Hillen wins Omagh competition / Carlow Local Authorities announce plans for VISUAL (Monday 17 September 2007)
Seán Hillen selected to build Omagh Bomb memorial
We reported a while back (click here) on the shortlist for the £100,000 Omagh memorial. Dublin-based, Newry-born artist Seán Hillen, along with Desmond Fitzgerald Architects, has been chosen as winner of the competition, for their 'reflected light' design. The memorial should be finished by next August's tenth anniversary of the bomb.
Visual moves a little closer
compiled by Marthe Leach
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| Maquette of Visual; courtesy Carlow County Council |
In the initial stages, it was billed as the biggest space for contemporary art in Ireland – quite a coup for a smallish town like Carlow. It is not clear if that original claim now stands, but VISUAL still promises to be a major player, if all goes well (the idea was going round that the County Council was trying to offload the programming of VISUAL onto IMMA, but that surely can’t be right…)
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| Maquette of Visual; courtesy Carlow County Council |
Carlow Local Authorities have now finalized the contractor and architectual firm that will construct VISUAL in Carlow Town on the grounds of Saint Patrick’s College. VISUAL will contain the National Centre for Contemporary Art and the George Bernard Shaw Theatre. Terry Pawson Architects—an architectural company based in London—and Rohncon Ltd contractors will oversee the construction of VISUAL, consisting of four principal gallery spaces as well as a 3,130m² performing-arts theatre.
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| Maquette of Visual; courtesy Carlow County Council |
The Centre will house temporary exhibitions of local, national, and international art, as well as provide a new space for the festivals that take place in Carlow. The Theatre will host national and regional touring productions as well as local productions and will be a home venue for several Carlow based groups, both amature and professional.
VISUAL is due to open in early 2009. Visualise Carlow, now in its sixth year, brings in three public temporary contemporary art projects to Carlow every year and will benefit from the new gallery space. Joe Crockett, County Manager, writes that the new Centre will share the same goal as Visualise Carlow in that “it will be a place of reflection, and yet a place of exploration. It will be a centre, not just of recreation but of re-creation. The programme of the centre will encourage us to reimagine the world we live in and our place within it.”
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