Regional Focus
Visual Artists' News Sheet | September – October 2021
A Space for Lismore
Waterford
Paul McAree Curator, Lismore Castle Arts
Arts Centres (For All) Síle Penkert Executive Director, Garter Lane Arts Centre AS THE EXECUTIVE Director of Garter Lane
Arts Centre, I constantly rerun a sentence in my head. It comes from the first-round interview I did for my current role. When a panellist asked me about my experience of the arts centre, I replied that “my first interaction with the arts centre was when I was 11 years old in 1985, one year after the arts centre was officially opened.” I recount the anecdote as a route to reflecting upon my connection to this area and how it relates to the evolution of the organisation. The connection I have with this area is a fairly normal, but absolutely grass roots one. Having had an ordinary, 1980s Irish housing estate introduction to the world, my lens on the arts was formed by the early interactions I had within my own vicinity – the local green, where a band of story creators and theatre makers enacted some fairly wild stuff in pretty preposterous costumes and face paint, while being jeered by local kids and pre-pubescents on BMXs. And later, while on my own journey of formal education in the arts and working in the sector, finding out that many of those who had been performing were heavily involved in a local campaign, known as Arts for All. The Arts for All movement was instrumental in an arts centre provision being realised in Waterford. Some of those people are still key drivers and active players in Waterford’s cultural scene. Their legacy then is ‘an environment’ – they created an opportunity for an ongoing arts provision conversation and championed the art centre’s rightful place in the city centre. That place is where I am consistently perplexed, challenged, and regularly thrilled, uplifted, motivated, and at times overwhelmed, but always inspired. It is here that I ask: “what is an arts centre”? and maybe more importantly, “what would it be like if there was no arts centre?” An arts centre is an ongoing fight, and one that requires continual energy and focus. Our year-long visual arts programme reflects both the diversity and the wellspring of visual arts activities locally and regionally that can and should hold their own space on our gallery walls and floor. We continually strive to make professional development opportunities available and
accessible for artists we work with and those who have studios spaces here. We are currently engaged in an ambitious commissioning project, funded by the Arts Council, that sees us commission work from all of our studio-based artists in conjunction with the Waterford Libraries Services. Some exhibitions of note at Garter Lane over the last two years are: ‘Welcome to the Flock’ (May 2019): Illustrators Ireland, in association with IBBY Ireland, aimed to draw attention to the plight of thousands of families who have been forced to migrate to safer places in the world. The suspended artworks were based on the theme of migrating birds and its overall focus was on raising awareness of a reality that has become part of the contemporary socio-political environment. ‘Waterford 40 Years from Now’ ( January 2020): With the support of Creative Ireland, we invited five schools to participate in the visual art project. Exploring, developing, and daydreaming about the city they live in, second level students from De La Salle College, Waterpark, Newtown School and St Angela’s Ursuline School designed and constructed a 2D or 3D work based on how they imagine Waterford 40 years from now. “A city’s identity is moulded on both its past and present.” ‘BLUE’ ( June 2020): Exploring themes of domesticity, femininity and masculinity, this exhibition presented a selection of artworks from the Arts Council Collection, including works by Dorothy Cross, Rachel Fallon, Hannah Fitz, Sibyl Montague, Geraldine O’Neill, Kathy Prendergast and Daphne Wright. The evolution of this multidisciplinary organisation is one of a constant thoroughfare of Irish and international artists, who connect with us and pass through, bringing with them their own localities and experiences. In their reflections, we are reminded that we possess abilities far beyond our own imaginings. These connections are what inform an ever-evolving centre, supported by a succession of committed arts workers, who relentlessly deliver exciting programmes for the city to experience and engage with. garterlane.ie
‘Welcome to the Flock’, Garter Lane Arts Centre, May 2019; photograph by Hayley K Stuart, courtesy of the gallery.
Deirdre O’Mahony, ‘Forest Culture: Tangled Web’, installation view, St Carthage Hall, March 2020; image courtesy the artist and Lismore Castle Arts.
THROUGHOUT THE LAST year and half of the
pandemic, we have seen a more conscious discussion about the contexts and significance of exhibitions and artists outside of our cities. For many artists and those of us already staging exhibitions and projects in a rural environment, it’s something we have always been acutely aware of – that the merit, contribution, and relevance of exhibitions is at least as important in Lismore, Askeaton, or Gorey as it is in Dublin. It has taken the pandemic for this mind-change to come spiralling out of our cities, with a rethinking of where nationally important things should happen, and a tangible move of artists from cities to more rural environments. There is a growing consensus of ideas around the rethinking our artistic relationships with rural communities, with an emphasis on the flow of knowledge going both ways, to mutual benefit. Pioneering projects by Deirdre O’Mahony are case in point. Deirdre’s project for Lismore Castle Arts fostered a relationship with a group of local residents in Lismore throughout autumn and winter, exploring ideas of forest culture, biodiversity, and our changing relationship to environmental issues, through a series of walks, talks and hands-on workshops. Participants brought and explored their own areas of interest, and this formed the basis for the direction of the project. Deirdre worked closely with participants to subtly steer the various strands of exploration towards an exhibition at St Carthage Hall in March 2020. In the best possible way, such meaningful projects always leave elements to be explored. This year Deirdre will return to work with some of the participants to explore unfinished and untapped ideas – to be presented on our revised website this autumn. Deirdre’s project was part of our series, ‘A Space for Lismore’ – an annual slow-burning project where we invite an artist to visit Lismore and develop a project at their own pace. Carol Anne Connolly worked with ten local residents in 2019 to develop Pattern Landscape, a series of ‘pattern’ prints, based on each individual’s lived experience of their locality. The project examined the socio-historical relationship between nature
and design by researching its manifestation in the locality of Lismore, focusing on the concept of ‘contemporary landscape interpretations’. This year we will invite Carol Anne back to Lismore to develop another aspect of this original project, to be presented online in the autumn. Cork-based photographer Dervla Baker has been working on ‘A Space for Lismore’ since 2020. Commissioned to explore local photographic collections and archives in the Lismore region, this project started at a time when families were confined to their immediate locality and may have been reconsidering what is of significance and meaning to them. This project invites people to dig out photos and negatives and to explore what treasures – either of personal sentiment or undiscovered lost records – may lay hidden. Dervla will continue to develop the project, using St Carthage Hall as a base over the forthcoming winter, and will work towards an exhibition in March 2022. The pandemic has reinforced a need to communicate to audiences wherever they are. The restrictions on travel over the last year have emphasised the need not just for an engaging website, but for content which is both native and meaningful. We are grateful to have received the Arts Council’s Capacity Building Support Scheme Award both this year and last year – a visionary award responding to a very real need in galleries now – and we look forward to commissioning and developing artists’ projects online. One thing we have learned over the last year is that exhibitions and online content are not mutually exclusive, and that the future can and should include a blend of both. lismorecastlearts.ie
