For the months of March, April and May 2026, Hugh Lane Gallery & Basic Talks are delighted to have the Basic Talks programme hosted by the National College of Art & Design. Google map link HERE
This talk is presented as part of our HLG Explore & Learn offsite programmes during the Gallery’s period of temporary closure.
Join us for ‘Proximity, Policy and Practice’ – a talk with PATHOS (Pathologies of Violence: Inscriptions of Global Conflict in Irish Artistic Practice 1922-present), a Research Ireland-funded project documenting the development of global ethical citizenship in Irish art and writing over the past one hundred years. Representing Pathos will be Ailbhe McDaid, who will be joined by artists Paul McKinley and Chloe Brenan.
This Hugh Lane Gallery, PATHOS and Basic Talks event will explore how global conflict extends beyond borders, how artists engage with conflict from different proximities, and the relationship between art and policy.
Hosted by PATHOS-lead Dr Ailbhe McDaid, the event will feature PATHOS participant Paul McKinley (visual artist) and PATHOS affiliate Chloe Brenan (visual artist).
McKinley will discuss his work which engages with the theme conflict, while Brenan will share her experiences as an artist and educator working with cultural institutions. The conversation will particularly explore the development of policies to support artists making work in the context of conflict, and the role of cultural institutions in building solidarities in times of geopolitical upheaval. The discussion will also engage with the PATHOS Guiding Principles, published by TULCA in 2025 (available here).
Free, book or come on the day subject to availability.
Basic Talks is a series of talks with leading contemporary practitioners. Curated by Basic Space in partnership with Hugh Lane Gallery, BASIC TALKS is a platform for lectures, workshops, presentations, and performances. Speakers include artists, curators, writers, and critics who will generate discourse on producing, framing and exhibiting art. BASIC TALKS is a collaboration between Basic Space and the Hugh Lane Gallery, exploring alternatives in the dissemination of contemporary art and its discourses.
Location:
The National College of Art & Design (NCAD)
100 Thomas St, Usher’s Quay, Dublin 8, D08 K521
Chloe Brenan (she/her) is an artist from rural County Carlow working across moving image, language, publication, and sound. Her practice involves close, attentive examinations of the poetic haptics of daily life and processes at the edge of perception, calling into question the boundaries between bodies and environments, intimate spaces, and wider structures of power. Recent exhibitions and screenings include DINAMO: Exposure at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (NL); Against Stasis at DISSOLUTIONS Film Festival, The Complex, Dublin (IE); Take Hold at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry (NI); Flights From Reason, Cork International Film Festival, 69th Edition (IE); and Loose Definition (borders, proximity and domestic objects) at Whammy Analog Media, Los Angeles (US). She is a recipient of a Markievicz Award for Film, awarded as part of the Irish Decade of Centenaries and teaches part time in the Department of Sculpture and Expanded Practice at NCAD. https://chloebrenan.com
Paul McKinley is an artist living and working in Dublin. Awarded the prestigious Nissan Art Project in 2007, he has shown his work nationally and internationally since 2000. Recent exhibitions include, Péisteanna (solo) Casino Marino, Dublin, 2024, Sacred Trust, Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, 2024, Pomegranate (solo), Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin, 2023, From the Mountain, works from the Arts Council collection, Wexford Arts Centre, 2019 and Many Worlds, Centre Cultural Irlandais, Paris, 2017.
Ailbhe McDaid is Lecturer in English at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick and Principal Investigator on the Research Ireland-funded Pathways Fellowship Pathologies of Violence: Inscriptions of Global Conflict in Irish Literature 1922-present (PATHOS). She has published widely on twentieth and twenty-first century literature, on themes of migration, conflict, displacement, gender and biopolitics. Her first book The Poetics of Migration in Contemporary Irish Poetry was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2017; her second monograph Literature and the Irish Revolution: Reactions, Reflections, Reinventions is forthcoming from Routledge in 2026. Her work has been funded by Royal Irish Academy, British Academy, Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship, Irish Research Council New Foundations Award and Enterprise Ireland.
PATHOS (Pathologies of Violence: Inscriptions of Global Conflict in Irish Artistic Practice 1922-present) is a Research Ireland-funded project documenting the development of global ethical citizenship in Irish art and writing over the past one hundred years. The PATHOS team is Ailbhe McDaid (PI), Julie Morrissy and Leah Smith. The project situates Irish artistic practice in a global context by considering how international conflict reaches Irish shores. In 2025, PATHOS ran a Workshop Series at the Glucksman in Cork, featuring thirteen Irish and Irish-based writers and artists. In 2025, PATHOS participated in the Dublin Book Festival and TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, curated by Beulah Ezuego. www.pathos-project.com
