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An exciting new trail of contemporary public art works has been announced by Cork City Council. The project, funded by Fáilte Ireland under the Urban Animation Scheme, is intended to enhance the city centre by providing an experience that is arresting, intriguing and playful whilst illuminating the city’s unique heritage.  

Island City, Cork’s Urban Sculpture Trail will see the installation of five art works over a period from June to December this year at sites across the city centre island. 

The temporary art works will then remain in situ for a period of five years, forming a unique trail through the city streets. Collectively the sculptures will create a series of experiences to be enjoyed in daylight and after dark with points of interest for all, enhancing Cork’s appeal as a visitor destination.

Commissions

Cork’s National Sculpture Factory has been engaged by the City Council to support the project, including the commissioning of the art works. Four of the five sculptures were commissioned following a process conducted in 2022:  

Urban Mirror by Berlin-based Plattenbaustudio will take the coloured facades and intimate scale of Coal Quay as its starting point and reinterpret Cornmarket Street as a room without a roof containing a free-form table, held in place by an oversized “pin” with a coloured globe of light at its top.

On Carey’s Lane, contemporary Irish artist, Niamh McCann will create a suspended, lane-length sculptural piece that will take its form from the architecture, topography and incidental features along the length of the lane.  Sentinals [flew through the ages in the shape of birds] will nod to Cork City’s diverse and migratory history.

Linking the past to the present, Fiona Mulholland will populate the façade of the Exchange Building on Princes Street with large-scale sculptural reliefs. The Face Cup is based on a collection of exceptional Bronze Age ceramic artefacts dating to about 1800BC, that were excavated in Cork.

Forerunner intend a present-day rupture within the cityscape on Cook Street with Boom Nouveau – a series of sculptures based on tangible everyday urban street features which mimic natural forms.

The commissions were selected by an expert panel that included Eva Rothschild (Artist); Dr Linzi Stauvers (Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK); Natalie Weadick (Curator and former Director of Irish Architecture Foundation) and representatives from Fáilte Ireland and Cork City Council. An open competition to commission the fifth and final art-work in the trail – a lighting projection – will be announced in the coming months.

Welcoming the announcement, Lord Mayor Cllr. Deirdre Forde said:

This project highlights the value that Cork City places on the arts in our public realm. We look forward to welcoming visitors to experience this unique sculpture trail and showing Cork at its best – as a city where arts and culture are for all to enjoy, alive on our streets.

Chief Executive Ann Doherty added:

Thanks to investment in Cork by Fáilte Ireland, this is the most ambitious single public art commissioning project in the city to date. It will be a boost to the city centre and builds further on the ambitious pedestrianisation and outdoor dining infrastructure projects that have enhanced Cork City as a vibrant liveable city and destination.

Notes

Artist Biographies:

Plattenbaustudio is an architecture studio founded by Irish architects Jonathan Janssens and Jennifer O’Donnell in Berlin in 2018. The studio is active in the fields of built works as well as architectural communication and research. They focus on the everyday interaction between people and space, and believe in designing for the realities of architecture in use.

Niamh McCann is a considered, individual voice in contemporary Irish art; effortlessly correlating strands of three-dimensional work, painting/drawing and installation. This in itself is unpredictable and frequently humorous, as evidenced in the playful use of appropriated cultural trope in her body of work, Hairline Crack [a dialogue] –  Rudolf-Scharpf-Galerie, Germany/Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris 2022/23  . McCann is represented in the collections of Irish Museum of Modern Art; The Arts Council of Ireland; Limerick City Gallery, Swansea City Council; The London Institute; Hiscox, London and that of Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane. 

Artist Fiona Mulholland has been successfully working across a range of disciplines and contexts for over twenty years. Over the course of her career, she has produced award winning design, large scale public art and work within gallery contexts. Fiona has also curated several significant exhibitions and has been the recipient of several bursary awards including from the Arts Council of Ireland.

Forerunner is a collaborative art practice founded by Andreas Kindler von Knobloch, Tom Watt and Tanad Aaron. Forerunner’s practice sits within architectural form using the gallery as a staging ground with the works as tests for a future context; unfinished and as yet undelivered. Recent works include Granite Leap (2022) Kunstverein Aughrim, Y O U N G F O S S I L (2021) Irish Museum of Modern Art.