A programme of public art works is to be staged in Carlow during the coming months as plans proceed to provide the county with a contemporary visual arts centre of international standing.
The centre, which was recently allocated £2.5 million under the Access programme administered by the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, is to include the biggest single space for the visual arts in Ireland.
A study by a team of British consultants said the £6 million facility, to be known as VISUAL, the Contemporary Visual Arts Centre, should make Carlow an internationally-recognised centre for the arts.
The programme is the first of a series to be staged as a lead-in to the provision of the new centre. Three exhibitions will be held before the end of the year, comprising one international, one national and one Carlow commission.
Artist Brian Hand has been selected for the national commission, and his drive-in exhibition, The Car Called the Manager, opens on Friday, September 28th, at the College Farm adjacent to Carlow College.
The installation, which combines vintage cars, video projection, original archive images, signage and dramatic lighting, is designed to be viewed from your car with the aid of specially-made audio cassettes. The exhibition runs until October 7th.
The international and Carlow commissions will follow, and further temporary programmes will take place each year until the opening of VISUAL. Work on that project is already under way, according to the county arts officer, Mr Caoimhin Corrigan.
A project team is currently being put together by the two local authorities overseeing the plan, Carlow County Council and Carlow Urban District Council. The design of the facility will then be the subject of an EU-wide competition. As well as a major visual arts space, the centre is to have additional galleries, artists' studios and workshops, art education workshops and a restaurant-bar.
The potential benefits of the plan were spelt out in a concept assessment carried out last year by a three-man team: Mr Mike Collier, fine art programme leader at Newcastle College; Mr Chris Bailey, head of the school of humanities at the University of Northumbria; and Mr Peter Stark, director of the centre for cultural policy research at the same university.
In a report to the county manager, Mr Tom Dowling, the three said Carlow's ambition to establish an internationally-acknowledged centre for the arts could be achieved within three to four years. The £2.5 million allocated to the project under the Access programme was the joint largest along with the Courthouse Arts Centre in Carrick-on-Shannon.