The landmark Bring Your Own Chair project is back for the months of April, May and June with exciting, visual and community-focused events planned for Kilkenny, Wexford and Waterford that celebrate each region’s uniqueness, customs and meeting places.
Visual artist, Michelle Browne, and her team have worked with selected rural communities across the three counties over the past year. They’ve been examining their layout and design, finding out where their meeting places were and are today.
The Bring Your Own Chair team has also looked at how life has changed since the so-called Celtic Tiger era. Together, they’ve also developed a series of town motifs, pictures and stories around what sets each community apart.
The final phase of the Arts Council’s Making Great Art Work – Open Call Award project is now about to begin with a striking, visual and participative event in Ballyhack in Wexford at high tide, just after 6 pm on Saturday, April 6th. It sees members of the community bring their own chairs onto the deck of the local car ferry for a journey to remember.
This event connects to the strong traditions the people of Ballyhack village had to salmon fishing on the estuary for generations and how they lived by the tides, Michelle Browne explains. “We are inviting the people of Ballyhack to wear blue and bring their own chair and board onto the Passage East Ferry at Ballyhack. No cars will be allowed on the ferry for the journey.
The ferry will go out onto the estuary and instead of heading straight to Passage East it will reorientation so that people have a view up the estuary. It will be a fun and engaging event and we plan a little Mexican, or more like Wexican, wave for the cameras,” Michelle added.
Michelle Browne commended each community on their incredible sense of engagement. “When theatre and cinema first started out in Ireland, people would bring along their own chair to a community hall or another meeting place for screenings or performances. Bring Your Own Chair is reviving that tradition and getting communities to rally and gather for events planned over the coming three months.
“After Ballyhack, we’re planning equally visual events across the three counties and will be engaging with the various communities to help make these happen. Bring Your Own Chair highlights the realities of rural living in 2019 and at a time when rural public amenities are closing, among these post offices, shops, schools even. It all means people have less and less meeting places.
“We looked at what sets these individual communities apart – what makes their heart beat.
In Waterford, we examined the rural DNA of Kilmacthomas, An Rinn, Tallow and Passage East.
In Wexford, we’ve done research with school children, adults and the elderly across Ballyhack, Taghmon, Bunclody and Courtown.
In Kilkenny, we’ve engaged closely with the communities of Slieverue, Kells, Coan and Goresbridge,” she added.
For more about the Bring Your Own Chair project, log on to http://www.bringyourownchair.ie/