Culture Night will be celebrated a night early at IT Sligo this year, with a range of artistic and creative public displays on show in the Institute’s Main Reception this Thursday, September 22nd.
A range of interactive projects will be on display from the Institute’s Interior Architecture, Interior Design and Creative Design courses. The night is being celebrated a night early at the Institute to accommodate students who may be travelling home for the weekend.
“Forgotten Structures” a photographic audit of Sligo’s abandoned buildings, is one of the projects planned for Thursday’s fringe Culture Night event, examining these vacant buildings, many of them imposing and once focal points in their communities. The exhibition compiled by Interior Architecture and Interior Design students will invite people to ponder why these buildings became abandoned and the impact on the people living close by.
The students were tasked with the job of finding cause for optimism among the current social and economic situation. The result of their “Designing with Optimism” project which involved a critical examination of abandoned buildings, neglected spaces and once cherished objects which are now redundant, will feature in a public exhibition and presentation in the main Reception of the Institute on Thursday between 4.00pm and 7.00 pm.
Visitors will be challenged to think about how consumer waste can be adapted into functional objects, and the importance of making children aware of their built environments.
Creative Design students have embraced the fringe Culture Night event with an investigation on how make-believe dogs can make people smile. Eighteen “roundabout dogs” which creative design students made in recent days in a bid to entertain – or puzzle- anyone who encountered them, will be on display.
The dogs were placed in strategic locations around Sligo and their creators photographed or filmed the reactions of those who came upon them. “We put them in bars, around the campus, even one at an actual roundabout and the reactions of people were amazing. They seemed to make everyone smile” explained Creative Design lecturer, Adrian Durcan, who gave his students two days to design and build their new best friends , using a range of recyclable material ranging from empty coke bottles to scrap metal.
‘Pecha Kucha ‘storytelling and surprises will make this fringe Culture Night event a family friendly event so bring the children along.
Entry is free and members of the public are invited to attend. Refreshments will also be provided. The ‘Fringe’ Culture Night event will take place in IT Sligo’s Main Reception from 4pm to 7pm this Thursday, September 22nd.