Exhibition catalogue for Ailbhe Ní Bhriain: The Dream Pool Intervals (27 March 2025 – 28th September 2025)
Now available in our Gallery Bookshop
This richly illustrated catalogue offers an in-depth exploration of The Dream Pool Intervals, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain’s haunting and visionary exhibition at Hugh Lane Gallery. Featuring installation imagery and essays by Max Porter and Michael Dempsey, this publication reflects on Ní Bhriain’s immersive worlds where myth, memory, and media converge.
Combining tapestry, photography, and found objects, Ní Bhriain’s work navigates fractured environments inhabited by thylacines, snakes, and birds of prey—unsettling animal presences that guide viewers through subterranean landscapes marked by colonial legacies and contemporary anxieties. Her new body of work for Hugh Lane Gallery meditates on themes of loss, displacement, and the fragmentation of historical narrative.
At the heart of the exhibition are five monumental jacquard tapestries, layered with imagery of destroyed architecture and early photographic poses—symbols of power, prestige, and collapse. These complex visual assemblages resist singular interpretation, reflecting the disjointed way we absorb and internalise information in a post-truth era.
The accompanying essays offer insightful context on Ní Bhriain’s practice, illuminating how her art draws from ancient tales and technological memory to articulate the psychological landscapes of our time. Together, they position The Dream Pool Intervals as a vital meditation on the shifting ground of identity, history, and environmental crisis.
An essential addition for art lovers, collectors, and scholars, it extends the impact of The Dream Pool Intervals beyond the gallery walls.
Available in the Gallery Bookshop and online at hlgallerybooks.com for €15
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