Reuben Brown

This solo exhibition presents a new body of work by Reuben Brown, developed during the artist’s Master of Research at the National College of Art & Design.

It marks the latest articulation of an ongoing research project, club [construction], which approaches the queer archive not only as a site of excavation, but as one of construction. Rather than solely recovering what has been lost, the project explores how absence and fragmentation can generate new forms of knowledge and reveal the complexity of queer experience in Ireland alongside the precarity of cultural infrastructure across the island.

An imposing barrier divides the gallery, interrupted by a central opening that exposes its internal framework. Throughout the exhibition, this structure is dismantled and transformed into communal tables for a workshop, shifting from separation to gathering. Elsewhere, a stage intermittently reveals a live microphone and speakers salvaged from closing and closed venues, framed by a smoke-saturated velvet curtain made from a second-hand theatre drape. A monumental “BURR!!”, CNC-cut from graffitied construction hoardings, hangs overhead, while weeds grown from collected seeds and studio dust quietly carry displaced ground into the present.

Exhibition Launch: 15 Oct | 6-8:30pm

Join From the Same Night – DIY Ephemera Toolkit, a workshop developed as part of the project, on Sat 7 Nov from 1–4pm (book online, 18+). Participants will use reproduced club-culture ephemera to create zines exploring queer memory, nightlife, and archival practices.