UNDERGROUND

Kat Lalor

A4 SOUNDS GALLERY

Exhibition Opening: Thursday 23rd April 2026

UNDERGROUND is a recognition and celebration of existence beneath the surface. Informed by Irish Vampiric Mythologies, this exhibition entangles underground cultures, Queer infrastructures, and the quiet, regenerating presence of the vampire. 

Paying homage to Drag as a resilient political power, the exhibition features a performative film set within soil; the living, renewing, connective tissue, humanised and tenderised by processes of decay.  The film is visually led by a viscous green liquid, the source of infection, regeneration, and preservation amongst an ecosystem of underground vampires. As this liquid travels, it bathes and permeates the soil, flowing around, through, and between various vampiric bodies, each in a varying state of preservation, transformation, or euphoria. Holding reference to silent film, the work slowly renews, grows, and mutates temporally into an ode to Queer Club and Ballroom scenes, the deep and unyielding roots of community, activism, and political resistance, collapsing Queer time into a pulsing pool of immortality. 

KAT LALOR

Kat Lalor is a Queer visual artist, generating a practice of worldbuilding through moving-image, performance and writing. They invoke their practice to interrogate constructed binary categories which limit the possibilities of Queer intelligibility.

As someone existing between the gender binary, Kat’s practice acts as an explorative space for self-experimentation, perspective-switching, and speculative narrative building. They enact this by adapting Drag as a core methodology. Inspired by the writing of Renate Lorenz, Drag becomes a historical and political tool for symbiotic knowledge-making and knowledge-dismantling. With the performing body as the active site, Drag enables purposeful embodiments which can collapse the boundaries of truth/fiction, subjective/collective, and self/other.

Enthralled by the writings of Queer academics who seek to dismantle socio-political constructs of gender, time and space, Kat combines the theoretical and the personal through pre-existing speculative fictions. This creates a point of recognisable access, and emphasises the acts of subversion, destabilisation, and reclamation at play. Utilising absurd, camp and DIY aesthetics, normative knowledge is destabilised and binary barriers can be broken. Through this, they create a space to question the validity of all normative and political ‘truths’, including those used to deny marginalised groups bodily autonomy and self-determination. Combined, these tools allow for critical reflections, re-imaginings, and reclaimings of Queer experience.

Kat completed their BA in Fine Art in 2022 and an MA in Fine Art in 2024. Their work has been included in shows at The Complex Gallery, The Highlanes Gallery, the RHA Gallery, and Droichead Arts Centre. They are a recipient of the We Only Want the Earth Residency Awards 2024-2025.

EVENT DETAILS

A4 Sounds Gallery
D07 ER81

7PM - 10PM

Doors will close @ 9pm to allow the exhibition team to enjoy the evening, so please ensure to arrive before then.

Drinks reception in the A4 garden from 7pm.

ACCESS INFORMATION

Full details can be found on our website covering exhibition specific, building, health precautions, maps, public transport routes and accessible parking information: https://a4sounds.org/underground/

Summary Information
The exhibition, gallery and garden are accessible.
Full exhibition access information will be provided when the installation is complete.
The exhibition includes a film work.
Sound will be played throughout the gallery on a PA system.
There are no loud or sudden noises in the film work.
There are no flashing lights or images.
The gallery will be dimly light with LED lights.
Masks are to be worn indoors at all times. Masks will be available on the door.
A member of staff will be available on the door to provide information and guidance if needed.
The garden is seated, there are some covered areas and some outdoor heaters.