Assembly – Ireland’s national representation at the Venice Biennale 2025, designed and curated by Cotter & Naessens – is presented in a new public context at Áras Mhic Dhiarmada / Busáras, Dublin. Rooted in the idea of assembly as both gathering and making, the programme extends the installation’s invitation for people to come together and consider shared concerns.
Assembly is inspired by Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly and the design, crafted in Irish beech, with a Ceadogán rug at its centre, is a multi-sensory installation that offers visitors a soundscape to be inhabited and a space to be heard. Circular, modular and relatively small in scale, it facilitates non-hierarchical communication between strangers.
The exhibition will also feature a film directed by Michelle Delea, which documents the production of the pavilion from conception to completion.
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Opening Assembly (22nd October)
A conversation exploring the relationship between architecture, public space and democracy, asking how the spaces in which we gather shape our capacity to participate in civic life. Taking Assembly as a focal point, the event considers the role architecture can play in creating the conditions for democratic gathering today.
Architectural Tours of Assembly in Áras Mhic Dhiarmada/Busáras (various dates throughout October and November)
Audiences are invited to encounter one of Dublin’s most familiar public buildings through its architectural history and changing role within the life of the city. Each tour will also include an introduction to Assembly led by members of the Cotter & Naessens team.
Youth Assembly (29th October)
A series of creative workshops with young people from Dublin’s North East Inner City exploring architecture and the places where young people gather. The series will culminate in a public event where young people will share their ideas around what the future of public space in Dublin might look like.
The Infrastructure of Gathering (3rd November)
A conversation looking towards rural Ireland and the Gaeltacht asking what a place needs in order for people to stay and make a life together – from physical infrastructure to the cultural and social structures that sustain communities.
Who Gets to Make a Place? (6th November)
A conversation exploring housing and community-led approaches to making place, asking who has the power to shape and care for the places we call home.
Contentious Spaces (11th November)
Developed in collaboration with Pavee Point Traveller & Roma Centre, this gathering explores belonging and public space through Traveller perspectives and experiences, asking what it means for a place to be genuinely shared.
Poems for Assembly (12th November)
Developed in partnership with Poetry Ireland, this event brings poets together for an evening of readings and conversation responding to the wider questions at the heart of Assembly. Through poems that speak to the places we inhabit, the event considers how language can hold experiences of home and movement and asks how a place can continue to live through language long after we have left it.
What the Ground Holds (17th November)
An outdoor gathering at the FIELD in NCAD which will bring together artists, students and the public. Taking place alongside the FIELD’s annual potato harvest and soil procession, the event will explore how acts of growing, harvesting and gathering are the starting point for thinking about how relationships with place are formed.
Closing Assembly (22nd November)
A final gathering marking the end of Assembly which will bring together ideas and perspectives from across the programme.
General Info