Architectural design staff from IT Sligo are part of an ambitious new publication to celebrate Yeats 2015.
The book, entitled Art, Architecture and Place, embodies the main ideas of two of the year’s signature events: the Yeats International Architectural Competition and the Liminal Spaces exhibition at the Model, Sligo.
The project was devised and developed in collaboration with the Architectural Design department at the Institute.
The new publication is the final element of a project which began in September 2014 when two creative teams explored the relevance of Yeats’ poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree to the city of Sligo.
These were Clíona Brady, Bernadette Donohoe and Michael Roulston from the Architectural Design programme at IT Sligo, Marianne O’Kane Boal, Art critic, and a group of artists commissioned by Cléa van der Grijn and Megan Johnston for The Model, Sligo.
The architecture team developed a brief for a Yeats international architecture competition. It was open to regional, national and international practitioners of architecture and art, and proposed a poetic temporary, environmentally sensitive design for the island of Innisfree.
The competition was hugely successful, attracting 400 expressions of interest from over 30 countries, illustrating the global recognition of Yeats and a desire to respond to his well renowned poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree. The winning design was Square Moon by shindesignworks from London and Daegu (South Korea). The design was adapted by Leo Scarff Design in consultation with John Randle of shindesignworks, and is currently installed on the island for the last full lunar cycle of Yeats’ year 2015
Concurrently, a group of six Irish and international artists were working on a similar theme. The artists were Felicity Clear, Michele Horrigan, Clea van der Grijn, Andy Parsons, Maurice O’Connell and Corban Walker. The Liminal Spaces Exhibition at the Model, Sligo, showcases the different responses of the six artists along side the exciting diversity of entries from all around the globe of the Yeats International Architecture Competition, as well as sharing the ideas that were proposed for the island.
To continue the legacy, a publication was commissioned by the Western Development Commission (WDC). The book, entitled Art, Architecture and Place, provides a visual summary of the architectural submissions and the work of the six invited artists. It also included the names of all the entrants to the competition, demonstrating the diversity of interest.
Well known Irish poet and writer, Theo Dorgan, contributed writing from the perspective of a poet working in Ireland today. An essay by Christian Bjone an architect and well published writer based in New York City titled ‘Isle of the Living, Isle of the Dead: Poetry, Art and Architecture in the Yeats2015 Competition and Liminal Spaces’ explores the ideas within the contemporary art and architectural responses to Yeats and his poem.
The project has been made possible by the support of Hazelwood Demesne Ltd, IT Sligo, The Model, Sligo, Western Development Commission (WDC), Yeats2015 and Department of Arts Heritage and the Gaeltacht.