FLY SPECKS
Fly Specks
Event featuring new work by Lucy Andrews, Julia Dubsky, Clare Anne O’Keefe, Liss Fenwick, Brian Hand, Sam Keogh, and Joseph Noonan-Ganley, amongst others
Craic in the Granite Music & Arts Festival, Aughrim
2–6pm, Saturday 25 July 2026
Join us in Aughrim for Fly Specks, a day-long sculpture and performance event curated by Vaari Claffey as part of her major public project The Clearing. Fly Specks encompasses a guided walk, site-specific sculpture and live performance, presented as part of Aughrim's annual Craic in the Granite Music & Arts Festival, from 2–6pm on Saturday 25 July 2026.
Book tickets to attend Fly Specks here: RSVP.
A destabilised version of spectacle, Fly Specks proposes a messy allegory for how one can elevate detritus through the process of material transformation or staged encounter, and how we might celebrate that, with popcorn, candyfloss and jelly.
When popcorn bursts open it emits a ‘pop’ sound, a consequence of the release of pressurised water vapour. The cavity inside the kernel acts as an ‘acoustic resonator’ amplifying the sound and making it audible, a mini-sculpture, applauding its own transformation. Candyfloss is made by heating and liquefying sugar, and spinning it centrifugally through tiny holes so that the sugar rapidly cools and re-solidifies into fine strands. The density and texture of these filaments is both extraordinary and useful. The first rocks to form in our solar system may have formed from similar stuff. From the macro to the micro, Fly Specks calls our attention to the stuff that accompanies spectacle, with a close-up on the things we share space with and consume while viewing and participating.
As part of the day;
A guided walk around Aughrim will lead spectators through a series of site-specific installations and performances. Working in close collaboration with Claffey, Clare Anne O’Keefe is producing a series of jelly sculptures that feel like wobbly attempts at restoration. As a material, jelly has the capacity to hold the residue of its origins. These sculptures, cast in decorative molds and draped as sheaths that appear and dissolve, carry within them extractions and representations of their source agents, from agar to flora, held between liquid and solid. Suspended states also play a role in the work of Lucy Andrews, whose new work is encountered as an aftermath: the residual jetsam and fauna of some unknown event, found loitering around a disused petrol station. This work alludes to the role of marine organisms in the making of petrol and to the phenomenon of ocean jellification.
At the Kunstverein and other sites around town, Brian Hand taps into archival knowledge and draws it into contemporary practice in a way that makes it live and warm. A series of disintegrated, saturated images originating from a discarded stash of teaching slides announce and adorn the bandstand as a site of coming together, fusing art historical extracts with the present moment. The images come from a new body of work, a series titled Involution, made in close collaboration with Claffey.
Throughout the day Julia Dubsky captures live encounters and records them in sketches. As an artist Dubsky is interested in perception, in acting, reacting and sites of relationality. Liss Fenwick has installed a series of pinhole cameras made from beer cans, acupuncture needles and light sensitive paper. These canny devices have been positioned next to buildings around the town to capture and record the movement of the sun over time. In her work from here to Humpty Doo, Fenwick’s practice sees and claims the artistic and transformative potential of trash. Also moving between the scrappy and the sublime, Sam Keogh presents a performance from an ongoing body of work that draws from The Hunt of the Unicorn, a series of seven tapestries made in 16th Century Flanders and now houseed in The Met Cloisters in New York. Through collage, costume and old Umbro socks, Keogh’s performance will make holes in the synchronous surface of history, through which it can be pulled inside out.
Drawing the day to a close, Claffey and Joseph Noonan-Ganley, with Marcel Vidal, Vivian Brodie Hayes and Oisin Grace, guide us through ten dances, each one based around the peculiar behaviours and characteristics of animals that may be in some way instructive, or that demonstrate collective ambition. Noonan-Ganley looks at the material traces of queerness in design, considering questions of masking and seepage, is applying that practice here, in his temporary role as Master of Ceremonies. Come and dance and listen to why granny whales are so important, why some jellyfish share bums, and how a history of dogs was discovered in one dog’s ear.
Fly Specks ends with a discreet installation of video footage showing a seminal artwork by Tina O’Connell that was recently reencountered through Claffey’s slide research at NCAD. First shown in 1999, the original work involved a one tonne bitumen mass that made a slow descent through a hole cut in the ceiling of a Dublin pub, a lofty reminder that nobody ever brings anything small into a bar.
Schedule
12:30pm: Minibus from Dublin to Aughrim (optional)
2pm: Meet at the Bandstand at Aughrim Pavilion
2:15pm: Guided walk through sites of work at disused petrol station and mill
3:30pm: Performance at the Foresters Hall
4pm: Refreshments at Kunstverein Aughrim
5pm: Performance at the Pavilion
6pm: Installation at The Meath Arms
6:30pm: minibus from Aughrim to Dublin (optional)
Information for attendees
Fly Specks begins 2pm at the Bandstand at Aughrim Pavilion on the Rednagh Road, as part of the Craic in the Granite Music & Arts Festival (ongoing throughout the day from 11am–6pm).
Fly Specks involves walking between various sites around town, so attendees are advised to dress for weather and wear comfortable shoes. Distances between sites vary, with the longest stretch reaching around 1.1km (approximatly 15 minutes walking distance). A map detailing precise locations and full itinerary will be available on the day.
Refreshments will be available for purchase from the festival before 2pm (prior to the event). Light refreshments (focaccia from First Batch Bakery and festive snacks) will be provided at 4pm.
Getting to Aughrim
Aughrim is located in South County Wicklow, 15km from Arklow.
An optional minibus is available for attendees traveling from Dublin to Aughrim. Pick up is at 12:30pm from Merrion Square West (just outside the dead zoo, aka the Natural History Museum). The bus will arrive in Aughrim for 2pm. The same bus will return to Dublin in the evening, departing from Aughrim Pavilion at 6:30pm. Tickets available via Eventbrite here.
You can get to Aughirm by car (from anywhere in Ireland), by bus (from Arklow or Tullow/Carlow), and via train to Rathdrum (from Dublin). Should you wish to car-pool and require help arranging it, or have any questions about the transport options available, please contact office@kunstverein.ie for assistance.
Traveling by car: coming from Dublin take exit 16 off the M11 and drive via Rathnew > Glenealy > Rathdrum > Ballinaclash > Aughrim or enter eircode for Aughrim Pavilion - Y14 WK38 - into your navigation system and follow the voice.
Access
Kunstverein Aughrim is located off Main Street in the village of Aughrim. There is limited on-street parking around the town, with one accessible parking spot outside Day Break. Kunstverein Aughrim is not step free, it has five steps at the entrance, with no handrails. Kunstverein Aughrim is located in the centre of the village, with busy roads either side. The footpaths are wide and uneven. There is a curb cut 40 meters from the entrance. Kunstverein Aughrim has one inaccessible bathroom. There is an accessible bathroom next door at First Batch bakery.
Other indoor venues include the Foresters Hall and Aughrim Pavilion, both of which have accessible bathroom facilities and step free entrances.
If you have access requirements or any questions for us please email office@kunstverein.ie and our team will get back to you.
Biographies
| Vaari Claffey is an independent curator living in Dublin. She teaches at NCAD, Dublin. She has initiated a number of curatorial platforms including Gracelands, Magnetism at Hazelwood, IsolationTV and Dirty Solutions. Her practice involves working closely with artists to commission and stage experiential projects across a variety of media, aiming to produce a particularly dynamic relationship with the audience. These projects range from low-key, self-performed moments to large-scale exhibitions and public art commissions. Known for her innovative and experiential projects, Claffey’s practice involves collaborating closely with artists and other practitioners to conceive and stage large-scale exhibitions, performance/screening events, filmworks and outdoor artworks. |
Lucy Andrews makes sculptures and site-specific installations. She is interested in the meeting of natural and human-made systems, and the places where those categories break down. Her work proposes a dynamic materiality which moves between the organic and inorganic, liquid and solid, grown and made. Recent exhibitions include Earthly Remains at Pallas Projects, Dublin (2025) and A Distant Roar, shown as part of Hear Here Festival, by STUK, Leuven (2025). Group exhibitions include Incubator at Fire Station Artist's Studios, Dublin (2026) Tompouce meets Madelaine at Non-Étoile, Paris (2025) and Move-Set-Move at The Complex, Dublin (2023). In 2027 she will present a solo exhibition at Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin. She is currently resident at Fire Station Artist's Studios, Dublin.
| Julia Dubsky is a painter and critical art writer living in Berlin and Co. Wexford. Her paintings emerge from and thematise the medium's specificities, its history, and its contemporary associations. Recent work is driven by an analogy between paintings and actors, which provides a model for a practice that is self-reflexive while also valuing intuition and protean dexterity. Alongside her painting practice, Dubsky publishes critical essays, including the books M/m. A (New Toni Press / Galerie Kirchgasse, 2023) and The Angels Are Dials (Brewer Street Press / Amanda Wilkinson, 2025). She is represented by Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London, and Galerie Kirchgasse, Steckborn. Her most recent solo exhibition was held at Amanda Wilkinson Gallery in winter 2025. Residencies include: Temple Bar Gallery and Studios Recent Graduate Residency (2017/18); Goldsmiths, University of London (2020); AZB Zurich (Spring 2026). Her work is held in the Irish State Collection. She completed an MFA in the class of Jutta Koether at HFBK Hamburg, and holds a BA from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. |
Tina O’Connell is a London-based artist whose practice centres on the material and conceptual possibilities of sculpture using a wide range of materials, from bitumen to glass and stone. Working across time-based media, sculpture, and installation, her work foregrounds processes of transformation, exploring geological time, extraction, and the entanglement of natural and industrial systems. O’Connell has exhibited widely in the UK, USA, and Europe, including Whitechapel Gallery, PS1 MOMA, and has developed collaborative projects with architects, material researchers, and fellow artists. In addition to her studio practice, O'Connell has extensive teaching experience, delivering workshops, masterclasses, and lectures on material experimentation, sculpture, and site-specific installation. She has received awards from Lorne, Mondrian Foundation, and was a Henry Moore Fellow, amongst others. She has worked in international residencies, supporting emerging artists to explore unconventional materials and process-led approaches in contemporary art.
| Clare Anne O’Keefe is a Dublin-based multidisciplinary food designer, curator, and writer whose practice explores the intersection of culinary creation and contemporary visual culture. Using food as a universally accessible medium, she creates site-specific installations and conceptual eating experiences that invite the public to actively participate in the art world. As the curator of the "Savouring Art" program, she collaborates directly with visual artists to construct immersive, edible artworks and historically anchored banquets. Spanning collaborative projects within institutional gallery spaces to international food-art initiatives, her curatorial work and critical writing serve to access cultural spaces, offering food as a vital, sensory lens for contemporary artistic engagement. |
| Liss Fenwick is an Australian artist working across photography, video, sound and material processes. Born on Larrakia Country in the Northern Territory, they work between Larrakia Country (NT) and Naarm (VIC). Fenwick’s practice explores speculative relations between more-than-human worlds and settler culture, foregrounding socially critical representations of land, extractivism and colonial inheritance. Fenwick’s work was shown in the landmark exhibition On Country: Photography from Australia at the 2025 Rencontres d’Arles. Select solo exhibitions include The colony cares for everyone (PhD exhibition), RMIT Chancellery / Former Magistrates’ Court, Melbourne (2024); Mastotermes, MARS Gallery (2023); Humpty Doom, Hillvale Gallery (2023). Their work has featured in group exhibitions at the Potter Museum of Art (Melbourne), the V&A Museum (London) and Midpul Art Gallery (Darwin). Fenwick is a recipient of the Macquarie Emerging Artist Prize and the Fineman Award for New Photography, and their photobook Humpty Doom was a finalist in the Paris Photo–Aperture First Book Award (2023). |
| Brian Hand is an artist based in Carlow, Ireland. He also lectures and is head of sculpture and expanded practice at NCAD, Dublin. Hand’s art practice is broadly concerned with creatively exploring and researching events in the past. Hand makes temporary public work and time-based installations often in site-specific locations. He has a deep interest in post-colonial historiography and the limits of historical representation. In the past, he believes, we can find alternative images that disrupt the naturalness of the present. He has made work addressing art and politics through researching secret societies, prisons, suffragettes, the archive, the great famine and the invention of the Irish Wolfhound. As a writer Hand has published essays for artists such as Anne Tallentire, Noel Sheridan, Daphne Wright, Dennis McNulty, Colin Darke, and Dorothy Cross. Hand was a founding member of collaborative art groups: Blue Funk, The Fire Dept.,147, Entre Chien et Loup and most recently Stormy Petrel/ Guairdeall. |
Oisin Grace is a London based fashion design student collaborating with Nuria Nevens Sole Mena, a fashion design student based in Antwerp. The pair met whilst studying in Antwerp and have collaborated on several collections with Nuria's focus on the clothes and overall collection cohesion and Oisin on shoes, bags and accessories however both have quite a fluid practise in which they regularly swap roles and assignments. Nuria completed her BA in Fashion Design at the Royal Academy of Fine arts Antwerp (2026) and is currently doing her Fashion Design MA at the same institution. Oisin studied Fashion Design at the Royal Academy of Fine arts Antwerp (2023) and is currently doing his BA in Bespoke Tailoring at London College of Fashion.
Marcel Vidal works in painting and sculpture to create ambitious artworks and installations. He is a multi-award winning artist honoured with RHA Hennessy Craig Award, Golden Fleece Award, Arts Council's Next Generation Award (2019) and received a Fire Station Artist Studios (2020-2023) and RHA Tony O'Malley Residency (2023-2026). His work is featured in the book "100 Sculptors of Tomorrow" by Thames & Hudson. Represented by Kerlin Gallery, Vidal had his first solo exhibition with them in 2021. Selected exhibitions: “blue moon shadow,” (solo) kerlin gallery, Dublin (2026); MY IMAGINATION Mirrors a still sky, Coach House, Dublin Castle (2025); 195th RHA Annual Exhibition (2025); "PeripheriePAIR’ project, Pairing with Ciara Roach, Gorey School of Art (2024); "MAKING ART: Sculpting," curated by Sara Muthi, Draíocht (2023); "GENERATION 2022: New Irish Painting," Butler Gallery (2022); "Wayward Eye," Temple Bar Gallery (2021); "Dubliners 6th Biennial of Painting," Zagreb (2021); "Everybody Knows," The Complex (2020).
| Sam Keogh is an artist living and working between Glasgow and Co.Wicklow. He works across sculpture, collage, drawing and video - elements which are often combined in large installations which host performance. His work has been shown at The Warburg Institute, London(2026); IMMA, Dublin(2025); The Lagos Biennial, Nigeria (2024); Goldsmiths CCA, London (2021); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020); the 15th Lyon Biennial (2019); Eva International, Limerick (2018); Glasgow International (2018); and the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2015). Upcoming solo exhibitions include 'The Unicorn Defends Himself Cartoon', Tramway, Glasgow, Feb 2027 and 'The Unicorn Cartoons' at the 42nd EVA International, August 2027. |
| Joseph Noonan-Ganley is an artist from Co. Clare working across video, sculpture, photography, textiles, and writing. His practice explores how identities are collaboratively formed through the interpretation of others and the material traces they leave behind. Themes of embodied labour, biographic authorship, sexuality, and queer self-making run throughout his work. He has taught at BA, MA, and PhD level across the UK and internationally. His video installation Our Bed, which examines the improvised beds made following the 1972 Andes plane crash, was exhibited at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, and shortlisted for the CIRCA Prize in 2023. The Cesspool of Rapture (2017), exploring the dresses and writings of couturier Charles James through the motif of the zip, was screened at the GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival at the Irish Film Institute, Dublin, in 2023. His book The Cesspool of Rapture: Artist's Texts 2012–2024 was published by Ma Bibliothèque in 2024. Drawing on bio-fiction, feminist theories of embodiment, sexual dissidence, and cinéma vérité, Noonan-Ganley's work seeks to expand queer sensory vocabularies and complicate representations of male sexuality. |
Fly Specks is part of The Clearing, a major new public project by Dublin-based curator and producer Vaari Claffey. It unfolds across an exhibition at Kunstverein Aughrim, a day of performance and sculpture as part of Craic in the Granite Music & Arts Festival, and a screening programme at The Courthouse Arts Centre, Tinahely.
The Clearing is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council of Ireland. Kunstverein Aughrim’s collaboration with Vaari Claffey is supported by the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon. Vaari Claffey would like to thank CCI Paris, and Der Windtunnel, Zurich for support in the development of this project. Vaari Claffey & Brian Hand were supported by NCAD Research Seed Funding and NIVAL, Dublin. Craic in the Granite Music & Arts Festival is supported by Wicklow County Council Arts Office through the Arts Festival Award Scheme.