Full Circle, an exhibition of artworks selected from the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Collection, organised as part of Baboró, Galway International Arts Festival for Children in partnership with IMMA’s National Programme opens to the public at the National University of Ireland Galway Gallery and the Town Hall Theatre, Galway, on Monday 15 October 2007.
Baboró International Arts Festival for Children is recognised as the leading Irish arts festival devoted exclusively to children with an attendance record of over 72,000 since its foundation in 1997. For the last ten years, one week in October has been devoted to presenting high quality national and international arts performances, exhibitions and workshops for children both in schools and as families. Venues in and around Galway are used for the presentation of this festival with selected artists travelling out to schools and youth and community centres. Baboró’s aim is to advocate access to high quality arts experience for children in the community and in their schools.
Earlier this year the residents of Henry Street, Galway, selected artworks from IMMA’s Collection for an exhibition, Radharc, in Galway Arts Centre. Sharon Lynch, an artist working for Baboró’s Outreach Project, and Joan Burke, classroom teacher, brought a class from Scoil Sheamais Naofa to see this exhibition. This is where the class first encountered LaFontaine’s work, Waves, "pourrais-je emporter dans l’autre monde ce que j’ai oublié de rêver?” 1998. Since that initial viewing in Galway Arts Centre in February, Sharon has worked with the class to create their own work in response to the LaFontaine piece. The process has been documented orally and photographically and the students’ response to this work, Tonnta, can be viewed alongside the original piece at the NUI Galway Gallery.
Sharon Lynch is a Galway-based artist who works in multi-media. She has worked with Baboró for a number of years as part of the Baboró Arts Team, creating workshops for both children and teachers and has developed a strong relationship with many community groups in Ireland.
Marie-Jo LaFontaine’s film, Waves, was shot on the west coast of Ireland. LaFontaine shows the theatre of the elements in fury, the power and passion of the natural world. The viewer is drawn into the work through Lafontaine’s use of sound that alternates between dramatic pieces of classical music which the artist distorts post-production, and mysterious otherworldly voices.
Two artworks from IMMA’s Collection are also being shown at Town Hall Theatre as part of Full Circle. These are Greetings, 1996, by Caroline McCarthy and Hereafter, 2004, by Paddy Jolley, Rebecca Trost and Inger Lise Hansen. In Caroline McCarthy’s video work Greetings, the artist inserts herself abruptly and repeatedly into a typical Irish landscape, familiar to us from tourist brochures and traditional Irish art, in a deliberately awkward and comic way. The reference to picture postcard messages in the title suggests the artist is only visiting the location. McCarthy questions where she belongs in our rapidly changing culture from the once rural to the new urban focused contemporary Ireland. The film, Hereafter, is part of a project which was commissioned in connection with the regeneration of Ballymun in Dublin, Ireland’s largest public housing project. As part of this regeneration plan, residents were requested to move from flats in tower blocks, which in many cases were their lifetime dwellings, to new contemporary houses. Hereafter focuses on the freshly departed flats and the physical items left behind.
IMMA’s National Programme is designed to create access opportunities to the visual arts in a variety of situations and locations in Ireland. Using the Collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art and exhibitions generated by the Museum, the National Programme facilitates the creation of exhibitions and other projects for display in a range of locations around the country. The National Programme establishes the Museum as inclusive, accessible and national, de-centralising the Collection, and making it available to communities in their own localities, on their own terms, in venues with which the audience is comfortable and familiar.
Full Circle continues at National University of Ireland and Town Hall Theatre, Galway until 21 October 2007.
Venue: NUI Galway Gallery
Opening Hours: 10am to 1pm and 3pm to 5pm daily
Venue: Town Hall Theatre Foyer
Opening Hours: Saturday 20 October 10am to 7pm and Sunday 21 October 10am to 1pm
Telephone: 091 562 667
Fax: 091 562 642
E-mail: [email protected]
Baboró Galway International Arts Festival for Children
Hynes Building, St. Clare’s Walk, Merchant’s Road, Galway, Ireland.
For further information and images please contact Monica Cullinane or Patrice Molloy, IMMA at Tel: +353 1 612 9900; Email: [email protected]
Or
Kathy Scott – Publicist Baboró, Tel: 086 359 3553; Email: [email protected]
27 September 2007