Art & Community Work
Art seeps into suburbia
€6,000 + 50 artists + 18 months = 1 mighty exhibition By Siobhan O’Dowd
T
he suburbs of Ballyphehane and Togher are only a couple of miles from the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork city, but in cultural terms they were a world apart until
recently. On May 6th, George Hurley, who joined the Men’s Art group in BallyphehaneTogher Community Development Project a few years ago, nearly burst with pride when he visited the opening in Crawford of an exhibition of work by his group. For him and 49 others from community arts groups in Ballyphehane and Togher this was remarkable. Most participants had never been inside the Crawford Gallery two years earlier, it simply wasn’t on their map of the city. In the intervening 18 months they had attended education sessions, master classes and workshops in the Crawford with artist Julie Kelleher, and now it was no big deal, they felt at home and for three weeks in May their work was put on display as part of the Bealtaine Festival. At the launch, Crawford’s curator Peter Murray said Ballyphehane/Togher work was as good and better than much of what he’d seen in students’ final year projects. George then stepped up and said his mother would pull him past the gallery as a child saying “You couldn’t trust the likes of them” but now 50 years later he was in the Gallery, he had his work on the wall and he appreciated the opportunity. However, back in 2010, Crawford were taken aback when the word ‘exhibition’ was first mentioned.
Margo Hayes, Glen CDP co-ordinator , Jean McCormack and Joan Hayes.
SHOCKED
“Emma and Anne were shocked – they said an exhibition would be ‘moving beyond their comfort zone.’”
12th Irish Conker Championships on Oct 30 in Co. Kilkenny – KLP.
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At first Crawford’s Emma Klemencic and Anne Boddaert were shocked – they said an exhibition would be “moving beyond their comfort zone” and it “would need to meet the standards of the Crawford.” But the CDP was on solid ground. We had nurtured a relationship with the seven local community arts groups in the area, all of whom had a mainly older membership, because we realised the benefits of community arts in terms of participation, community development and community health. We had created a network for all of these groups, to help them secure funding,