I've been thinking again lately about visual art and political activism, for reasons that are surely apparent.
At Ormston House gallery in Limerick this month what feels like a pertinent form of socio-political-art-historical nostalgia is taking place – and it’s set to tour to Wexford and West Cork between now and March of next year. Featuring work by artists Orla Barry, Brian Duggan and Alanna O’Kelly, together with photographs by Derek Speirs, footage by Ken Lynam and archive material from the Irish Anti-Nuclear Movement, Memory of a Free Festival is an art exhibition inspired by the anti-nuclear festivals that took place in Carnsore Point on the south-east coast of Ireland between 1978 and 1981. The protester-revellers were unified by a shared opposition to plans for what would have been Ireland’s first nuclear power plant. The festivals were organised by a coalition of various groups and attended by thousands of people – including me, as a toddler. I still have the badges to prove it.
Those pin badges feature the iconic 'Smiling Sun’ logo, designed in 1975 by then 21-year-old Danish activist Anne Lund. The logo consists of a spiky sun encircled by the words ‘ATOMKRAFT? NEJ TAK’ (Nuclear Power? No Thanks) in capitalised sans serif font, usually rendered in yellow and orange or red and black. Now a university lecturer, Lund has always insisted "I’m not a designer. I was just an activist." She had no design background and the logo emerged from a process of brainstorming with fellow activists. It was deliberately conceived to be non-violent and politically depolarising: a political-party-neutral image anyone could stand behind. In tone, it was intended to indicate a friendly but firm ‘No’.
Hundreds of thousands of badges and stickers were sold, funding the Danish Organisationen til Oplysning om Atomkraft (Organisation for Information about Nuclear Power). It was quickly adopted worldwide however and translated into more than 60 languages. The Irish language version – CUMHACHT ADMACH? UAFÁS – was first produced in 1979, at the request of the Irish Anti-Nuclear Movement. In March, a billboard reproduction was unveiled on the exterior wall of Project Arts Centre in Temple Bar at a launch event for Memory of a Free Festival which included a sound screening of O’Kelly’s seminal 1984 work Chantdown Greenham Common, and contributions from artist Michelle Doyle/Rising Damp, performer Susie Kennedy, musician Christy Moore and journalist Frank Connolly, who were among the main organisers of the Carnsore festivals.
The exhibition also makes use of the iconic Hand symbol representing renewable energy alternatives, designed by Irish artist William Finnie in 1978. The Limerick iteration includes new work by Cóilín O’Connell, who publishes zines under the moniker Brass Neck Press. A display of artworks selected through an open call process will also go on show at the Record Room on Saturday 23 May, and the Limerick run closes with an event at the Belltable on Saturday 20 June.
(Image courtesy Irish Photo Archive)
As Memory of a Free Festival is packed up to begin its Wexford Arts Centre run in August, the 1970s/80s nostalgia will continue full force at Ormston House with a group show called Energy Made Visible opening in July. This exhibition is centred around contemporary responses to and artworks by the late Irish artist Michael Ashur (1950-2024), a Dublin painter who exhibited at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art and the RHA and had solo shows at the David Hendriks Gallery beginning in the 1970s.
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Watch, via RTÉ Archives: Michael Ashur talks to Arts Express in 1991
Ashur’s highly technical, hard-edged abstract paintings were inspired by celestial bodies, solar systems and connections between art and science. Mathematics meets remarkable use of colour in his still vibrant, large-scale airbrushed works. His significance has somewhat faded from view. This show should bring his dynamically meticulous compositions back into focus again while asking us to consider their relationship with art being made now.
Memory of a Free Festival is at Ormston House, Limerick from 18 April to 20 June 2026, Wexford Arts Centre from 8 August to 30 September 2026, and Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen from 23 January to 17 March 2027. Energy Made Visible is at Ormston House from July to August 2026.
