IMMA was a HOUSE

Workshop

Client: Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA)

Dates: 31st July 2019

Category: Drawing Workshop

Workshop images © Ruth Connolly

Workshop Participants:

Anna Hennings, Stella McCormick, Siúan Ní Dhochartaigh, Kenia Rodriguez, Cao, Rory Mullins, Mary Reid, Melisa Lennon, Vera Ryklova, Caoimhe Jane Reynolds, Mary Clarke, Catherine Opdebeeck, Gareth Smyth, Kaija Kennedy, Rory Tanghey, Kate O’Connor, Deirdre Ní Augan, Aideen Farrell

If you took part in this workshop and wish to have your name included above please contact us at plattenbaustudio@gmail.com

How does architecture influence the way we occupy space? How does it affect our mood, our movements, our awareness? In this workshop, we asked participants to observe and draw the seemingly empty courtyard that forms the central space within the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

The Royal Hospital Kilmainham (currently IMMA) was originally built to treat and house veteran British soldiers- making it a very large, very ordered, communal living space. Through the title of ‘IMMA was a house’, we asked participants to reassess their understanding of this building, opening space for new interpretations and ways of seeing this 300 year old structure.

Taking our cue from research developed while on Residency at IMMA, we invited workshop participants to take part in our own working processes, asking them to draw their own observations and imaginings about the site into our ongoing drawings of that place. The resulting 2.4 x 2.5 metre plan drawing is an exercise in group awareness, where 27 people observed, imagined and recorded their experience of one afternoon spent in the grounds of IMMA. As well as functioning as a record in time, the resulting group drawing became a platform for discussion, a space for the public to debate the nature of the urban realm and the role of the individual in the occupation of the city.