So much art, so little time! Join in for this 15-minute lunchtime program, where a member of the museum's education staff will lead a brief, interactive exploration of a single work of art in the permanent collection. Not all works on view take center stage, so join us for this opportunity to take a deep dive into a piece that you might not have noticed on a previous stroll through the galleries. Gain new perspectives on an old favorite, or engage with something completely new! After our time in the galleries, participants can explore other works in the Museum or enjoy a 10 percent discount at Ivan’s Cafe. Originally published at raclinmurphymuseum.nd.edu.

Join Wisconsin Poet Laureate Brenda Cárdenas for a talk and reading from her art-inspired work. Cárdenas’s remarks will center on “ekphrastic” writing—creative writings that respond to or are inspired by works of art. Her presentation will include projections of artworks that inspired some of her poems and her performance of them. Cárdenas’s campus visit launches “Poets & Art: Ekphrasis at the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art,” a multi-year partnership between the museum and Letras Latinas, the literary initiative of the University’s Institute for Latino Studies (ILS). In addition to her poetry reading, Cárdenas will spend two days at the museum observing, reflecting, and writing a new ekphrastic poem inspired by an artwork on display. On Saturday, September 27, Cárdenas will lead a community-focused ekphrastic writing workshop. Brenda Cárdenas has published ekphrastic poems in her two books Trace (Red Hen Press, 2023) and Boomerang (Bilingual Press, 2009), as well as in literary magazines, and anthologies, most recently in Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology. Cárdenas is also co-editor of two anthologies, including Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2017). She co-designed and co-taught the inaugural master workshop for PINTURA: PALABRA, a multi-year Letras Latinas initiative in partnership with the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She is professor emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee where she taught undergraduate and graduate classes and seminars on poetry and the visual arts. Originally published at raclinmurphymuseum.nd.edu.

Power, betrayal, and forgiveness: Shakespeare's classic The Tempest touches on timeless themes in one of his last (and most beloved) works. Blending romantic machinations, political scheming, and more than a bit of magic, Shakespeare brings to life vivid characters and powerful imagery in a tale whose themes continue to resonate with audiences everywhere. Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, is stranded on an island with his daughter, Miranda.Possessing magic powers, Prospero conjures a storm to expose his brother, Antonio, and King Alonso, who had him deposed. As Miranda falls in love with Alonso's son Ferdinand, Prospero's quest to reestablish his power leads him to a compelling dilemma: whether to destroy or forgive his enemies.Experience a satisfying evening of theater highlighting the text's brilliance while showcasing the actors' chameleon-like skill. Actors From The London Stage's minimalist and imaginative take on The Tempest requires just five actors who rotate roles and build entire worlds with simple props, capturing the humor, magic, and power struggles of one of the Bard's final plays. An AFTLS veteran or seeing your first play? Regardless, this performance promises to be accessible and exhilarating—proof that timeless stories still cast the most potent spells. GET TICKETS

The Raclin Murphy is excited to host Brendan Fernandes in the museum for a second performance inspired by art, artifacts, and their legacy. Noise See investigates themes of visibility, protest, colonial residue, and embodied resistance. Central to the work are custom-crafted, vibrant quilted tapestries and costumes; the vivid magenta and purple plaid textile is commonly associated with contemporary Maasai culture in Kenya, yet is rooted in British colonial influence. Performed as a duet, dancers engage in a choreographic dialogue—merging and separating, concealing and revealing—through a language of camouflage and emergence. The performers activate the double-sided tapestries throughout the Museum’s atrium, transforming them into blankets, shields, protest banners, cloaks, and second skins. These dynamic textiles, with irregular folds, drapes, and appendages, become agents of change, shaping and being shaped by the dancers’ movements. Noise See reclaims a colonial textile legacy and transforms it into a site of protest, protection, and presence. Here, Fernandes insists that silence is not absence, but a resonant and radical form of resistance. Fernandes is the 2025 Artist-in-Residence in the Notre Dame Initiative on Race and Resilience. He presented the site-specific commissioned piece Moving Through—written in collaboration with Notre Dame students and performed by five dancers throughout the galleries—in April, and parts of it will be reprised in the museum on Friday, October 3. These performances and other opportunities to engage with Fernandes are made possible through collaboration among, and support from the Initiative on Race and Resilience, the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, and the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art.Brendan Fernandes, Noise See, 2025. Commissioned by The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Costumes created in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Maasai shuka, batting, cotton. Dimensions variable. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979, Nairobi, Kenya) is an internationally recognized Canadian artist working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. Rooted in collaboration and fostering solidarity, Fernandes’s projects take hybrid forms to address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest, and other forms of collective movement. He is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program (2007) and a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Fellowship (2014). In 2010, he was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award and received a prestigious 2017 Canada Council New Chapters grant. Fernandes is also the recipient of the Platform Award (2024), the Artadia Award (2019), a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2020), and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant (2019). His projects have been shown at the 2019 Whitney Biennial (New York); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); the Museum of Modern Art (New York); the Getty Museum (Los Angeles); the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa); MAC (Montreal), among a great many others. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University. Fernandes is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago and Susan Inglett Gallery in New York. Recent and upcoming projects include performances and solo presentations at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (St. Louis), MCA Denver, The Fabric Workshop and Museum (Philadelphia), and Prospect 6 (New Orleans). Originally published at raclinmurphymuseum.nd.edu.

The Department of Music comes together in this special event to celebrate our new piano, a Schimmel concert grand, with an eclectic program that will showcase the beautiful colors of the instrument in a variety of different styles. This event is free and open to the public. Originally published at music.nd.edu.

Learning Beyond the Classics: Voicing Intergenerational Trauma in Postwar Korea and Japan through Contemporary Cinema Directed by Soon-rye YimWith Kim Tae-ri, Jin Ki-joo, Ryu Jun-yeol Rated PG-13, 103 minutesIn Korean with English subtitles Director Soon-rye Yim scheduled to appear live! From work to relationships to school, nothing is going smoothly in young Hye-won's life in the big city. Putting unresolved matters behind her, she dips and impulsively returns to her hometown. There, she reunites with her childhood friends Jae-ha and Eun-sook, who go about rural living in their own unusual ways. Finding herself at a crossroads, Hye-won looks to reconnect with her past simple life while forging meaningful connections to the geographies and people around her. GET TICKETS *Free for ND, SMC, HC, and IUSB students. **Co-presented by the David A. Heskin and Marilou Brill Endowment for Excellence, Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship/Hesburgh Libraries.