DUBLIN.- The Irish Museum of Modern Art welcomes Dr Matisse Huiskens as a Research Ireland Postdoctoral Research Fellow, marking a significant step in the expansion of museum‑based research and the commencement of a major new research collaboration between IMMA and University College Dublin (UCD).

Dr Huiskens’s fellowship is funded through Research Ireland’s €4.4 million Enterprise Fellowship Programme, which supports 46 enterprise‑engaged research projects nationwide across all disciplines. IMMA is proud to be the only art museum among the enterprise partners selected under the programme’s Partnership Stream, which supports full‑time research undertaken in close collaboration between higher education institutions and enterprise partners.

The two‑year research project, Unpacking the Paul O’Neill Archive at IMMA: Nationhood, Counterpublics, and the Curating of Contemporary Art in Globalising Ireland since 1991, has been awarded €97,357 in Research Ireland funding and will be based at IMMA, in partnership with UCD.

The project centres on the Paul O’Neill Archive, acquired by IMMA for its permanent Collection in 2025. The Archive comprises a substantial body of material spanning several decades of O’Neill’s international work as an artist, curator, educator, researcher, and writer, including publications, research and teaching materials, exhibition and project ephemera, and artworks.

Widely recognised as one of the foremost research‑oriented curators and scholars of curatorial practice, O’Neill’s work has played a pivotal role in shaping contemporary curating, public art and exhibition histories internationally. The Archive is regarded as an invaluable resource for students, researchers, artists and curators, and for anyone with an interest in international curatorial theory and practice from the 1990s onwards.

Through the systematic examination, interpretation and digitisation of the Archive, Dr Huiskens’s research will explore how curatorial practice has contributed to the formation of cultural counterpublics, and how these practices reflect and shape Ireland’s changing sense of nationhood since the opening of IMMA in 1991. Drawing on archival research, new fieldwork, and interviews with O’Neill’s extensive international network, the project positions the Archive as an active research infrastructure rather than a static historical record. Through talks, debates and public programmes at IMMA, the research will examine how curatorial practice can generate spaces that challenge dominant social norms and contribute to broader discussions on self‑determination, globalisation and cultural identity.

Welcoming Dr Matisse Huiskens, Annie Fletcher, Director of IMMA, said:

“Innovative and interdisciplinary research is now taking place across IMMA: through our research‑led exhibitions; our extensive programme of work with colleges and third-level institutions; our residency programme; our pioneering work in art and brain health as part of IMMA Horizons; and increasingly through the development and activation of our Collection and Archives.

The interpretation and expansion of artist and curatorial archives are central to IMMA’s development at this moment. Archives such as the Paul O’Neill Archive are not static repositories; they are active research infrastructures that allow us to understand, contextualise and reflect on contemporary artistic practice in Ireland and internationally. Through projects such as this Research Ireland Enterprise Fellowship, we are building both the intellectual content and the organisational frameworks required to establish IMMA as a Global Learning and Research Centre.”

Dr Huiskens will be based at IMMA and UCD from May 2026 for two years. He holds a doctorate from the University of Amsterdam, jointly awarded with the University of Salerno, and previously worked as a Lecturer in modern and contemporary art at Utrecht University. His recent curatorial work includes an exhibition on the rediscovered Dutch modernist movement Liga Nieuw Beelden at Atelier Volten, Amsterdam.

This is the fifth Research Ireland Enterprise Fellowship following the innovative research projects by Dr Nathan O’Donnell (2018-2019); Dr Stephen O’Neill (2021-2023); Dr John Wilkins (2022-2024); and Dr Alessia Cargnelli (2024-2026). The fellowship builds on IMMA’s expanding role as a hub of research and innovation, demonstrated in recent years through:

• Major research‑led exhibitions, including Self Determination: A Global Perspective and Technologies of Peace: Art and Transition in Contemporary Europe (1989 – 2026), the first major public manifestation of a four‑year research programme examining art, conflict, peace and transition.

• A strategic focus on collecting, building and activating artist and curatorial archives, recognising archives as vital research resources that deepen the study and interpretation of contemporary practice in Ireland and internationally.

• Dwell Here, a research‑led residency programme supporting artists and researchers to undertake sustained inquiry through IMMA’s collections, archives, site and urgent contemporary questions.

• IMMA Horizons, a pioneering initiative positioning IMMA at the forefront of the interdisciplinary field of art and health, with a particular focus on art and brain health.

• The Museum’s ambition to establish IMMA as a Global Learning and Research Centre, embedding research across exhibitions, collections, archives, residencies, education and public engagement.

By bringing together academic research, museum practice and public engagement, the Research Ireland Enterprise Fellowship will generate new ways of understanding Ireland’s contemporary cultural history, while reinforcing IMMA’s role as a leading centre for archive‑based scholarship, curatorial research and interdisciplinary inquiry, nationally and internationally.