Sarah Iremonger: Build Your Own Horizon
Bealtaine Artist in Residence 
26th April to 4th June 2022

Build Your Own Horizon is a site specific, public participation project for Bealtaine Artist in Residence program at Uillinn, West Cork Arts Centre, in association with Cork County Council, taking place during May 2022.

The horizon helps position us, helps us know where we are and who we are, whither traveller, immigrant, local or refugee. Being situated helps us understand our reality. This is something we will all have to rebuild for ourselves again after the extensive disruption caused to our lives due to the Pandemic. I hope this project will be part of a process of reconnection and rediscovery of place.

Situated at Uillinn, this project will a involve drawing workshop in May where participants will find ways to realize the views of the horizons through the windows at Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre. We will take the time to contemplate the sense of place Uillinn occupies in Skibbereen town. A contemporary building rising up four floors in the center of the town, it provides panoramic views of the town on several levels. This project will enable participants to explore the idea of the horizon as constantly shifting and ephemeral, depending on the position of the viewer. It will provide an opportunity for a reconnection between people, place and the Arts Centre.

The drawings of the horizons made by the participants, will then be reproduced as cutouts on A3 card for the public to cut out, colour, install in the studio and as part of Re:Group collaborative project Constellations of Fragmentation at the O’Driscoll Building as part of Skibbereen Arts Festival in July 2022 and to take home.

Horizons was a collaborative project with the late poet Derek Mahon, which was funded through a Cork County Council Arts Grants Scheme Award 2015 and exhibited at Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin 2018 & 19.

For further information please see: Sarah Iremonger Horizons

Roots and Shoots participatory drawing event with Bealtaine artist in residence Sarah Iremonger. Saturday 14 May at 12noon - 2pm, 2022 in association with Age & Opportunity. Book now on Eventbrite.

Sarah will also hold an open studio on Saturday 4 June from 12 noon. No booking necessary, all welcome. 

Biography

Sarah Iremonger, born in Dublin in 1965 and based in Kinsale, Co. Cork, has used a multidisciplinary approach to her practice since the late 1990s. She worked as an independent curator for the Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh from 1999 to 2015. Sarah studied at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin (1983-85), the Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork (1985 – 87) and the Winchester School of Art Southampton University, UK and Spain (1997-98). She has exhibited nationally and internationally since the early 1990s.

Recent projects include Horizons a collaborative project with the late poet Derek Mahon, which was funded through a Cork County Council Arts Grants Award 2015 and exhibited at Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin (2018) and Top Half of the Hero, exhibited as part of Heroes and Villains (2018) at Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. Sarah illustrated Atlantis (2019) a poetry pamphlet by Derek Mahon, and The Rain Bridge (2017) a children's book both published by The Gallery Press.

Sarah was Artist in Resident at the Sydney Olympic Park and Broken Hill Art Exchange, Australia in 2011 and was the Von Hess Resident at the Borowsky Centre, UARTS, University of The Arts, Philadelphia, USA in 2010 where she was also visiting artist and exhibited I thought I dreamed of you at Gallery 817. This work was also exhibited at West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen 2009-10 and travelled to the Yarra Sculpture Gallery, Melbourne, Australia 2010.

Awards include Cork County Council Arts Grant Scheme Awards in 2008 and 2015; Culture Ireland Awards for exhibitions abroad in 2003, 2010 and 2011; Arts Council Bursary Award 2005; Artist in Residence Fellowship at the Kunstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, Germany 2003; and an Arts Council New Project Award 2002.

WCAC acknowledges the financial support of the Arts Council and Cork County Council in making these residencies possible.