Earth Rising, IMMA’s new Eco Art Festival, presents over 70 contributors, artist commissions, talks, workshops, Seed STUDIO and showcases a stunning Built to Disappear eco pavilion sponsored by Lioncor and designed by Reddy Architecture + Urbanism. Over the three days, Earth Rising will plant the seeds of sustainability, enabling audiences of all ages to participate, discuss, experiment, and innovate. The festival, which focuses on citizens assembly, brings together a wide variety of eco artists, practitioners and activists from across the island of Ireland. An eclectic live music line up and a variety of food stalls will add to the energetic atmosphere on site promising an engaging and enjoyable free day out for everyone.

Central to the festival is the Built to Disappear project, a new site-specific pavilion, titled Éirigh, located in the IMMA Courtyard. Éirigh is the result of a dynamic partnership between Lioncor and Reddy Architecture + Urbanism to create a unique gathering space that uses environmentally conscious approaches to materials and assembly that highlight the relationship between the environment, art, architecture and construction.

A combination of over 70 unique contributions and interventions will take place over IMMA’s 48-acre site. Architects, storytellers, biologists, performers, designers, musicians and film makers will combine inspiring artistic interventions and civic exploration of eco creativity, with workshops, talks and events.

IMMA Talks brings together the festivals thought leadership platform, exploring the big issues and challenges of the day. Key note talks will be given by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, author, consultant and entrepreneur who is building the Low Carbon Design Institute and Lucy Jones, author of Losing Eden, Why Our Minds Need the Wild.

Artist commissions include Kind Words Can Never Die, a visually stunning new site-specific installation created by artist Navine G. Dossos for the IMMA Courtyard; an immersive sonic installation by Em’kal Eyongakpa in the Formal Gardens; and the idiosyncratic seating structures found across the site, titled Y O U N G F O S S I L, created by Forerunner.

Seed STUDIO will open its doors over the three days to showcase research, practices and projects which have formed Seed STUDIO activities over the last six months. A schedule of activities will include screenings of Emoe’s latest project Classroom in the Sun, a Seed STUDIO Reading with Niall Mac Coitir and an open Studio for those curious to find out more about Seed STUDIO.

Earth Rising is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and is presented in partnership with Lioncor.

Earth Rising - Eco Art Festival, 2022

Earth Rising is a vibrant new Eco Art Festival celebrating people, place and planet which took place across the IMMA Campus. Presenting over 70 contributors, artist commissions, talks and workshops, Seed STUDIO, and showcasing a stunning built to disappear eco pavilion, alongside an eclectic live music line-up and food stalls, this promises to be an engaging and enjoyable free day out for everyone.

Track Details: An introduction to Earth Rising, Eco Fest, with Annie Flecther (Director at IMMA) and Lioncor and Reddy Architecture + Urbanism, IMMA Courtyard, Friday the 21st of October, 2022.

This Track is an Introduction into the Earth Rising, Eco Fest which took place in IMMA from Friday October 21st till Sunday October 23rd. Within this track we hear from IMMA's Director Annie Fletcher, and the Creators involved in the making of the site-specific ‘Built to Disappear’ eco pavilion, titled Éirigh, which was built specifically for the Earth Rising Festival at IMMA.


About the Artwork:
Éirigh is the result of a dynamic partnership between Lioncor and Reddy Architecture + Urbanism to create a unique gathering space that uses environmentally conscious approaches to materials and assembly that highlight the relationship between the environment, art, architecture and construction. The bespoke Built to Disappear site specific pavilion considers the theme of Earth Rising within the context of energy and how it is generated, used and valued. Constructed using willow stems, which is seen in indigenous woven architecture around the globe, can be locally grown and biodegrades back into the environment.

Launch: Earth Rising with Annie Fletcher, Lioncor and Reddy Architecture + Urbanism.

Presented as part IMMA’s new Eco Art Festival, Earth Rising, IMMA Talks brings together the festivals thought leadership platform, exploring the big issues and challenges of the day. 

Track Details:
Earth Rising Talks With Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Lucy Bowen, People's Pavilion, Saturday October 22nd, 2022.

A keynote talk is presented by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino – London-based author and designer who has worked on issues of climate change for technology companies, energy retailers, banks, social enterprises and more, advocating how design has a critical role to play, in tackling the biggest challenge of our lifetime – the climate crisis. Design shapes the world. From the places we live to the products we buy, it creates environmental, social and economic impact and so has the power to change things for the better. Deschamps-Sonsino discusses her motives for building the Low Carbon Design Institute, exploring how creative and design professionals can integrate climate change knowledge in their practice. We will also learn more about the guiding principles for advocating sustainable design that informs the award-winning Design for Planet Festival 2022, that Deschamps-Sonsino is heading up as Chief Design Officer with the Design Council, UK. A closing conversation and Q+A will be moderated by Lucy Bowen, Lecturer, NCAD.

About Speakers: 
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino is a London-based author, consultant and entrepreneur with a background in design and is recently appointed Chief Design Officer at the Design Council UK. She is now building the Low Carbon Design Institute, exploring how creative professionals integrate climate change knowledge in their practice.
She wrote ‘Smarter Homes: how technology will change your home life’ and ‘Creating a Culture of Innovation’, was the first UK distributor of the Arduino and founder of the Good Night Lamp which is in the permanent collection of the London Design Museum. She curated the London Internet of Things Meetup between 2011-2020 and helped the community create BetterIoT, a free checklist to help founders and product managers make more ethical decisions.

She was named 1st in a list of 100 Internet of Things Influencers (Postscapes, 2016), 2nd in Top 100 Internet of Things Thought Leaders (Onalytica, 2014) and in the Top 100 Influencial Tech Women on Twitter (Business Insider, 2014). She’s been included in the longlist of Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in Tech in the UK (2017, 2018 & 2019). Her clients have included ING Labs, Bulb Energy, British Telecom, British Gas, the BBC. She studied industrial design at the University of Montréal and interaction design at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea.

Lucy Bowen has spent eight years working as a designer and sustainability consultant in the Irish fashion & textile industry. Across high-street, artisan and luxury markets, she works to empower brands in applying circular & sustainable principles to their design, development & production processes. As part of the Creative Futures Academy at NCAD, she is currently developing Circular by Design: a set of professional training programmes for Irish brands & manufacturers to enable their transition to circularity, as well as a Community of Practice to empower the wider Irish textile design community. Lucy also works as a Production & Costume Designer for commercial and creative film, applying sustainable sourcing practices to every stage of production.

Earth Rising Keynote Talk:  Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsin, Lucy Bowen, 2022

Presented as part IMMA’s new Eco Art Festival, Earth Rising, IMMA Talks brings together the festivals thought leadership platform, exploring the big issues and challenges of the day. 

Track Details:
Earth Rising Keynote Talk: Losing Eden, with Author Lucy Jones,  Artist Clodagh Emoe, and Chair Cathy Fitzgerald, People's Pavilion, Sunday October 23rd, 2022.

A keynote talk by Lucy Jones, author of LOSING EDEN, Why Our Minds Need the Wild presents on new scientific research that shows why forging a bond with nature is critical for our health and wellness, while also raising awareness about the alarming effects of its absence. Jones asks – could finding asylum in the soil and joy in the trees help us to save the living planet, as well as ourselves? Today many of us live indoor lives, disconnected from the natural world as never before. And yet the living world remains deeply ingrained in our language, culture and consciousness. So what happens, asks journalist and author Lucy Jones, as we lose our bond with the natural world – do we also be losing part of ourselves? What kind of ecological connections and relationships – in this great forgetting – are we missing out on? How do we reimagine what it means to be respectful co-tenants on earth?

Travelling from forest schools in East London to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault via primeval woodlands, Californian laboratories and ecotherapists’ couches, Jones has studied the cutting edge of human biology, neuroscience and psychology, and suggests new ways of understanding our increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the earth.

To follow Jones’ keynote talk a panel discussion with artist Clodagh Emoe will be moderated by Cathy Fitzgerald, that explores the connection between Jone’s work and some of the ideas motivating Emoe’s recent projects that includes The Classroom in the Sun,(2021-22) and SEED Studio(2022) an ecological studio space for artistic practice and research that and addresses an overwhelming need to explore new ways of deepening and celebrating our connection with the natural world.

About Speakers:
Lucy Jones is an author and writer based in Hampshire, England. Her first book, Foxes Unearthed, was celebrated for its ‘brave, bold and honest’ (Chris Packham) account of our relationship with the fox, winning the Society of Authors’ Roger Deakin Award. Her second book, the bestselling Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild, was a Times and Telegraph book of the year. Her third book The Nature Seed is about sharing the natural world with children. She previously worked at NME and the Daily Telegraph, and her writing on culture, science and nature has been published in BBC Earth, BBC Wildlife, The Sunday Times, the Guardian and the New Statesman. Jones is invited to discuss Losing Eden, within the context of the Clodagh Emoe’s Seed STUDIO project and IMMA’s residency.

Clodagh Emoe
Clodagh Emoe is an artist that initiates collaborative projects and creates works that explore how meaning is formed through our connection with each other and the natural world. Drawing on ritual, her works foregrounds experience and perception, creating spaces that invite thought.

Earth Rising Keynote Talk: Losing Eden', Lucy Jones, Clodagh Emoe, Cathy Fitzgerald, 2022

IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) is Ireland's leading national institution for the collection and presentation of modern and contemporary art. IMMA TALKS is an activated live programme of talks and events that opens up conversations around the core themes of our exhibition programme, and permanent IMMA Collection, bringing you deeper into the thinking and making of contemporary art.

For further information on IMMA TALKS please contact Sophie Byrne, Assistant Curator, Talks & Public Programmes, IMMA. Email sophie.byrne@imma.ie

Earth Rising - Eco Art Festival, 2022

IMMA Ireland