ASK: Art - Science – Knowledge by Vivienne Roche
COP31 (Antalya, November 2026) must address the accelerating consequences of global warming and climate change. It will take place under the aegis of the Irish Presidency of the European Union. Scientists, artists, and citizens of all nations, now need to act in unison to address these inexorably mounting challenges. ASK is an Irish originated project reflecting this need for unified action. It is initiated and curated by the Irish artist Vivienne Roche in collaboration with the Irish writer Sebastian Barry. ASK is executed by the Irish Department of Climate, Energy and Environment in partnership with the European Parliament Liaison office. It deploys key images from selected European scientists and photographers working in Greenland, the Arctic and the Antarctic. ASK is a sequence of six images, each marking one month of the Irish Presidency's six months. The first and last images bookending the series are a collaboration between Roche and Barry deploying the phrases 'The world in indeed beautiful' and 'After all, the world is indeed beautiful', sourced and adapted from Barry's novel The Secret Scripture (2003).
Artist Bio
Vivienne Roche is a sculptor who lives and works near the sea in Co. Cork, Ireland. Over the last decades she has worked in large-scale bronze, glass, steel, sailcloth, stuccodore plaster, and reconfigured landscape. Drawing, watercolour and photography have also been central to her work. Her artistic themes derive from site-specific dialogues between architecture and sculpture, the emotional resonances of the coastal landscape in which she lives, relationships between male and female, archaeology sites and their artefacts, and between music and the visual. Light has been a central focus as is evidenced in commissioned artworks such as NC Iris (2006), Whitelight Garden (2006), Light Ensemble (2008) and Light House (2009)
ASK: Art - Science – Knowledge by Vivienne Roche
11 Chatham Street
Dublin 2
Exhibition runs from 09/09 – 30/09
Open Monday – Friday 09h30 – 17h00 / Weekends 12h00-18h00
Image: 'The world is indeed beautiful' is written in kelp on a southern Irish Atlantic beach by Vivienne Roche ©.
