

The Madonna of Asia

On Tuesday, the New Theatre in Temple Bar will be staging The Madonna of Asia, a new drama from playwright Choy-Ping Ní Chléirigh-Ng.

Inspired by the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, The Madonna of Asia weaves together live performance, projections and multi-lingual storytelling. At the heart of the play is Rin Asai, an actor who vanishes from the spotlight as she is on the brink of achieving global fame with the release of her first English-language film.

Picking up in 2014 when Asari is in her forties and living in Dublin, she is forced to confront the life she left behind when she encounters Tara, a woman living in Hong Kong, who brings up the past that she tried to forget.

The play will be showing in the theatre’s Fiona Hurley Auditorium from 28 April until 2 May. For more information and to book tickets, visit the New Theatre event page here.

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SIGNS present: 

Elikya (Congolese 9-piece rumba/soukous) 
Cormorant Tree Oh (experimental folk, drone, psych)
Farah Elle (alternative singer-songwriter) 
David DeBarra (experimental folk 3-piece) 
+ Telephones DJs, Pablo Santo, Kixx, Little O & more 

West African food by Ibile, 8–11pm.

3 May at The Sugar Club, Dublin 2

Tickets

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Listings of events submitted by readers – you can submit yours for next week's newsletter, via this form.

Keep'er Lit: Meet the author event

Feminist and activist author Rosita Sweetman will be speaking with author and activist Fiona O’Rourke at the Arthaus Hotel in Dublin 2 on Sunday 26 April.

The free-to-attend event will see Sweetman discussing her memoir Girl With A Fork In A World Of Soup.

The interview will begin at 11:30am, and attendees are asked to meet on the ground level of the Arthaus.

For more information and to book a spot, visit O’Rourke’s Keep’er Lit substack newsletter here.

Palestine 36 screening and fundraiser

On 7 May, CIÉ Hall in Inchicore will be hosting a special screening of Annemarie Jacir’s film Palestine 36 as part of Culture Date with Dublin 8.

All proceeds will go to T.E.A Collective who are a Louth- and Dublin-based NGO fundraising for local initiatives in Gaza.

The film will be showing at 7pm. To book a seat, visit the fundraiser’s Eventbrite page here.

Emma Brennan and Thomas Wells – The House of Atreus

The House of Atreus is a collaborative project by Emma Brennan and Thomas Wells, exploring how working-class architecture reflects contemporary social and moral systems.

This partnering of experiences intersects gendered labour practices, working-class identity and the entanglement of domestic and industrial spaces.

The House of Atreus will launch in Pallas Projects/Studios on 9 May.

For more information, visit the Pallas event page here.

The Wildlife Couch – Gulls of Ireland

On Wednesday 20 May, Kildare Wildlife Rescue will be hosting its next session of The Wildlife Couch as they explore the often misunderstood gulls of Ireland.

Learn about the species as a whole and discover the many challenges they face in an ever changing world during this free online talk.

The session will begin at 7pm. You can register to attend here.

Dalkey Original Print Fair

The Dalkey Original Print Fair will be returning this June.

The fair, which brings together a small group of established, talented printmakers working across etching, drypoint, linocut, monotype and more will run from 20 to 21 June in Our Lady’s Hall, 40 Castle Street in Dalkey.

It will open on Saturday from 11am to 7pm, and Sunday from 11am to 6pm.

For more information and to keep up to date, visit the Dalkey Original Print Fair’s Instagram page here.