Cultural spaces across Dublin are hosting new exhibitions and events this week, featuring collaborative art shows, historical retrospectives, and academic podcast launches. Among the openings is Materia, a new group exhibition opening this evening at TØN Gallery on Temple Lane.
Forestry and Labour Exhibitions in Temple Bar
Put together by Colin Mac Suibhne, Anthony O’Connor and Steve Doogan, Materia offers artistic reactions to the Irish attitude towards forestry as both an ecology and a material resource. The exhibition takes the Gearagh in Cork—Ireland’s last primeval forest, flooded in 1954 during the construction of hydro-electric dams—as its site of study. The show features installations and a short film shot by O’Connor, and runs until 31 October following its opening at 6pm.
Nearby at Project Arts Centre, artist Rehana Zaman is unveiling her solo exhibition, Plantation, at 6pm. Exploring land use, labour and environmental collapse through agricultural workers, the exhibition features two new films filmed in Angus, Scotland and Punjab, Pakistan, presented within an immersive sculptural landscape. Attendance is free, and the exhibition runs from 23 October until 19 December between 11am and 6pm on Mondays to Saturdays.
Hospital History and Podcast Launches
Earlier today, the Little Museum of Dublin opened Born in Dublin, a brand new exhibition celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Coombe Hospital. The exhibition tells the story of the maternity hospital, celebrating figures and innovations including Dr Francis Rynd, inventor of the hypodermic needle; Dr John Drumm, pioneer of Doppler ultrasound for umbilical cord blood flow; and the early 1970s opening of the hospital’s Family Planning Clinic. A commemorative coffee-table book, The Coombe Hospital: 1826-2026 by Michael O’Dowd, is available at the museum shop.
The Trinity Long Room Hub will host the launch of Beyond the End, a new podcast devoted to the end of the world, on Tuesday, 27 October at 5.30pm in the Neill Lecture Theatre. Produced by PhD researchers Irene Barbotti, Hairuo Wang, Simon Brummer, and Maicol Cortes, the podcast examines how beliefs around the end of the world have shaped human imagination, religious traditions and social life. Admission is free, though booking is required.