Perspectives 2011 

Photo Courtesy Sally Maidment 

March 25th - May 31st 2011

The right for young children to access high quality creative processes has always been at the forefront of Sticky Fingers' project development. The organisation believes that by allowing children's creative process to become centre stage through public art events young people's thoughts, opinions and voices are uniquely shared within the wider community, acknowledging children's valuable role in a cultural society.

The perspectives public art project incorporated these creative processes with prose and the spoken word, resulting in an art exhibition shown in tandem with a series of public art interventions across the city's streets, animating Newry with voices that so rarely are given fair forum.

Sticky Fingers commissioned artist Sally Maidment to work with young children across the Newry area during February 2011, building up a body of work documenting life in the city from a child's perspective. This initiative gave Newry children the opportunity to have their opinions relayed into the public realm through a series of artworks based on the conversations, statements and words that arose during their work with the artist. 

The  project involved an intensive series of research workshops with over three hundred local children to discover their views on their locality and daily life. By placing the children in roles such as civil engineers/town planners the research aimed to provide a glimpse of a world through children's eyes and reveal how they would deal with tasks and problems solely dealt with by adults in our society. The resulting temporary artworks installed in locations across the city aim to demonstrate the contribution children can make to our society and culture if we are prepared to hear their voices.  

Perspectives launched on Wednesday 30th March 2011 in the Buttercrane Shopping Centre with an exhibition of children's artwork which inspired a series of art installations across Newry based on children's views of life in the city.

The exhibition was open for a week and the art installations across Newry remained in situ until early June 2011. The artworks were sited in the Buttercrane Shopping Centre, McClelland Park, Newry Bus Station, the South Ulster Housing buildings on Canal Street, Newry Market (on market days), Jennings Park, the Town Hall and along the canal bank between the Buttercrane and the Bus Station.

 

Participants

Belong NI

Bunscoil an Iuir

Cloughoge P.S.

St. Colman's Abbey P.S.

St. Colman's Abbey Special Needs Unit

St. Joseph's Convent P.S.

St. Ronan's P.S.

Artist

Sally Maidment

Sally Maidment is a visual artist working through a range of media, specialising in collaborative and community-based projects. In the past she has collaborated with school and community groups, visual artists, theatre practitioners, dancers and writers on diverse projects.   

Employing drawing, traditional/experimental printmaking techniques, sculpture and text, her work explores identity through collected narratives and memories. The artist focuses on details from the daily lives of others that embody a poignant insight into their world and seeks to provide viewers with an opportunity to reflect on their own life and values. Her work is frequently characterised by a strong engagement with materials from specific environments and an emphasis on manual skills. The artist is interested in visual art performing an 'archaeological' function in society by gathering lost or overlooked narratives.  

Previous projects exploring communal narratives through temporary artworks, hand printed books and installations include: Festival goes to the Waterworks 2010, a large scale education and community project to create temporary artworks for a family event in a contested park in North Belfast; the Book of Minds in 2007, a hand printed book commission supported by the Arts Council of Ireland that drew together stories of love gathered from long-term elderly patients in St Finbarr's Hospital, Cork; and worked as a researcher and printmaker on Eyes of the Docks, a multimedia installation based on narratives gathered from docker communities in Cork, Belfast, Liverpool and Glasgow that was sited on Custom House Quay in Cork for City of Culture 2005.  

Most recently the artist has worked as artist-in-residence in the Paediatric Department of Letterkenny General Hospital as part of the Puppet Portal Project, an innovative pilot programme employing arts and technology to provide positive and social experiences for children in hospitals through puppetry, performance and film-making.

 

Curator

Elaine Cronin

 

Artistic Team

Anna Savage

Damien Magee

Roisin McGuigan 

Jackie Maguire

Elaine Quinn

Locations

Perspectives artworks are located in sites across Newry city during March and April 2011. To download a map click here. For images of the commission click here. To browse videos of the workshops click here.

 

Perspectives

Displayed in Unit 29 in the Buttercrane Shopping Centre (March 25th to April 1st) and in the window of the corner entrance to the Buttercrane Shopping Centre.  

I AM TEN. FOREVER IS TEN YEARS TO ME - window installation, and free children's art exhibition.  

Thank you to the Buttercrane Shopping Centre for use of their retail unit and window.

Rules  

Displayed in Unit 29 in the Buttercrane Shopping Centre (March 25th to April 1st) 

Perspectives on power and law-making - the children discussed rules adults apply to children they felt were a little silly and then developed their own set of rules that adults should follow.  The children selected their favourite rules and made them into signs based on road signage.  Instructions relating to food, play and communication included 'no shouting at children', a universal banning of Friday tests and an order not to call boys 'sweetheart'. 

Thank you to the Buttercrane Shopping Centre for use of their retail unit.

V.I.P. Council   

Displayed in the Town Hall.  

Perspectives on important people in children's lives - Children nominated guests to be invited to the Mini Mayor's VIP Banquet. Guests include family members, God, X Factor contestants, Wayne Rooney and a recently deceased family dog. Nominations are written in languages used by children locally - English, Irish and Polish.  

Thank you to Newry and Mourne District Council for use of the Town Hall.

V.I.P Banquet   

Displayed in Newry Variety Market on Thursdays and Saturdays.  

Perspectives on food and important individuals in children's lives. The children nominated persons to be invited to the V.I.P. Banquet in the Townhall, and created menus and sculptures of the food to be served. Tasty morsels on offer included chicken breast smothered in white sauce, a reassuring variety of vegetables, frog fudge and bone ice-cream.  

Thank you to Newry and Mourne District Council for use of the Market.

What's in the River?  

Displayed along the canal bank between the Buttercrane and the Bus Station and inside the Bus Station.  

Perspectives on the local environment - children created a set of stories linked to the waterways of Newry. These myths and legends explore diverse themes and characters, from friendship, love and loss to recycling, pirate ships and tortoise-fearing jellyfish.  Words sited along the canal bank are physical manifestations of their narratives and complete stories may be viewed in the bus station.

Thank you to Newry Bus Station and Newry and Mourne District Council for use of their property. 

 

Canal Street  

Displayed on derelict buildings on Canal Street.  

Perspectives on town planning - children were invited to create ideas for new businesses to fill empty/disused retail spaces in Newry. Suggested enterprises ranged from Sunny Days Daycare to CSI G-Force Lab. (This installation is based on a selection of drawings made by the children.) 

Thank you to the South Ulster Housing Association for use of their buildings. 

Parks  

Displayed in Jennings Park, Clanrye Avenue and in McClelland Park, Catherine Street.  

Perspectives on communal recreation spaces - working in groups, children designed 'super' parks for Newry that considered layout and requirements of public spaces and provided facilities for their favourite activities. 

Thank you to Newry and Mourne District Council for use of their parks.

 

Supporters

 

 

 

 

 

The Buttercrane Shopping Centre