The Dust by Maïa Nunes with Brendan Jenkinson

Commissioned by The Complex

Presented at Kirkos

Location: Kirkos, Little Green St, Smithfield, Dublin 7, D07 K744

Date: 21 March 

Time: 8 pm

Doors: 7.30 pm

The Dust marks the beginning of The Complex Off-Site visual arts programme for 2026. In addition to Maïa’s performance, the programme includes three further exhibitions presented across Ireland in partnership with collaborating organisations. Further announcements regarding the forthcoming exhibitions will be made in the coming weeks.

In memory of the sacred monument and home that once stood here,

The stonemasons who built it,

And the stones who remain.

For all those who were buried here and forgotten.

The Dust culminates Maïa’s year-long site-specific research, originally developed for a scheduled exhibition in The Gallery at The Complex, whose former building stood on the historic site of Mary’s Abbey. Following the organisation’s eviction, the project has been adapted to a live performance, staged in the same locality, at Kirkos. The work honours both the layered Cistercian history of Mary’s Abbey and The Complex’s more recent presence on that ground. Maïa’s research led to a focus on stone as a material that carries history beyond the span of human life, bearing the marks of generations past. A central question emerged and persists: how can an artwork respectfully honour loss without aestheticising it?