From 11 to 20 June a series of cultural experiences titled Brightening Air/Coiséim Coiligh will take place around Ireland, presented by the Arts Council. The programme (originally titled The Grand Stretch) features a number of musical events as well as theatre, dance, visual arts and interactive events.

Light Ballet, an installation created by light artist Mick Murray and lighting designer Matthew Cregan features a newly composed soundscape by David Kitt. The work will see the installation travel the river Shannon, through Clare, Galway, Leitrim, Longford, Offaly, Roscommon, Tipperary and Westmeath from 13 to 20 June. It will be visible up to seven kilometres away and audiences will be able to access the soundscape – which is synchronised to the installation in real time – via the Culture Works and the Brightening Air websites. 

Sounds From a Safe Harbour and Body and Soul have collaborated on A City and a Garden, a series of four sound experiences of music and narration that audiences can listen to on their mobile devices while out on designated walking routes. The walking routes – in Cork city centre and in Dublin’s Botanic Gardens – also have visual installations by visual artist Deirdre Breen. A City and a Garden features musicians such as electronic duo Fish Go Deep, sound art/improvisation pair The Quiet Club, singer-songwriter Tolü Makay, and composer Seán Mac Erlaine and vocalist Dorothy Murphy. Writers Lisa McInerney, Louise Hegarty, Melatu-Uche Okorie and Gavin Corbett also feature. 

Also taking place is Woman in the Machine, a digital exhibition inspired by Carlow’s former Braun premises and women working at the intersections of art, science and digital media. It will feature sound art by Jenn Kirby, Sarah Jane Sheils, Kate Butler, Jennifer Walshe, ensembÉal and Elizabeth Hilliard.

Ar Ais Arís, presented by Brú Theatre, is a theatre and music video shown via VR headsets that will be presented for small groups in Gaeltacht areas in Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Kerry and Cork. In the Magic Hour is a new dance installation by CoisCéim Dance Theatre that focuses on our connection to nature and which will be performed in handball alleys across Ireland. 

There will also be Lasta, a young curators programme that will be pressnted at various venues around Ireland; an Art Gifts series where audiences in Cork can book their own personal performance to experience; The Walls Project, an augmented reality street art event in Waterford; no_matter_here, a digital exhibition and online zine designed using the tools and aesthetics of the early internet; Mespil in the Dark, a series of online episode films from Pan Pan Theatre documenting the everyday lives of eight actors; and Wexford Blue Whale, an exhibition based on the pottery fragments that have washed up on beaches across Wexford from a shipwreck in 1857. 

Brightening Air/Coiscéim Coiligh will also present The Ballad of a Care Centre, a site-specific theatre work delivered via live performance and virtual reality to previous clients of the Naas Day Care Centre; The Corner of Scotsman’s Bay, a browser-based interactive experience based on the former Dún Laoghaire baths; Incoming and Grid (Moria), a visual exhibition about the ongoing migration crisis in the Mediterranean by Kilkenny-born artist Richard Mosse; and What Did I Miss?, a theatre show from the Ark online about an adolescent girl’s experiences of school and friends in a post-pandemic world. 

The series is curated by the company Schweppe Curtis Nunn. For further information on all events visit: https://brighteningair.com/experiences