Events Programme

Abode

From Sat 15-05-2010 to Tue 01-06-2010

A collaborative exhibition between Art Alongside and The Irish Musuem of Modern Art's (IMMA) National Programme, at Wexford Arts Centre, from 1st to 15th June, 2010

Official launch: Monday 31st May at 7.30pm

Wexford County Council, in association with Wexford Arts Centre is pleased to announce Abode – a collaborative exhibition between Art Alongside and IMMA’s National Programme. Abode opens to the public at Wexford Arts Centre on Monday 1 June 2010.

Now in its eleventh year, Art Alongside is a unique visual arts project – the only such project of its kind in Ireland - which aims to give children in local primary schools a dynamic and relevant experience of the visual arts. The schools participating in this year’s project are [St. Senan’s N.S. Enniscorthy; Scoil Mhuire Horewsood; St. Mary’s N.S. Tagoat; St. Mary’s N.S. Enniscorthy; Kilmore Central School; Kilrane N.S., St. Canice’s N.S. New Ross; Caim N.S. Enniscorthy; Our Lady of Fatima School, Wexford Town, and Davidstown N.S., Enniscorthy].

Abode will feature a selection of work from each participating primary school children, alongside the work of project artists Mary Claire O'Brien and Helen Robbins, and works from the IMMA Collection including artists Kathy Prendergast, Maria Simonds-Gooding, Paddy Jolley, Rebecca Horn and Rachel Whiteread, and focuses on the theme of Abode.The inclusion of work from the Museum’s collection allows the public, and in particular children and young people, access to the National Collection in a familiar and accessible location.

Some 1,500 people are expected to attend the exhibition and its related educational workshops over the course of the next few weeks. Many schools will participate in guided tours of the exhibition and visual art workshops, facilitated by the project artists Mary Claire O’Brien and Helen Robbins.   

The Arts Department of Wexford County Council has received much national acclaim for its innovative approach to arts education. Art Alongside is unique in that the projects structure recognises the importance of developing not only children’s creativity but also nurturing the creativity of the project artists.

All members of the public are invited to attend the official launch of Abode at 7.30 p.m. on Monday, 31st May at Wexford Arts Centre or view the exhibition Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5.30pm from 1st to 15th June, admission is free of charge.

Art Alongside is funded and supported by Wexford County Council, the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and participating schools. Art Alongside also acknowledges the support of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

For further information about the exhibition please contact Wexford Arts Centre on 053 9123764 or email: info@wexfordartscentre.ie

Gallery hours: Tuesday to Saturday 10.00am to 5.30pm.
For further information about Art Alongside and how your local primary school can get involved for 2010 – 2011, please contact

The Arts Department, Wexford County Council, County Hall, Wexford. Phone 053.9176500 ext. 6369/6441.  Fax 053. 9143542 email: arts@wexfordcoco.ie

Further Information on Abode

Over the past number of months, the project artists worked with 4th, 5th and 6th classes, exploring the concept of imaginary personal spaces and places that provide a sense of privacy and protection. Ideas and images of dwelling places, safe havens, personal spaces and cocoons, were used to fire the creativity and imagination on the overall theme. Some class groups responded to this theme in a very personal way, creating the interior of their own imaginary rooms, hideaways, or dens - private places for themselves. Other class groups were interested in actually building the exterior of their own ‘ideal home’, these homes ranged from house boats, buses and caravans, to cosy cottages, tall towers and stately homes.

Artists from the IMMA Collection have also explored this theme in their work as seen in Paddy Jolley’s film-work, Hereafter, 2004. This work is the result of a commission from 2002 to make a film in Dublin's north-side suburb of Ballymun - an area targeted for radical social and economic change due to Dublin City Council's plan to regenerate the area by demolishing and rebuilding residential housing and services. As part of this plan, residents were requested to move from flats in tower blocks, which in many cases were their lifetime dwellings, to new contemporary houses. Jolley in collaboration with German artist, Rebecca Trost and Norwegian artist/animator, Lise Inger Hansen, focused on the freshly departed flats and the physical items left behind.

In Demolished printportfolio, 1996, Rachel Whiteread’s was particularly concerned by socio-economic changes in Thatcher’s Britain and their impact on the number of homeless people in London. The demolished documents focus on the destruction of tower blocks in three different housing estates in Hackney, East London, between 1993 and 1995. Whiteread is well know for her celebrated work House, 1993, a concrete cast of the space inside a terraced house scheduled for demolition in Bow, East London, which came to stand as a monument to a lost community, destroyed by increasing gentrification.

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 venues 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.