Ailbhe Ní Bhriain: The Dream Pool Intervals
27th March – 28th September 2025
Entitled The Dream Pool Intervals, the exhibition offers a meditation on the spectre of loss that haunts the contemporary imagination. The title is a reference to ‘The Dream Pool Essays’, a text from 1088 by the Chinese polymath Shen Kuo, considered to contain the earliest recorded observations of climate change.
Ní Bhriain invites the viewer to experience the anxieties of the current moment while also acknowledging histories past and mythological roots by way of six large-scale Jacquard tapestries which form the centre of this exhibition. In these intricately woven works, fragments of archival portraits merge with images of underground caves and architectural ruins to create a series of tableaux. They bring an opulence that belies the exhibition’s surrealist mood.
The Dream Pool Intervals is curated by Michael Dempsey, Head of Exhibitions, Hugh Lane Gallery, and will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue.
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain: The Dream Pool Intervals officially opens to the public on 27 March 2025 and runs until 28 September 2025. Admission is free.
