We are very excited that the extraordinary VR experience SIT STAND SMOKE will be coming to the West Cork History Festival this summer.  Artist and filmmakers Curtin // Keating created this work as a response to Séan Keating’s famous painting The Men of the South. The experience is set in 1921 and the present day and explores Keating's motivation in creating the painting, a group portrait of six members of the North Cork Brigade of the IRA. The experience was shot on location in West Cork in 2024 and exhibited at Cork's Crawford Art Gallery, where the original painting hangs.

The experience - which lasts 18 minutes wearing a VR headset - will be available on the Saturday and Sunday of the Festival, and is included in your Festival ticket. One of the major contributors to the piece, Dr Éimear O’Connor, will also be speaking at the Festival about her research on Keating.

We are very grateful to Linda Curtin and David Keating for allowing SIT STAND SMOKE to come to the Festival and for funding from Cork County Council through their Arts Grant Scheme.