IN Norwegian mythology, the “kraken” is a fearsome sea monster inhabiting the deep. By pure coincidence, Craiceann is the Irish-language title for a marine creature designed for the Clifden Community Arts Festival by sculptor John Coll.
The basking shark or liabhán chor gréine (great fish of the sun) has been created out of and mounted on a recycled currach.
It is one of a series of exhibits which form a centrepiece of the Clifden festival’s art trail in the Connemara town this week.
Coll was a marine biologist before becoming one of Ireland’s leading figurative sculptors. His new Marine Morphosis exhibition focuses on recyclable flotsam,using a surf board and its cover to create a bottlenose dolphin, and lobster pots bound by rope to create a spider crab’s personal currach.
“My next plan would be to make a seal out of all those used neoprene wetsuits out there,” Coll said.
The basking shark was formed by wrapping the currach’s canvas skin over a steel and wire frame and foam filling. These sharks were once hunted from currachs off the west coast. The species has returned in large numbers to the Irish northwest in recent years.
The seven-metre craft which Coll acquired for stripping was built a decade ago by a fellow artist, Mark Redden. It had been lying in storage since Redden moved to Barcelona, where he has since initiated the Mediterranean’s first currach-racing regattas.
The “gallery” for Coll’s display is a former supermarket building on Clifden’s Market Street, which is one of a series of empty units borrowed by the festival’s arts curator, John Durning, for the trail.
Also exhibiting with Coll is the Atlantic Artists group, including printmaker Margaret (Mo) West and Bernie Dignam, with group and individual exhibitions in a number of venues, including shop windows.
Many participants are running workshops with the students of Clifden Community School this week, as an integral part of the programme for the island’s longest running community arts festival.
This year, for the first time, primary school students at Scoil Mhuire have their own resident artist – Dubliner Shelly McDonnell, who has been involving pupils in marbling, clay modelling and “general creative chaos”.
Up to 200 students from schools in Clifden, Cleggan, Claddaghduff and further will participate in the festival’s parade on Saturday evening with Fidget Feet and LUXe.
Other street action includes a contemporary dance performance by Project (Loco) Motion on Bridge Street at 7.30pm tomorrow.
To mark Clifden’s contribution to the national Culture Night, galleries, temporary or otherwise, will also stay open late, according to McDonnell.
Singer Martina Goggin launched a new work of poetry and photographs, Under Connemara Skies – Towards Light,in Clifden earlier this week.
The book was inspired by the death of her only child, Eamonn, in a car incident in 2006. Proceeds on sales are for the Strange Boat Donor Foundation.
