Tripe+Drisheen: The Friday View 11/06
Our weekly round-up of news and events in Cork
Good news for Cork artists
This week the Arts Council announced bursaries for artists including 12 members of Sample Studios in Churchfield. The 12 artists are: Catarina Araújo, Elinor O’Donovan, Amna Walayat, Aoife Claffey, Angela Gilmour, Rebecca Bradley, Sarah Jayne Booth, Seiko Hayase, The Project Twins, Emma O Hara, Samir Rana, Kevin Mooney and Kim-Ling Morris.
Artist Elinor O’Donovan told T+D: "I was absolutely delighted to find out this week that I've been awarded both the Arts Council's Visual Arts Bursary Award and the Arts Council's Agility Award. For a recent graduate like myself this support is monumental. Aside from it enabling me to spend valuable time in the studio this year, it's also incredibly validating to be told that my work is worth this investment.
Between the two awards, I'll be able to pay myself to work in the studio at Sample-Studios for the next 6-8 months. I have two upcoming solo shows this year, one with Sample-Studios in August in the Lord Mayor's Pavilion in Fitzgerald's Park, and another with 126 Gallery in Galway in September. The main emphasis of the awards is to pay me for my time in the studio, but I'll also be able to put money towards materials for the exhibitions, my studio costs at Sample-Studios, and getting in to Benchspace to use their woodcutting facilities.
I moved back to Cork from Edinburgh last September and I've been blown away by the support I've received in this time. I wouldn't have been able to secure this funding if it wasn't for the support and guidance I've received from Sample-Studios over the last few months."
Bride River group launch legal challenge to Blackpool flood relief plans
Lawyers for Save Our Bride Otters (SOBO) lodged a request with the High Court this week seeking a judicial review of the OPW’s permission to proceed with the Blackpool Flood Relief Scheme, which would see 350m of the River Bride permanently covered in Blackpool village.
Ellie covered the story in detail in April with her long read Pride in the Bride.
An initial hearing on SOBO’s judicial review is due on June the 23rd.
SOBO say they have numerous grounds to challenge the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform’s granting of permission to the OPW for the works, including the protected status of the European Otters who live on the suburban Lee tributary.
“The approach taken by the OPW towards the Blackpool Flood Relief Scheme has been flawed from the start,” SOBO spokesman Chris Moody said in an emailed press release. “We have no choice but to challenge this decision by way of judicial review. This scheme is unnecessarily expensive, extremely destructive, and attempts to steamroll a number of protections enshrined in both EU and national law.”
SOBO are using a crowdfunding campaign to fund their legal costs and have raised €16,000 of a €40,000 goal to date.
Crawford Degree Show - “Subject to Change” is open to the public
In more art news, the final year Degree show at Crawford College of Art and Design is going ahead this year, with, given the shifting circumstances faced by students first locked out of their studio spaces for months on end and finally given access in time for their end-of-year show, the apt title of “Subject to Change.”
Unsurprisingly, given that the work has been produced largely under lockdown, much of the work explores the minutiae of our home lives and environments.
Sculptural installations incorporating audio-visual elements and some excellent photography projects, not least from Rachel Guilfoyle and Emma Price, dominate the Fine Art show, while the Contemporary Applied Art students also shine, most notably with Ethel Moir’s heartrending textile and video installation capturing the unravelling threads of memory experienced by Alzheimer’s sufferers.
The exhibition is open to the public in the college’s Sharman Crawford Street campus from June 12-15, from 11am - 7pm daily.
Books and music
Rebel Reads, which has a new home in the Marina, is hosting Plugd Records for a pop up this weekend (June 12&13).
Need money for a local project? Under City councillor “ward funds,” there may be €500 going.
Each Cork City councillor has a “ward fund” budget of €11,000, from which they can grant up to €500 at a time to organisations in their ward, so if you have a worthwhile local project that needs a small cash injection, it might be worthwhile getting on to your local councillor.
This was brought to our attention in a tweet by Cllr Oliver Moran this week. We contacted him to get a bit more information on the ward funds.
Oliver writes: “This year, Cork City Council brought in Local Area Committee budgets of €250,000 for the first time. This is a local budget on top of the main citywide budget. In the North East ward, we're working through agreeing the spending of the final €34,000 of this. It means an additional €20,000 will go on public amenities like bins, benches and signs in the ward, and an additional €14,000 on footpaths.”
Dublin City Council also has ward-level budgets like this, but a source of local budget truly unique to Cork are these "ward funds."
Different councillors have different policies for allocating their funds. “Some will have all of their ward funds spent by the end of January,” Moran explains. “I spread the allocations out over the year and target them towards capital projects, like native tree planting by residents' associations or bicycle racks at schools.
“I don't hide the fact that I have a love-hate relationship with ward funds. On one hand, I think they're a great idea because they allow individual councillors to target money towards causes important to them. On the other hand, governance on their spending could be tightened without taking away from their uniqueness as a local budget.”
If you have an idea that could benefit from the ward funds, contact your local councillor here. If you live in the North East ward, Oliver’s constituency, and have an idea for a local project, “especially ones with a green tinge,” you can contact Oliver using the online form he set up.
Tweet of the week 1: Swimming up and down the Lee
Visit your local community garden!
The NICHE community garden in Knocknaheeny is a city oasis that does amazing work integrating the local Men’s Shed with volunteer-based food growing and a kitchen that, in non-Covid times, provides an amazing and cheap lunch from the food grown there, as well as providing a compost drop-off point for locals.
Ellie interviews project co-ordinator Sarah Carr here.
If you’ve never been, there’s an open day next Thursday and it’s an ideal way to get in contact with Northside veg enthusiasts. The open day is on Thursday June 17, from 11.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. You can look on their Facebook page for more info.
Quote of the week:
The average person in Cork seemed to want “a bungalow on a half-acre site in Patrick Street, preferably with a view of the sea, and they’re compromising from that point onwards”.
John O’Donnell, former head of planning at Cork Corporation, from his obituary in The Irish Times.
More Art&Stuff: A CITY + A GARDEN + A SMARTPHONE
A City + A Garden is a new interactive arts festival which kicks off today in Cork and Dublin. Ellie interviewed creative director Mary Hickson, familiar to some as the brains behind biennial arts festival Sounds From a Safe Harbour.
There’s two routes to the Cork edition of the festival. With your smartphone you can listen to new writing by Lisa McInerney and Louise Hegarty as you walk along the streets of Cork.
Route 1 - Cork City - Sundays Well Road (Rose Construction hoarding) to Red Abbey Square.
A Northside rebel tells us how on a mad dash through the city streets she lost her heart - and various other bits of herself - to a lovely boy from West Cork in “Town: A Love Story in Body Parts” by Lisa McInerney. Narrated by Hilary Rose with accompanying music by Fish Go Deep.
Route 2 - Cork City - Mardyke Bridge (Skate Park) to Bell’s Field
A lone man, invisible to you or me and stuck in some in-between place, slips through time as he follows a path from riverside to graveyard to hilly climb in “Now, Voyagers” by Louise Hegarty. Narrated by Conor Lovett with sound design by The Quiet Club and song by Seán O’Sé.
Paddy Cahill lives on at the Clonakilty Bike Festival
As part of Clon’s Bike Fest (June 10-13), some of Paddy Cahill’s films will be streamed on Saturday, June 12 on the festival’s YouTube page. Paddy was some man. He lived in Cork for a good few years. Sadly he passed away earlier this year in Dublin. Paddy was also an acclaimed film director and passionate bike advocate. His final journey was a bicycle-drawn hearse through the streets of Dublin to Glasnevin Cemetery.
Tweet of the week 2:
The wonderful work of artist John Keating.
That’s a wrap this week. See ye next week and do let us know of any news or events in your community you would like highlighted.