Ireland 2026

Title: Dreamshook
Commissioner: Culture Ireland
Curator: Georgina Jackson and The Douglas Hyde Gallery of Contemporary Art
Exhibitor: Isabel Nolan

The installation features hand-tufted tapestry, drawing, and sculpture to represent thresholds and dream states. The title describes the destabilised feeling of waking from a dream, exploring the human desire to establish order within chaos.

Nolan draws parallels between the contemporary era and the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, periods marked by turbulence, plague, and ideological change. The work references key cultural developments including the emergence of Humanism, 13th and 14th-century Italian painting, and the “Book of Kells”. A specific focus is placed on the 15th-century Venetian printer Aldo Manuzio, who transformed reading culture through the invention of portable books.

The exhibition grounds subjects from literature, history, and mythology in material encounters. It examines how architectures of belief and knowledge are constructed and explores the complex dynamics of wonder, power, and human experience. Nolan addresses the ambivalence of European heritage, noting how the dreams of reason have produced both remarkable legacies and historical monsters.