fiona's blog

Cork is home to a vibrant sound art scene and this was very well represented at this year's Art Trail Festival.  The opening party featured some sound pieces, already discussed below and on Sunday 15th, A Sonology of Cork Sound Art took place at the Savoy.  This was a ticketed event and a CD of the artists performing, along with several others was available to buy both that night at the Savoy and during the festival from the ArtTrail office at Jeffers on St Patrick's Quay.  This CD functions a little like the Open Studios programme, where artists working in this medium, eithe

An ArtTrail project which refers back to the days when a strong sense of community prevailed is 'The Kitchen Table', organised by Fiona Kelly and Amanda Rice, which takes place daily between 11am and 3pm at 24 Nicholas Street.  Fiona and Amanda have redecorated the two rooms of this domestic space, where one of the artists actually lives, to look like an old-fashioned living-room and dining-room.  The public is invited into this space to view work by the pair and to have a cup of tea, a bun and a chat.  Amanda has screen printed modern objects onto doilys and sourced interior

Adham Faramawy's videos, presented by The Black Mariah at Triskel for Art Trail, are rooted in a deep interest in culture, mythology, allegory.  In 'Sons of Lacoon', which was also shown on opening night at the Savoy, Faramawy explores what it is that drives societies apart, what it is that dislocates a viewer.  This video is in his words "a microcosmic example of what you're experiencing all the time".   We as a society in the West are exposed to so many stimuli and take in information from multiple sources at once.  How is it possible to proces

At the Port of Cork are two containers, curated by Sarah Iremonger.  The first of these contains Stephen Mc Glynn's 'Mapping Office', a project which attempts a psychological, a temporal mapping of location.  Stephen is investigating the forgotten or disappeared parts of locality and what it means for those people who can only visit these places in their memories.  Stephen gathers these stories, mapping them in a textural, multi-layered and process-based way.  He describes this project as an'office for emotional attachments' and is intereste

The first of the dérives or psychogeographical walks took place yesterday, from Grand Parade.  The walk, titled 'It's Not Where I Am That Stays With Me', took a group of eleven people around the city, trying to locate twelve posters which described where you would be and what you would see from that position in Amsterdam.  The project is by Combination City and Oliver Flexmann, and although the artist wasn't there, the walk led by  Chris Clarke was very sucessful.  The whole group worked together, collaborating using a map without street names, attempting to

ArtTrail 2009 opened last night with a huge turnout for the opening party at the Savoy.  Kevin Tuohy opened the festival with the collective recital by all there, of the names of all the artists, writers, organisers, directors, collaborators and volunteers.  This served to highlight the sort of connectedness, community spirit and mutual respect required between all sorts of groups of people, in order to realise an undertaking such as this.