Details of the nine Ireland 2016 art commissions

In the Shadow of the State
In the Shadow of the State is a collaboration between visual artists Sarah Browne and Jesse Jones, exploring statehood from the perspective of the female body. In the context of the centenary, the project investigates the resonances of the birth of the state, and what it means for women today. Through a series of participatory live events in historically resonant spaces in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain, the project includes collaborating experts from medicine, law, material culture and music. The 1916 Rising – originally a socialist and feminist movement as well as a nationalist project – remains unfinished for women in Ireland. In the Shadow of the State is co-commissioned by Create (Ireland) and Artangel (UK), with additional production support from Heart of Glass (UK).
A Poet's Rising
The Irish Writers Centre has commissioned six poems, one for each day of the Rising. These poems will be written and performed by our most influential contemporary poets who will reflect on a significant figure, location or event around the Rising. The poems will be filmed and released during the week of the anniversary. The poets include Jessica Traynor, Thomas McCarthy, Paul Muldoon, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Theo Dorgan. An original score will be composed by Colm Mac Con Iomaire. The films will be made available as an app for download which will take the user to each location where they can watch the video of the poem performed by the poet. It is confirmed that the poems will also be broadcast on terrestrial TV.
Future Histories
Niamh Murphy and Áine Phillips will curate a dawn-to-dusk live art and video event with 16 acclaimed Irish artists at Kilmainham Gaol to respond to its iconic historical associations with the 1916 Rising. The invited artists, from north and south of the border, who work in performance, live art and video will respond to the 1916 centenary, creating contemporary perspectives on our shared past, conflicts, crises and passions in relation to the Rising and its greatest monument, Kilmainham Gaol. 
The artists are Amanda Coogan, Danny McCarthy, Brian Connolly, Debbie Guinnane, Helena Walsh, Sandra Johnson, Fergus Byrne, Francis Fay, Katherine Nolan, Pauline Cummins, Ciara McKeon, Dominic Thorpe, Maeve Redmond, Dr. Laura McAtackney, Michelle Browne, Alastair McLennan and Sinéad O’Donnell.
Áine Phillips and Niamh Murphy
HEED
HEED is a public sound work, which will be made by artist Garrett Phelan in collaboration with groups of Dublin-based young people (aged 18 to 25) and with the support of social services providers. HEED will focus on, and give voice to, the disaffected and increasingly disenfranchised. It aims to highlight the concerns and issues facing young people, in a positive and constructive manner, through the creation of a significant sound project. HEED calls ambitions of the past into the present; namely an Ireland that consistently questions the integrity of its governance, the manifestation of its cultural identity and the ministration of civic society.
The Souvenir Shop
The Souvenir Shop will examine the shifting meanings and commoditization of gestures and symbols associated with the revolution, examining how the images, objects and themes of the 1916 Easter Rising and conflict more generally become ‘souvenirs’. The work also explores how ordinary people and everyday heroes cope with conflict and resolution. Referencing the city centre shops once owned by Proclamation signatory Tom Clarke, Duffy will create a shop in Dublin city centre filled with foodstuffs, goods, medicines, with images of the rising and its heroes, woven into everyday things. The artist will transform the historical and everyday into the magical, and will fundamentally question public attitudes towards violence, commemoration and national identity.
The Casement Project
The Casement Project is a choreography of bodies and ideas that takes place across multiple platforms and national borders. It dances with the queer body of British peer, Irish rebel and international humanitarian, Roger Casement. It asks: Who gets to be in the national body? How could the national body move? An award-winning creative team, a cast of internationally-acclaimed performers and contributors from beyond the arts, join choreographer Fearghus Ó Conchúir to create five interconnected ways for people to be involved in the project: a stage performance, a celebratory festival of dance, a dance-film, an academic symposium and a series of engagement opportunities that welcome participation by a diversity of people.
THESE ROOMS
A creative collaboration between ANU and CoisCéim Dance Theatre, THESE ROOMS is an immersive, live performance and film installation that cross pollinates contemporary dance, theatre and visual art. The work is based on a historical incident, which took place on North King Street, Dublin in April 1916 and involved the killing of fifteen civilian men. With reference to eyewitness accounts, THESE ROOMS will take the form of an embodied, physical testimony drawing attention to the effects of conflict on ordinary people's lives and reaffirming the role of art in negotiating history.
ANU
ANU is devoted to an interdisciplinary approach to live performance that cross-pollinates visual art, dance and theatre in an intensely collaborative way while placing audiences central to their work. ANU is comprised of artistic directors Louise Lowe and Owen Boss, and is produced by Lynnette Moran and Matt Smyth. Works include: Pals,The Irish at Gallipoli (Collins Barracks); Glorious Madness (Failte Ireland and DCC); Beautiful Dreamers (Limerick City of Culture), Vardo (DTF2014), Angel Meadow (HOME Manchester), Thirteen (DFF), Dublin Tenement Experience; The Boys of Foley Street (DTF2012); Laundry(DTF2011), World's End Lane (DTF2010), Memory Deleted and Basin (DFF).
1916 - Visionaries and their Words
100 years on from a revolution, 1916 - Visionaries and their Words will explore the writings and ideals of the Easter Rising's leaders in a concert programme inspired by their work to take place at the 2016 Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann and Temple Bar Trad Fest. Drawing from their writings, Lorcán Mac Mathúna will attempt to interpret the vision of the revolutionaries and to explore their legacy and contemporary resonance. The concert will present male, female, and children's voices, and a narrator who will read from source writings, alongside images and footage, both modern and archival.
New commission by Willie Doherty
Irish artist, Willie Doherty proposes to make a new video work which examines the legacy of the 1916 Easter Rising. The work will build on Doherty’s interest in the relationship between landscape and memory, and will be shot in sites of contested history in Donegal and Dublin. The video will premiere in the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny in July 2016 as part of the Earagail Arts Festival, and will be exhibited in Kerlin Gallery, Dublin and Matt’s Gallery, London in late 2016, early 2017.