August – September 2023
Artlink’s first public art project; Art in the Park, was initiated in 1994. Through an Artist in the Community grant from the Arts Council of Ireland, Aileen Barr, one of Artlink’s three founding artists, worked with a local FAS scheme who were doing repairs and upgrades in Swan Park. A group came to the Artlink studio and worked with Aileen over an eight month period to design and make tiles for a seat and environmental tile trail throughout the park. The aim of the project was to create interesting artwork for the park and provide an educational trail for children to explore their natural surroundings.
Reflecting on this project from almost 30 years ago Aileen said “This was my first public art project and was installed in 1995 with the help of the council. The project was pivotal to the development of my own art practice, allowing me to delve into the arena of public art and experiment with new ideas and techniques. It was a really successful project in terms of community involvement”.
Some of the original tiles on the paths still exist but the seat was removed a number of years ago due to damage to the concrete base. The tiles for the seat, which had a theme of the Life Cycle of the Salmon were reinstated on another bench but that was subsequently washed away in the big flood of 2017 along with many of the tiles from the environmental trail.
With the regeneration of the Swan Park, Artlink wanted to revisit this project which meant so much to the local community. This new project will develop new ceramic pieces for the park based on the original artwork. Aileen, who has been based in San Francisco since 2002, has been invited to return to Artlink to work with local artists in developing designs and deliver a series of presentations and workshops with local community groups.
A series of tiles will be created that will form part of an environmental trail which will tell the story of the park history, habitats, flora and fauna. Aileen will lead workshops with local community groups to create tile mosaics that will be used in the project.
In addition the artist proposes using the original Life Cycle of the Salmon, a circular ceramic mosaic seat as a starting point for a new circular seat.
Aileen said “I am delighted to be involved in a reimagining of this project. I will be working with some of the original participants to develop the designs and make tiles for a new bench. In addition local artist Matthew Porter will work alongside me to create the tiles for the environmental trail. Along with the new upgrades to the park this will be a great addition to this wonderful town treasure.”
Working with Aileen on this project will be Sinead Craig, Geraldine Timlin and Claire Withy (original Art in the Park participants) and Patrica Doherty Roe and Matthew Porter.
About Aileen Barr
Aileen studied Craft Design at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, specializing in ceramics and has been creating handmade tile projects for the public arena for the past 28 years. She has become renowned for the spectacular tiled stairways created in San Francisco in collaboration with Colette Crutcher. As well as establishing Artlink (with Marie Barrett and Lisa Spillane), she lead a number of community based Public Art projects in Donegal through Artist in Residence in Schools projects and Artist in the Community projects before emigrating to the United States in 2002.
