The concept for this first participation in the Drogheda Arts Festival was to create a corridor of artwork in internal and external spaces that linked the established event locations during the festival i.e. the Highlanes Gallery, the Droichead Arts Centre, the D-Hotel. The intention was to achieve this “Corridor” by working in tandem with the Drogheda Borough Council and the Drogheda Chamber of Commerce to display outdoor artworks, site-specific installation work and performance. Once scheduling of the festival was completed, an agenda of happenings was created in response to and linking with the other events organised during the festival period.
This concept did not only see the re-use of the empty commercial units in Drogheda’s town centre, it also allowed artists to create a dialogue with the town itself through the site specificity of the selected works. The artworks also created an artistic mapping of the abandoned spaces in the town, both internally and externally. Through the interaction of artists and the public, it was the intention to re-energise the dormant potential of these spaces which carried through to the scheduled events during the Drogheda Arts Festival.
An outdoor gallery was created around the town including works by artists Noel Feeney and Fay Hutchinson, while at the same time the artworks of NeXus Art Project 2 were still on display in the various empty shop fronts around the town. Artist Derek McCluskey engaged the audience with a two-day street performance centred on West Street, the main street of Drogheda. Artist Rodney Thornton developed a 10-meter wide painting based on the audience telling him what to paint. Thus a corridor of artwork in internal and external spaces was created to link the event locations during the festival including.
Site-specific curation on various locations around the town, 2010, Drogheda. Curated for Drogheda Arts Festival.
