Preview: Friday, 23rd September
Runs: Sat, 24th September - Sat, 22nd of October 2022
The Bealtaine, Age & Opportunity Commission 2020 in partnership with Galway City Council, Clare County Council and Roscommon County Council.
Tar Isteach is informed by a series of meetings, workshops and interactions with new residents and citizens in Galway City; Lisdoonvarna Co. Clare and Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon. It draws on the experience and knowledge that each artist brings, folding these over with the artisanal skills and the cultural perspectives of a diverse range of participant groups both native and New Irish. Embracing the Bealtaine theme of ‘Hospitality’, it interrogates the principle that it is only in our encounter with ‘others’ that we can truly see and recognise ourselves.
A ‘travelling table’ creates the poetic space and forum for hostings and gatherings, which unfold through the exhibition run in Ennistymon, Co, Clare, along with online presentations to date. The Tar Isteach exhibition and presentations include: artefacts, notebooks, photos and video.
The collaborative processes explored, by artists and participants, over the duration of the commission have encompassed vernacular skills, shared practices and rituals such as: bread making and nurturing; Somalian bracelet making and weaving to generate dialogue and exchange. By their nature these exchanges have often been transient and interrupted reflecting the vicariousness of the context in which participants abide and the difficulty and desire to connect even when the future is uncertain.
Artists Maeve Collins, Monica de Bath and Julie Griffiths are members of Ground Up Artists’ Collective, a support and resource organisation for a range of individual artistic practices, some of which operate autonomously while others engage in collaborative productions. Some of the most important issues of our time are being played out in rural areas. The artists of the Ground Up Artists’ Collective recognise this and address some of these complex matters through their visual art practices.
