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)
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.
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)
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?
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