The remote and beautiful surroundings of Ireland’s Inis Oírr are the setting for Drop Everything, a free contemporary culture biennial, from 23-25 May 2014. Situated on the edge of the Atlantic and close to Galway, Inis Oírr is the smallest of the three Aran Islands and provides an unforgettably atmospheric and unique setting for this intimate weekender of creativity and culture.
Visitors to the island for this second edition of the Biennial can expect talks, installations, screenings, DJ sets and impromptu pop ups across the island, as well as communal dining, a curated boutique of editions and products created by the collaborating artists and ample opportunity to explore the wild beauty of this tiny and remarkable place.
The festival intends to encourage and inspire creative exchange between artists and audience alike. For 2014, curator and event producer Mary Nally has devised a new and exciting cultural programme focusing on visual arts, fashion, music and design.
The unique international programme includes:
A series of ephemeral astronomical installations across the island from London’s creative science collective super/collider.
New York based artist Sougwen Chung showcasing her new sculptural, audio-visual work ‘Ecdysis’ in a local handball alley.
Inis Oírr’s arts centre Áras Éanna, originally built as a knitting factory, will feature ‘Rituals’, an exhibition by Dublin-based photographer Richard Gilligan.
Artist Luke Franklin will be speaking about his ambitious project 4 Bothies, for which he built and hid four artist spaces – a library, a study, a studio and a gallery – in some of the remotest and hardest to reach parts of Ireland.
Two Berliners, the fashion brand Starstyling and artist Lukas Keijser are also relocating to Inis Oírr for the weekend to create a mini store and screen-printing workshop respectively.
By night, the island will be transformed by projection mapping from Lightscape Ireland, music gigs in the school hall, parties in the local pubs, disco ball street lamps and a snug bar turned speakeasy serving cocktails with ingredients from the island’s shores, fields and the islanders’ gardens.
Pop-up dining experiences will be offered by Galway’s Ard Bia and Dublin’s The Fumbally, who will each host a bespoke dinner and brunch over the weekend, inspired by the island.
Further programme announcements and additions to the line-up will be made in the weeks running up to the event.
As in 2012, Drop Everything 2014 will be entirely crowd-funded, with organisers, crew and artists donating their time and talents free of charge. Guests are encouraged to donate here.
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