Community engagement
Audiences and communities are at the heart of everything we do. Here are some of the initiatives we have delivered.
Sketchbook Town
2022
Sketchbooks are a great way of recording and describing what is going on around you. They allow you to investigate and draw things that might never be captured in any other way. They provide a record of your life at a certain period and they encourage learning, introspection and discovery. They also help you share and communicate ideas and inspire confidence in the maker.
20 people in the community of Thurles and environs will receive a sketchbook for them to keep and work-in over an 8-month period. The participants will also meet with a chosen Mentor four times over the course of the project: with an introductory session to give them some ideas and then three further sessions to discuss what they have been doing, look at other artists sketchbooks – from artist like Frida Kahlo, Derek Jarman, Leonardo Da Vinci, Paulo Rego and Grayson Perry and Kara Walker, and get additional ideas and tips on how to use their sketchbook to the best advantage.
The project is for ages 12 upwards and if you are interested, please email: admin@sourcearts.ie before April 29th
Sugar Tapes
The Sugar Factory operated in Thurles from 1934 to 1989. It was one of the main employers in the town during this time, offering more than 300 well-paid permanent jobs as well as additional seasonal work during the ‘campaign’ (the time of the year when the sugar beet was harvested).
Generations of the same families worked in the plant and it also provided a regular income for farmers who grew the sugar beet. Its closure in 1989 was a devastating blow to the community.
Artist Eddie Kenehen made The Sugar Tapes, a set of 40 hours of recorded interviews with the staff and management of the factory, relating to their working, social and personal lives and how they were connected to the factory.
The Source Arts Centre engaged two writers to work on the tapes and do additional research on the story of the factory in the town. They put a call out to the public and held three Zoom sessions in which the history of the factory was discussed by former employees.
The result is an audio work, ‘1. Voices’, written by Martin Maguire and Bob Kelly and is the first instalment in what is hoped to be a broader project on the factory.
‘1.Voices’ highlights the importance of the factory to the town and the significant effect its closure had on the community in the 1980’s.