Adrian Duncan, Buildings from a Novel

Buildings from a Novel brings together a series of sculptures and a new video work developed alongside the writing of Adrian Duncan's recent novel, A Thought Without Collision.

Buildings from a Novel consists primarily of a series of sculptures that were made while the artist and writer, Adrian Duncan was writing his recent novel A Thought Without Collision. These sculptures, which resemble fictional buildings imagined in the novel, belong to points in an imaginary terrain. They are a self-built (Tyrolean-style) Haus, an Irish country school, a clubhouse, and a rural family home. The objects in this world, however, take on a tactility and life of their own in the gallery. The video work shown alongside the sculptures, also titled Buildings from a Novel (13mins, 2026), shows a conversation between two characters from this novel as they discuss the destiny of the house they are standing in. This conversation takes place as they stand over a model of this house, a model that also appears as a sculpture in this show.

Artist Bio

Adrian Duncan’s practice consists of an ongoing development of three evolving activities: object-making and installation, film-making, and writing. His sculptural works, films and books most often stem from an engagement with the built environment – from Irish domestic housing to fascist-era monuments in Italy. Duncan’s recent award-winning film Latina, Latina (84mins, 2025) screened in competition at CPH:DOX and Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam, among others. It also showed at della Fondazza, Bologna. It was funded by the Arts Council’s ReelArt award. His latest novel A Thought without Collision was published in August 2026 with Tuskar Rock Press. The works in Buildings from a Novel stem from this book. He was guest curator of the Dublin Art Book Fair 2024 in TBG+S and he is an editor, since 2009, with Paper Visual Art Journal and PVA Books.