Red Sky at Night is a night-time festival of new art commissions by international artists Zuza Golińska (Poland), Kanich Khajohnsri (Thailand), Kasper Lecnim & Irmina Rusicka (Poland), Dina Mimi (Palestine), Aisling O’Beirn (Ireland) and Leandros Ntolas (Greece), curated by Household.
As the nights grow longer, and the spirit world draws near, we are embracing the darkness and hosting a weekend of evening exhibitions and events across Belfast in some of the city’s most historic locations.
Artists from Palestine, Greece, Poland, Thailand and Belfast have responded to the city and have explored a range of stories relating to the city’s past, present and future. Featuring interventions into architecture, sound performances and immersive installations, this night time art festival invites audiences to see their city in a new light.
Red Sky at Night is part of the Belfast 2024 celebrations and is generously supported by Belfast City Council, British Council, and the Mondriaan Fund.
It has been made possible through the support of Belfast Buildings Trust, Hearth NI, staff at Botanic Gardens, 2 Royal Avenue, SARC, Glenwood Primary School, St Mary’s Primary School, Visual Spectrum, John D’Arcy, Chris Campbell-Palmer, Shesaid Design, the First 47 design.
Artworks will be installed at six unique locations across the city: Riddel's Warehouse (Dina Mimi), the Palm House (Kanich Khajohnsri), Carlisle Memorial Church (Leandros Ntolas) - Bank of Ireland (Zuza Golińska) - 2RA (Irmina Rusicka & Kasper Lecnim), and the Waterworks Park (Aisling O’Beirn).
All installations are free to visit. Performances will have limited capacity and will require pre-booking.
Booking links can be found in the Red Sky at Night Commissions section below and will be available soon.
Visual identity by Thefirst47
Red Sky at Night
Red Sky at Night Film
By Simon Mills
Voiceover: Jane Butler (Household)
Red Sky at Night Commissions
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Benign Land
Leandros Ntolas
Carlisle Memorial Church -
POSSESSION
Kanich Khajohnsri
The Palm House -
Lament
Zuza Golińska
Bank Of Ireland -
Suggestions for Stargazing
Aisling O'Beirn
Waterworks, North Belfast -
The Sound We Longed For
Dina Mimi
Riddel's Warehouse -
Common Point Exercises
Irmina Rusicka & Kasper Lecnim
2RA
Red Sky at Night was developed through Artists in Neighbourhoods - Belfast 2024, a new public art commissioning programme curated and delivered by Household and funded by Belfast City Council and the British Council.
Household invited international artists to Belfast to create five exciting new temporary pieces of art in public across Belfast. Working in neighbourhoods, they collaborated with local creatives and residents to explore and respond to the city.
Participating artists include Kanich Khajonsri (Thailand), Kasper Lecnim & Irmina Rusicka (Poland), Zuza Golińska (Poland), Leandros Ntolas (Greece) and Dina Mimi (Palestine)
The Household team supported the selected artists create local connections and hosted them on individual site visits and a two-week intensive group research residency of tours, workshops, site-visits and meetings. Household worked with the artists to develop their proposals and curate, deliver and present the resulting public artworks in 2024.
About the artists
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Zuza Golińska (Poland) is a multidisciplinary artist who explores the impact of architecture and public space on the human individual. Her art reflects on how human physical and mental wellbeing is influenced by the psychology of space in a time of civilisational acceleration and late capitalism. In her work, she frequently disrupts the clear-cut division between the functional and the aesthetic, examining the influence of spatial forms on emotions and the decisions of users.
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Kanich Khajohnsri (Thailand) uses photography and installation to think about demarcations, and the ownership of space. This includes engaging with the theoretical scape and non-physical knowledge transfer, such as storytelling, rumours, folklore, and other forms of oral history, to capture the specific and multiple dimensions of a place.
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Kasper Lecnim (Poland) is a visual artist and graduate of the E. Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. He uses a variety of media and as part of his artistic practice has produced scarfs, organised house removals, cleared snow, crashed cars and challenged the directors of cultural institutions to duels. He likes mistakes and small provocations. He works individually and as a duo with Irmina Rusicka.
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Irmina Rusicka (Poland) is a visual artist who, as part of her artistic practice, has crashed cars, repaired motorcycles, made an acrobatic star at the Mausoleum of Soviet Soldiers, and collected money to make a hole in an art institution building. Her works combine social and political criticism with an existential dimension. She took part in the project The New Dictionary of Old Ideas (2019-2020), as part of which she participated in a residency program in Silk Museum (Tbilisi, Georgia) and Hablar En Arte (Madrid, Spain). She works individually and in a duo with Kasper Lecnim.
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Dina Mimi (Palestine) is a visual artist and filmmaker who works and lives between Jerusalem and Amsterdam. Her practice is multifaceted and uses video, sound, performance, and text to explore grief and as a fugitive body ask questions such as: how does grief sound? How do we search for fictional fractions within historical accounts? What happens to the body before the vanishing point? Dina’s work consists of extended research into death and memory, especially within historical events of the colonial past.
https://mediterraneabiennial.org/Dina-Mimi
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Leandros Ntolas (Greece) is an artist currently based in the Hague, the Netherlands. His multi-disciplinary practice combines a phenomenological and experimental approach with research into diverse fields ranging from the study of light, optics and perception, to philosophy, architecture, history of religion, and metaphysics. Aside from his studio practice, Ntolas has been active in the field of art in public space and has exhibited works in Greece and the Netherlands.
The artists, commissioners including the BCC team and British Council, and members of Household - as well as some of the artists included in Household's Community Takeovers commissions - during a group visit and reception with the Lord Mayor at Belfast City Hall in August 2023.
Research image: digital render of dry docks produced by Leandros Ntolas in August 2023 during a two week residency in Belfast. Leandros plans to create a site specific installation responding to a location in Belfast. He will use a multitude of elements, including projections, and interventions with light and sound, to transform the space and create a unique and visceral experience for the visitor. The work will use elements related to the past of Northern Ireland - from prehistory to modern times - and will incorporate symbols and iconography, folktales and myths, to create new connections.
Research image: digital render of the Rotterdam Bar in Sailortown, produced by Leandros Ntolas in August 2023 during a two week residency in Belfast.
Sonic Walk facilitated Dr John D'Arcy during artist residency, September 2023
Historic building visits with Household and artist Zuza Golińska during the second residency February, 2024
Research notes made by Zuza Golińska during site visits, 2023
Sketches for play sculpture by artistic duo Irmina Rusicka and Kasper Lecnim, 2024.
Research sketches by Zuza Golińska, 2024
Maquette for a public artwork made by a participant during Zuza Golińska's workshop at the Womens' Tech, North Belfast, 2024
Site visit to Carlisle Circus with Leandros Ntolas, 2024
Maquette for a public artwork made by a participant during Zuza Golińska's workshop at the Womens' Tech, North Belfast, 2024
Site visit to the Lagan Weir underwater tunnel with Leandros Ntolas, 2024
Zuza Golińska's presentation and discussion with Queen's Architecture students, 2024
Site visit to Townsend Street Presbyterian Church with Leandros Ntolas, 2024
Zuza Golińska's presentation and discussion with Queen's Architecture students, 2024