Autumn 2009 - Crafts Council of Ireland

AUTUMN 2009News and Reviews 10The partnership with Kilkenny Arts Festival was established to co-create a programmethat would highlight and celebrate the huge quality of Irish craft talent visible in Ireland.L-r: damien downes (Kilkenny arts Festival director) and Úna Parsons(ceo of the crafts council of ireland) at the official launch of the craft strandcraft on display in castle Yard, Kilkenny during Kilkenny arts FestivalNew Craft Strand atKilkenny Arts Festival 09a great successCCoI’s partnership with Kilkenny Arts Festival in the first ever craft strandwas a great success. Kilkenny Arts Festival is Ireland’s longest running artsfestival and the partnership was established earlier in 2009 to co-create aprogramme that would highlight and celebrate the huge quality of Irishcraft talent visible in Ireland.Kilkenny Arts Festival, Craft Strand curatorAngela O’Kelly and the CCoI combined forcesto produce a memorable series of events forthe duration of the ten-day festival. Some ofthe key objectives in establishing a craft strandwere to further highlight the creativity of Irishcraftspeople living and working both inIreland and abroad and also to provideopportunities to encourage all the audiencesthat attended the festival to engage with craft.Having all of the craft activities that were partof the festival recognised under a separate‘strand’ was a significant achievement in thefirst year of operation of the agreement andplaced the craft strand on a similar footing toother strands including visual arts and classicalmusic and literature.The Craft Strand comprised of several activitiesthroughout the city including two NationalCraft Gallery exhibitions; a retrospective of Irishborn, UK based potter Jack Doherty and‘Object’ a show that explored the relationshipsbetween works from the Arts Councilcollection and craftwork from Irish makers. Themain headline show created and curated byAngela O’Kelly was ‘Sterling Irish’ whichcelebrated the work of Irish makers living andworking abroad. This show was very wellreceived and was held in the Castle YardGalleries at the rear of the National CraftGallery thus allowing visitors to visit both theexhibitions and see the huge diversity of workon show. Many of the makers in the SterlingIrish show were present for the opening and inmany cases it was the first time they hadexhibited in Ireland and that the Irish publichad an opportunity to see their work.In addition to the above there were manyother events including kids craft eventseach day, and featured talks between theparticipating makers and the curators.Piece by claire curneen, sterling irish