FLAGS FLYING HIGH
An Táin Art Centre’s latest OFFSITE project brought together a visual artist, dancer and composer to create works for all to enjoy in the town centre
There’s never been a better time to walk around the town centre. Although sadly many shops and businesses remain closed, the town’s streets have never looked better with the murals and street art making it an outdoor art gallery.
Now, thanks to an innovative project from An Táin Arts Centre, large flags featuring paintings by artist Orlaith Cullinane are flying high at various locations around the town centre. And to make a walk around the town centre even more enjoyable, posters at each flag location will feature a QR code, which when scanned will allow walkers to listen to music by an Tain’s traditional musician in residence, Zoe Conway.
The flags were created by Orlaith, who is a member of Bridge Street Studios, Art As Exchange and Louth Craftmark, Last autumn, as part of the collaborative project, she worked with dancer Fiona Keenan- O’Brien, who was An Tain’s 2020 dancer is residence to capture images of movement and dance.
Órlaith made drawing of Fiona as she danced, capturing the spirit of movement rather than a perfect likeness and these images have been painted onto large flags which are now
flying around town.
The work deals with restrictions, limitations, and boundaries - physical and mental - and movements, freedoms, and adaptations within them.
It was the perfect project for the artist whose practice centres around capturing the human figure.
Orlaith explains how she asked Fiona to restrict herself for certain poses, to escape from a sack or from ropes which she had tied her feet with ropes as visual metaphors for the times in which we live.
Other times, Fiona’s improvised danced movements celebrated freedom or reflected the notion of distancing.
She filled her notebooks with sketches which when this third Level 5 lockdown was imposed after Christmas, she used as source material for the paintings which have been transferred onto the flags.
The flags are now being displayed in the town centre as part of An Táin Arts Centre’s 2021 Off-Site programme. It will be launched on An Tain’s Facebook page on Friday at 7pm when Director Paul Hayes will discuss the inspiration and processes undertaken to create the project with Órlaith.
The acclaimed fiddle player
Zoe Conway, who is An Táin’s first traditional musician in residence, has taken time out from composing a symphony commissioned by the RTE Concert Orchestra, to create an audio track which can be accessed at each flag location by scanning a QR code on a smart phone.