By Christy Parker. Photo Michael Hussey ( YoughalOnline.com)

Youghal Visual Arts Members

The highly acclaimed Youghal Carpets Exhibition by Marcella Reardon and Derek Spiers is amongst a wide range of art projects scheduled for the 2008 Youghal Visual Arts Festival. The 2007 photo-documentary, which chronicles the last week’s of the town’s once thriving textile factory, has weaved its own success story at the Triskel Gallery in Cork but has yet to be shown in Youghal.

Boosted by a €3,000 Arts Council grant in its third year, the festival shows distinct signs of growth, maturity and confidence. It offers a plethora of visual and active pursuits of international, national and local origin and catering to all ages.

Other unexpected attractions this year include work samples from local legend Liam O’Leary, who helped found the Irish Film Society in 1936. He became a documentary maker in the 1940′s and worked in he National Film Archive in London from 1953 to 1965.

The Windy Lane Puppet Theatre is a shadow puppet group from St. Raphael’s psychiatric centre. Drawing inspiration from, amongst others, the Beatles, they have enjoyed an enormously successful year that included performances at Cork’s ** and the Cavern in Liverpool.

Youth’s contribution will include wining entries in inter primary school competition at the Central Gallery, a Film Gala night courtesy of five local youth groups and various painting workshops and jewellery making and sandcastle fun.

Two galleries will anchor the event. The Central Gallery – venue to be confirmed – will showcase works by major national and international names, under the theme, The Lost Summer, which is not about the rain in 2007. The novel Walking Gallery is a mile-long array of top quality work featured on shop windows the length of the town.

Launching the festival -well in advance of its July 19th-27th lifespan- at the mall Arts Centre, Youghal Mayor Dave Savage said it that enticed people to visit the town, but especially in the more immediate sense. “We rely very much on local people and organisations to put something in place for that purpose and the Visual Arts Festival does it very well,” he said. He paid particular to the Walking Gallery from previous years as a major, novel and easily accessible attraction, “even for people with little interest in art.”

e-mail: youghalvisualartsfestival@yahoo.co.uk
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