IMMA Outdoors and IMMA Nights coming this Summer

David Prendeville

IMMA recently launched IMMA Outdoors 2022, a vibrant artistic programme that turns the museum inside out and activates the 48 acres of the museum’s site at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, through artist commissions, performances, music, talks, workshops, and tours. As part of IMMA Outdoors, this year the museum is presenting a new series of evening events called IMMA Nights, which run every Thursday and Friday evening until September, as part of a pilot initiative to support the Night-Time Economy, funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

IMMA Outdoors explores the environment and what it means to be radically public by creating an inclusive, meaningful space for audiences of all ages to enjoy.

The new late evening programme, IMMA Nights, presents a wide variety of events including talks, workshops, dance, performances, film screenings, book launches, DJs and live music. IMMA will also share the site with other cultural organisations, initiatives and artist groups creating a hive of night-time activity in Dublin 8.

Some of the highlights of the IMMA Outdoors and IMMA Nights programming are as follows:

An installation piece by Em’kal Eyongakpa, titled Mámbáy bebhɛp 43t / besáŋ berat / bakay nɛkɔ, from May. This immersive sonic installation presented on the Terrace of the Formal Gardens features contributions from singers and storytellers in Southeast Nigeria, Southern Cameroon and Ireland, as well as intercessions between the Gulf of Guinea and Western Europe.

A visually stunning new commission by Navine G. Khan-Dossos titled, Kind Words Can Never Die, will be presented in the Courtyard from July. Transforming the iconic courtyard space with an extensive mural painting along all three colonnades, the work explores new psychological states that have emerged in response to a greater awareness of global and local climate change. A series of public workshops conceived by the artist will run through the month of July.

The IMMA Outdoors Eco Event, Earth Rising, is a celebration of people, place and planet that is interwoven with themes of biodiversity and sustainability. This weekend of eco related programming, taking place from 9 to 11 September, will showcase the most exciting innovators in the field of eco citizen science, design and creativity, enabling intergenerational dialogue and empowering audiences to become agents of change.

A specially curated series of Poetry and Song performances titled, More than the Reverb, will take place from 19 May – 29 July in the Formal Gardens. This series of outdoor live events gathers together poets, singers and storytellers to share lullabies, chants, laments, poems and folk songs, and features contributions from Ayuk, Mbongeuh Angwi Tah, Ceara Conway, Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi, Em’kal Eyongakpa, Róisín Ní Shillelagh, Sandra Joyce, Noirin Lynch, Micheál Marrinan, John Tunney, Samuel Yakura, amongst others. These performances reflect and expand upon the sonic installation by Em’kal Eyongakpa.

On 30 June in partnership with Granta Books, IMMA is delighted to present an evening in celebration of the book Accidental Gods: On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine by Anna Della Subin. Named a best book of the year in the Irish Times, the TLS, and Esquire, Accidental Gods is an extraordinary meditation on race, empire, and power, told through stories of men who found themselves inadvertently turned into deities. Subin will be joined by renowned mythographer, novelist, and literary critic Marina Warner and introduced by Mark O’ Connell, author of To Be a Machine and Notes from An Apocalypse.

IMMA’s much loved Summer Party returns in July, Continuous Patterns is a two-day summer celebration of music, art and atmosphere in the grounds of IMMA. On Friday 15 July Continuous Patterns presents an evening of forward focused music and entertainment for that particular Friday feeling, while Saturday 16 July invites you to spend a relaxing day with friends old and new, surrounded by the sights and sounds of a gently considered programme in the Formal Gardens of IMMA.

IMMA Nights presents a free music programme in the surroundings of the IMMA Courtyard. Starting from May 6, on the first Friday of every month DJ Nigel Wood will play from his contemporary World Music collection for audiences to relax and dance to. Also, in May IMMA will present Sound Bath Meditation with Liam Oragh; guitarist Redmond O’Toole with his groundbreaking ‘Brahms guitar’ and a live performance by Olesya Zdorovetska, a powerful voice in new music.

IMMA Nights will also bring together participants of the IMMA’s Residency Programme to create a ‘Studio Street’ of activation and Open Studio events with resident artists and invited guests generating a suite of artist-led activities.

More information can be found at: https://imma.ie/whats-on/imma-outdoors-2022/