DUBLIN.- An exhibition of film work from the Collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, created in partnership with the South Tipperary Arts Service and The Clonmel Sheltered Workshop, opens to the public on Thursday 17 July 2008 as part of IMMA’s National Programme. Absence will be officially opened by Christina Kennedy, Senior Curator: Head of Collection s at IMMA, on Wednesday 16 July at 7.00pm.

Comprising work by six artists, the exhibition has been selected by The Clonmel Sheltered Workshop, Rehab Care, Co Tipperary, a voluntary organisation offering a range of services to people with disabilities. The Clonmel Sheltered Workshop day service provides services to 28 adults with intellectual disabilities. Staff from Bridgewater House who have been involved in the project, described the partnership as allowing “the service users to participate in an entirely new and exciting field and interact with people from completely different areas of expertise. It is hoped that this project can therefore be a platform which the service users can use in the future to explore other new areas for their personal growth.”

South Tipperary Arts Service aims to encourage community engagement and participation in the professional arts and to develop audiences in new areas of the arts. The Art Service commissioned Will Nugent, a local film maker, to work with the group to devise and produce a film. Members of the group were inspired by the films and artworks that they had seen from the IMMA Collection , and produced their own film, A Little Piece of Us which is featured in the exhibition alongside works by Irish and international artists Clare Langan, Gerardo Suter and Paddy Jolley, among others.

The central aim of the National Programme of the Irish Museum of Modern Art is to establish the Museum’s core values of excellence, inclusiveness and accessibility to contemporary art on a national level. Focusing on the Museum’s Collection , the programme facilitates off site projects and exhibitions in a range of venues and situations throughout Ireland . For IMMA the design and implementation of exhibitions such as Absence involves an engagement with the various communities, urban and rural, using the Museum’s Collection as the core resource to evoke a series of different responses and to foster a sense of ownership over the national Collection . The Museum aims to act as a resource at a local level through working in partnership and relying on the knowledge and concerns of the local community. Partner organisations are wide ranging and include a variety of venues both in traditional art and non arts spaces allowing for far-reaching access and interaction.

Accompanying the exhibition is a full-colour publication and a programme of talks, lectures and events.