JANUARY 29 - IMMA LOOK AT SOME ART
So I totally stole the "IMMA look at some art" line from my friend Kyle but I DID visit the IMMA today. It's the Irish Museum of Modern Art and it was fabulous. Free to get into! And they limit the number of visitors at a time but I was easily able to book my ticket online the day before.
It was another lovely sunny day today (seriously, I am starting to think this rain in Ireland thing is a myth!) and I had a very pleasant walk to the IMMA.
The museum is inside the 17th-century Royal Hospital Kilmainham. The building was modeled on Les Invalides in Paris and arranged around a courtyard (complete with a super cute food truck). It's a gorgeous formal building and I love the contrast with the modern art!
(Click on the right side of the picture to go through the slideshow)
[image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error]Their current exhibition is called The Narrow Gate of the Here-and-Now which has four chapters. Here's a little info on it from their website: "Exploring the past three decades through different thematic approaches. The chapters are: Chapter One: Queer Embodiment; Chapter Two: The Anthropocene; Chapter Three: Social Fabric and Chapter Four: Protest and Conflict."
I somehow missed Chapter Two but the others were amazing. So many interesting parts of Irish history and culture and how feminism, queerness, and conflict all intersect.
[image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error]One of the parts I loved most about the protest and conflict section was a film called The Long Note about women's fights for social justice in Derry (Northern Ireland). I was only planning to watch a few minutes but I ended up staying for the whole 90 minutes because it was so fascinating.
If you can find the film I'd highly recommend it. It left me in a contemplative mood (in a good way!) so I headed home after that. But I definitely think if I have time I'll be back to visit the IMMA again to see all of the sections I didn't quite make it to this time around.
The sun had gone behind the clouds when I left and it was very windy on the walk home but I went a slightly different route and it was still very pretty. (click on the right of the image for the slideshow)
[image error][image error][image error][image error]After I got home, I did a little more work, then threw together a quick dinner of leftovers. One of the nice things about this working vacation is the flexible schedule. It's nice to work at my own whim and take a few hours in the middle of the day to go exploring.
The past few years had been amazing for my writing career but it required a lot of long working days. It's a great feeling to be able to take a little time away and just *enjoy* life, you know?
