Flat – Renèe Helèna Browne

Flat, 2026, is a new moving-image installation by Renèe Helèna Browne that unfolds within the shifting conditions of the so-called “mica scandal” in Donegal, Ireland, where thousands of homes were discovered to have defective concrete blocks. The exhibition forms part of Glasgow International 2026.

The work traces a period of transition wherein one dwelling is slowly relinquished as another takes form, shaped through repetitive acts of making and unmaking. Attending to gestures of labour, care, and adaptation, the film considers how knowledge circulates outside formal structures, carried instead through bodies, materials, and shared routines. Rooted in a rural environment where weather, animals, and tools inform daily rhythms, the installation reflects on how lives are reorganised through acts of repair and endurance. Flat offers a close study of resilience within conditions of structural change.

Renèe Helèna Browne is an Irish artist working across film, drawing and spoken word. Present in Browne’s work are lived experiences of rurality, labour and religion growing up in the North West of Ireland. They unravel the legacies of these experiences as they pass through storytelling and the gendered body. This is a practice of portraiture, motivated by jealousy, desire, and idolisation.