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Culture Night Late at SIRIUS

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4 months ago

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Culture Night is an annual, all-island festival that takes place each year on the third Friday of September. In 2025, Culture Night occurs on Friday, 19 September, and SIRIUS presents an evening with The Black Poppy Tattoo Parlour and a late night programme exploring themes and experiences of belonging, trauma, healing and celebration.

Culture Night Late at SIRIUS is a festival-style showcase of visual art, film, poetry, dance, performance art and sound. It features new and existing/reconfigured works by artists Tobi Balogun, Shirani Bolle, Florin Nolan, Maïa Nunes, Fionnuala O’Connell and SPACES. This late night programme is informed by the architecture, nature and history of the SIRIUS location in Cobh, County Cork, and uses water as an element that resonates materially and symbolically with people and land.

Culture Night Late at SIRIUS is free and takes place between 9pm and 1am.

Culture Night Late at SIRIUS is produced by SIRIUS and funded by the Arts Council through the Culture Night Late scheme.

Florin Nolan’s production is additionally funded by Cork County Council through a Bursary. SPACES’s production is additionally supported by Sample-Studios as part of Studios of Sanctuary, a scheme funded by Rethink Ireland Resilient Cork Fund and the Community Foundation of Ireland.
Accessibility Note
Our building has accessibility limitations. There are three steps to the front door and a temporary wheelchair ramp is available upon request. Elements of this exhibition are accessed via stairs. Our toilets are also accessed via stairs. Public toilets are beside the Titanic Experience, on The Promenade.
 
Maïa Nunes. Photograph: Josh Byrne. Courtesy of the artist
 
PERFORMANCES


Fionnuala O’Connell
Refractions
9–9.30pm

Fionnuala O’Connell is a Liberian Irish artist based in Cork City. Fionnuala’s practice spans writing and spoken word. She explores questions of social justice through themes of memory and belonging. This performance address the tension between inclusion and segregation, as well as questions of representation related to the African diaspora.


Tobi Balogun
Ara
9.45-10.30pm

Tobi Balogun is a Nigerian Irish artist based in Dublin. Tobi’s practice spans dance, fashion and sculpture. He addresses themes of masculinity, ethnicity, storytelling and belonging, drawing from traditions of Yoruba culture and Afrofuturism. This performance positions the body as a transitory state to explore ideas of Blackness, liquidity and memory.


Shirani Bolle
Comfort Fruit
10.45–11.30pm

Shirani Bolle is a British Irish artist based in County Limerick with Sri Lankan and Dutch-German heritage. Shirani’s practice spans performance, video and sculpture, utilising textiles as a key element. She explores the role and position of women in society through the lenses of care and violence, and considers the tension between the domestic and public realms. This performance examines questions of activism in the digital era, addressing the tension between effecting change and the inefficacy of ‘virtual’ expressions of solidarity.


Maïa Nunes
Dark Moon
11.45pm–1am
(limited availability; booking via Eventbrite through the SIRIUS Eventbrite listing page is required)

Maïa Nunes is an Irish Trinidadian artist and sound healer based in County Wicklow. Maïa’s practice spans film, sound, sculpture and performance, utilising voice, cloth, movement and the land as key elements. She addresses legacies of colonialism, exploring embodied processes of repair and transformation. This session engages with the self in the present moment, in dialogue with the ancestral past, to enable a sense of rootedness and connection to the spiritual.

 
Shirani Bolle performing Comfort Fruit, 2025. Photograph: Sandra Corrigan Breathnach. Courtesy of the artist
EXHIBITIONS


Florin Nolan
Floricoland
 
Florin Nolan is a Romanian Irish artist based in Cobh, affiliated with Suisha Inclusive Arts at Horizons. Florin’s practice addresses his biography, speaking to his experiences of displacement and care across geographies, and explores the relationship between place and community, with a focus on his interpretation of architecture in Ireland and internationally. This exhibition features works that showcase landmarks connecting place and culture, whether contributing to a sense of belonging at a local level or shaping the collective imagination. The works suggest a perspective on the world based on the artist’s excursions, real and fictional, to sites of interest both near and far.


SPACES
Cowboys Don’t Cry
 
SPACES is a South African Irish artist based in Cork City. SPACES’s practice explores themes of representation, psychology, memory and othering associated with Black culture. The artist draws from his experience of displacement and psychedelic perspectives to create narratives that blur fact and fiction. This exhibition features a film that reimagines the ‘cowboy’ archetype through the lens of African heritage – rooted in grit, stoicism and survival. The action is set in a futuristic dreamscape where time folds and emotions take physical form, bringing together a young man and his pregnant mother in a tense, emotional relationship.
 
SPACES, Cowboys Don’t Cry (still), 2025. Courtesy of the artist

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