Launch Event for From The Forest to The Ocean, a multidisciplinary exhibition with artists Mary Moynihan and Hina Khan at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, featuring Visual Art, Photography, Poetry and Film
Launch Event for From The Forest to The Ocean, a multidisciplinary exhibition with artists Mary Moynihan and Hina Khan at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, featuring Visual Art, Photography, Poetry and Film
September 18 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm IST
Rathfarnham Castle and Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality are delighted to invite you to the launch of From the Forest to the Ocean, a powerful, new multidisciplinary exhibition at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, D14K3T6, with artists Mary Moynihan and Hina Khan. The exhibition is a stunning collection of visual art, photography, poetry…
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Artists
Mary Moynihan, writer, poet, creator of art and photography, Artistic Director, Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality, Arts Curator for the annual International Irish Arts and Human Rights festival
Hina Khan, visual artist
Ciara Hayes, Producer, Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality
Freda Manweiler, Company Manager and Producer, Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality
EM Creative, Graphic Design
Jody Hogg, Graphic Design
Special Thanks to: Catherine O’Connor, Rathfarnham Castle and all the team at Rathfarnham Castle, The Pearse Museum and St Enda’s Park
Full Event Details
From The Forest to The Ocean is a powerful, new multidisciplinary exhibition at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, with artists Mary Moynihan and Hina Khan. The exhibition is a stunning collection of visual art, photography, poetry and film inspired by physical landscapes and the interconnectedness of life from forests to the ocean. The exhibition is on show at Rathfarnham Castle Gallery, Rathfarnham, Dublin D14K3T6 from Tuesday 16 September to Sunday 2 November 2025 and opens daily 9.30am – 5.30pm, thereafter, Wednesday – Sunday 10.30am – 5pm. A public launch takes place on Thursday 18 September 2025, from 6-8pm, with guest speakers and refreshments.
From the Forest to the Ocean is inspired by reflections on nature and journeys of interconnectedness and the art of ‘letting go’, linking physical landscapes of nature from the forests to the ocean to landscapes of the soul. Our personal well-being is linked to the well-being of our planet on a physical, spiritual, emotional and intuitive level. Nature and creativity inspire us to look after ourselves, each other, the planet we live on and to search for more sustainable ways of living. Join us as we reflect on ways to re-wild the landscape and re-wild the human soul, exploring the flow of life and the art of letting go.
The original concept for the exhibition From the Forest to the Ocean is by the curator Mary Moynihan, a writer, poet and creator of art and photography. This exhibition is part of a triptych – Landscapes of the Soul (Part I), From the Forest to the Ocean (Part II) and a third exhibition (Part III) to be presented in 2026. Following their successful exhibition in 2024, titled Landscapes of the Soul (Part I) artists Mary Moynihan and Hina Khan are delighted to return to Rathfarnham Castle Gallery to present their new multi-disciplinary exhibition titled From the Forest to the Ocean (Landscapes of the Soul Part II). This event is part of The Trees Project: Raising Environmental Awareness Through Performing Arts, a project led by Dah Theatre, Serbia and supported by Creative Europe. www.performtrees.eu
Mary Moynihan (she/her) is an award-winning writer, poet, theatre and film-maker and a creator of art and photography. Mary is Artistic Director of Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality, and Artistic Curator for the annual Dublin Arts and Human Rights festival supported by The Arts Council.
Hina Khan was born in Pakistan in 1980 and completed an MFA, majoring in Miniature Painting from Pakistan. Hina uses miniature in her work as the intricacy and delicacy of the brush work has a unique identity. Hina’s work began as a mixture of traditional and contemporary miniature and her practice has now expanded to include small and large-scale installation, videos and 3D.
Rathfarnham Castle
Rathfarnham Castle is a building with a rich and varied history dating back 400 years. It has been ‘a fortified house, a luxurious seventeenth-century home, a fashionable Georgian Mansion and an austere Jesuit residence’[1] It is now under State care and managed by the Office of Public Works.
Rathfarnham Castle was only referred to as a castle in the mid eighteenth century. It is situated on the outskirts of Dublin. It is the earliest recorded and one of the largest and most impressive of the fortified houses built in Ireland. It was commissioned C. 1583 for Adam Loftus who was at that time the Anglican Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The house passed down through seven generations of the Loftus family until 1723 when the whole estate was sold to William Connolly of Castletown, County Kildare. After an interval of some fifty years (1711-1767) which saw a number of tenants and owners who made alternations and additions to the house, it was returned to the ownership of the Loftus family. There were several different owners until the Castle was declared a National Monument in 1986 and purchased for the Nation by the Office of Public Works in 1987. At the same time, Dublin County Council acquired the grounds.
Artwork by Mary Moynihan and Hina Khan at Rathfarnham Castle, Landscapes of the Soul 2024
Speaker Biographies:
Mary Moynihan MA
Writer of Novels, Poetry, Films, Plays
Creator of Art and Photography
Creative Reflections on Arts, Creativity, Equality, Leadership and Self-Esteem
Mary Moynihan, MA, she/her, is an award-winning author of novels, poetry, films and plays, and a creator of art and photography. Mary is from Dublin, Ireland. Mary embarked upon her award-winning career as a writer in theatre and film and has garnered much acclaim for her plays, poetry and short film scripts, and for creating interdisciplinary artworks combining writing and photography presented in galleries and online. She established and became Artistic Director of Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality and is Artistic Curator for the annual Dublin Arts and Human Rights festival. Mary has an honours BA in Drama and Theatre Studies from Trinity College Dublin and an honours Masters in Film Production from TU Dublin.
After raising four children, now adults, Mary dedicated her time to becoming a writer. She writes fiction for young people and adults featuring stories of courage, laughter, tragedy, happiness, love, death and action-packed adventures. Mary is the author of a young adult fantasy novel Amergin and the Warriors of Zen. In her adult fiction, Mary’s characters are clever, fearless, vulnerable, crazy, strong, and dangerous, looking for love, fun, success and happiness. Her work promises enthralling plots, dramatic lives, lots of laughs, serious flirting and sexual intrigue and insights into love, happiness, creativity and meaning in life.
Mary pens a series of articles titled Creative Reflections on Arts, Creativity, Leadership and Self-Esteem which appear in the Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality newsletter and on Mary’s website marymoynihan.ie
In her free time Mary loves to spend time with her four adult children and hang out with friends. She swims in the sea all year round. She loves the ocean, sky and moon and has a spiritual connection to the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea, to the environs of Dublin bay and to the mystical landscapes of Valentia Island and the surrounding Iveragh peninsula in County Kerry, her spiritual home. She is a big fan of the Dublin Gaelic football and hurling teams.
Smashing Times
Mary is Artistic Director of Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality working collaboratively with artists and over fifty organisations across Ireland, Northern Ireland, Europe and internationally, using the arts to promote rights and values for all. Company patrons are Sabina Higgins; Joan Freeman, founder of Pieta House; Ger Ryan, actor and Tim Pat Coogan, writer and historian. Founding patrons were writers Maeve Binchy and Brian Friel.
Mary is Artistic Curator for the annual, international Dublin Arts and Human Rights festival implemented by Smashing Times and Front Line Defenders with Amnesty International, Fighting Words, ICCL, NWCI, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Trócaire, Poetry Ireland and Irish Pen, and funded by The Arts Council. The festival highlights the extraordinary work of human rights defenders in Ireland and around the world, past and present, and the role of the arts and artists in promoting human rights today.
Awards
Mary’s work has won a number of awards, including the Allianz Business to Arts Special Judges DAA Arts Award at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, the international and prestigious #ArtsAgainstCovid award from the Arts in Health International Foundation and an Arts Council Agility Award. Mary was awarded a Project Award from The Arts Council to write a new work with a range of collaborators titled The Feeling Soul, inspired by stories of women poets from ancient and modern Ireland.
Writer of Novels, Poetry, Films and Plays
Mary is the author of the epic spoken word poem ‘Ode to a Coolock Queen’’, written from a female perspective and exploring identity, gender, violence, passion, self-destruction and possible redemption. An attempt as Sylvia Plath says ‘to be true to my own weirdnesses’. It is an oral storytelling narrative that is about a broader reflection on what it is to be born out of a working class environment. This poem is in homage to all people from working-class communities who find their strength and become their own kings and queens like warriors from an ancient past.
Mary is the author of a young adult fantasy novel Amergin and the Warriors of Zen. As a playwright, Mary’s work includes the highly acclaimed The Woman is Present: Women’s Stories of WWII co-written with Paul Kennedy, Fiona Thompson and Féilim James; Memorial Monologues: The Path of Memory; Tales of Love and Loss featuring two monologues selected by President Michael D Higgins for performance at Áras an Uachtaráin, Constance and Her Friends and Grace and Joe for performance in 2023; In One Breath from the award-winning Testimonies(co-written with Paul Kennedy); Shadow of My Soul and May Our Faces Haunt You.
Plays for children and young people include Gathering on the Pond, a comedy play on the environment by Mary Moynihan and Aoife Reilly; Love the Earth by Mary Moynihan – A Change-Makers Storytelling session for ages 5 to 12 years adapted from three stories – The Water Princess, The Hummingbird, and The Salmon of Knowledge – from Goal’s Global Citizenship Education Resource; and Four Great Plays for Young Children, a series of short plays suitable for performance by children ages 5 to 12 years – The Children of Lir, The Three Bears, The Princess Play and Legend of the Dragon Kings
Mary has a focus on using historical memory in her artistic practice as inspiration for the creation of original artworks. A number of her writings highlight stories of ordinary yet extraordinary women who stood up for the rights of others with a focus on the Holocaust, WWII and the revolutionary period in Irish history.
Mary’s documentary film work includes The Shoah: A Survivor’s Memory – The World’s Legacy, adapted from the writings of French woman Simone Veil (1927-2017), a French lawyer, politician and feminist, Holocaust survivor and first female President of the European Parliament; the creative documentary Women in an Equal Europe; the short film Letter to a Human Rights Defender based on words by Mary Lawlor, a Human Rights Defender, founder of Front Line Defenders and UN Ambassador on Human Rights Defenders; the hour-long documentary Stories from the Shadows reflecting on the arts in peacebuilding in Northern Ireland (co-directed with Mark Quinn); You Matter, a filmed interview with social justice campaigner Dil Wickremasinhge and the short documentary Acting for the Future on the role of the arts to promote positive mental health and well-being and suicide prevention for Travellers in Ireland.
Keep in touch with Mary on:
Tel: + 00 353 (0) 87 7438722
Email: marymoynihanarts@gmail.com
Website: MaryMoynihan.ie
Follow Mary on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn
Hina Khan, Visual Artist
Hina was born in born in Pakistan in 1980 and completed an MFA, majoring in Miniature Painting from Pakistan. Hina’s work uses a mixture of traditional and innovative techniques in miniatures. She portrays social issues, immigration, humanitarian crises like prostitution, gender discrimination, gender restrictions, trauma, child abuse and killing in her work.
Hina uses miniature in her work as the intricacy and delicacy of the brush work has a unique identity. Hina’s work began as a mixture of traditional and contemporary miniature and her practice has now expanded to include small and large-scale installation, videos and 3D.
According to Hina ‘My work is a constant search for the best way to interpret ideas and to express my own ideologies through symbolism. I am creating a dialogue through my art. My art is a reflection of inner connection, and how immigrants and nomadic artists are a part of this land. Migration is deeply rooted in my blood. I have carried two cultures, one from where I was born and the other is this culture where I am trying to re-root myself. Sometimes a situation is not in our control, but life always takes us on different voyages. This journey has built up a constant transition in my art, personality, and in terms of experimentation, enabling me to evolve my artistic practice.’
Hina has participated in a number of groups shows in Pakistan from 2002 to 2011. Hina came to Ireland in 2015 and participated in a number of exhibitions in Dublin, Laois, Mayo, and Cork. Hina was awarded several residencies with Fire Station Arts Center, Create Ireland, West Cork Art Center and Cow House Studio and has displayed solo exhibitions at Ballina Art Center, Mayo, and Stradbally Art house, Laois.
Hina’s art pieces are held in the permanent collection of The Arts Council of Ireland. She is the recipient of several awards from The Arts Council of Ireland, Create Ireland, and from different counties. She is the recipient of an R&D award from Create Ireland in collaboration with Tomasz Madajezak under the mentorship of Jesse Jones and is also collaborating with filmmaker David Bickley. Currently she is preparing artworks for State of the Art: The Nation State as both Violator and Protector of Human Rights presented by Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality, funded by The Arts Council and is working on a solo show which will be displayed in the LHQ gallery in 2022.
Hina says that ‘as an artist, I am inspired by Sadequain, Michelangelo, Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Shahzia Sikander and Anselm Kiefer.’
Organisations Involved / Partner Organisation(s):
