Where Silence Settles is the result of this year’s artist residency at Spike Island, presented in the atmospheric Punishment Block as part of Culture Night this September. Developed by Cork-based artist Barbara Diener, the exhibition continues a five-year partnership between Spike Island and Sample-Studios, supporting site-responsive work that engages with the island’s layered history.
Diener brings a contemplative lens to Spike Island’s complex legacy. Her practice explores memory, time and obsolescence—qualities echoed in the island’s crumbling walls and overlooked narratives. Working with archival materials, installations, and both still and moving images, she constructs a visual narrative that traces what remains after silence has settled.
The exhibition draws from pivotal moments in the island’s past, including the story of The Aud and its connection to the Easter Rising. Diener’s haunting underwater video work and photographs of abandoned, overgrown architecture—often in areas not normally accessible to the public—reflect how nature slowly reclaims places marked by human ambition and conflict, offering a quiet meditation on loss, transformation and renewal.
Visitors are invited to engage during an artist talk accompanying the exhibition, providing further insight into the process and work on display. A short guided tour will take place at the beginning of the event.