Welcome to the Neighbourhood 2024

Download the programme guide here.

Askeaton Contemporary Arts invites you to Welcome to the Neighbourhood, curated by MICHELE HORRIGAN. 

Our annual artist residency programme situates Irish and international artists in the midst of Askeaton life each summer, discovering new potentials of creative energy, the making of place and innovative ecological thinking. 

From our community hall to the River Deel, castle ruins, streets and surrounding countryside, Welcome To The Neighbourhood looks to the rich layers of Askeaton’s daily life as its inspiration. Since 2006, artists from around the world have been at the centre of the community investigating, uncovering and creating new understandings of our locale. Many artworks made here have been presented elsewhere in Ireland and abroad in exhibitions, art biennials and film festivals, evoking Askeaton’s reputation since medieval times as a place of exchange, trade and cultural knowledge. 

This year, artists SANTIAGO BORJA, JAN MCCULLOUGH and FRANK WASSER live and work in County Limerick throughout June 2024. A programme of events accompany their stay, Free and Open To All, culminating with a special celebration on Saturday 29 June featuring new artistic encounters throughout Askeaton.


TUESDAY 18 JUNE 7pm
IVERUS CAFÉ, BALLYSTEEN PIER

Overlooking the grandeur of the Shannon Estuary at Ballysteen Pier, join editor NIAMH MORIARTY in conversation with the artists of our 2024 publication series, each with a keen emphasis on textiles and art. MICE HELL presents elements of her History of Costume in Ireland, illustrating clothing worn from prehistoric times to now and demonstrating how conflict, famine, settlement and resistance have shaped the way people have dressed throughout the eras. TARA BAOTH MOONEY investigates the life of clothing in family history, environmental awareness and liberation, while EMILY WASZAK’s sculptural weavings of found and natural materials open up understandings of the weight of ritual and find new ways to communicate and experience grief.


FRIDAY 21 JUNE 8pm
MUSSEL LANE

Artist ROBIN PRICE continues to work alongside Askeaton’s award winning TidyTowns group, finding new ways of merging the queries of contemporary art with the busy activities of the annual village and town improvement competition. Join for the ceremonial unveiling of a new bespoke street sign for Askeaton. For many years Mussel Lane has had no marker denoting its presence in the middle of the town, despite its important location as part of Askeaton’s once rich fishing industry and maritime history, subjects now to be remembered and valued on the corner of Brian Collins bookmakers. Afterwards, a reception will be held at Cagney’s Bar, where Robin’s Flowers and Flamethrowers video will be screened.


MONDAY 24 JUNE 11am
Starting at ASKEATON CIVIC TRUST

Join Askeaton’s knowledgeable tour guide ANTHONY SHEEHY to explore aspects of the town’s medieval history in a walk around the ruined Franciscan Friary.


WEDNESDAY 26 JUNE  7pm
Starting at EAST SQUARE

Curator MICHELE HORRIGAN presents a walking tour of public art located throughout Askeaton, giving her insights into the making of artworks over the last eighteen years that today segue into everyday life of the town. The tour will highlight STEVE MAHER’s Sentences at Twohig Supervalu, where a scrolling LED sign alludes to West Limerick’s radical literary traditions, while STEPHEN BRANDES’ The Hellfire Club – A History Continued… still bemuses tourists to Askeaton with its surreal narrative. Ireland of the Welcomes, the nation’s predominant tourist magazine, once described it as ‘a signboard of the rarest kind. It says nothing of the past or present but predicts happenings in Askeaton in the distant future.’


THURSDAY 27 JUNE 8pm
TOP OF THE TOWN

View the premiere of Pass Me, For I Am Strange, a short film by Askeaton Contemporary Arts’ long term collaborator MICHAEL HOLLY that engages with myths and histories associated with the Franciscan Friary, one of the most extensive sites of its kind in Ireland. Holly’s film listens closely to points of view from characters embedded in the very stonework of the friary, including Fitzgerald, one of its reputed founders; Don Martinez de Mendoza, a repentant Catalonian nobleman who took shelter there, and a now faceless stone carving of Saint Francis.

Considering the interpretation of Askeaton’s medieval heritage as an experiment in time and space, Pass Me, For I Am Strange is developed collaboratively through research, dialogue and contributions by and with fellow artists NIAMH MORIARTY, RUTH CLINTON, CARL DORAN, EULÀLIA ROVIRA and historian ANTHONY SHEEHY, in association with The Pilgrim, a residency programme developed between Askeaton Contemporary Arts and Latitudes, Barcelona.


SATURDAY 29 JUNE 3pm
Starting at ASKEATON CIVIC TRUST

Our annual OPEN DAY celebrates the work of 2024’s artists-in-residence. A reception at Askeaton Civic Trust will be followed by a guided tour, encountering Belfast-based JAN MCCULLOUGH’s investigations of acts of construction, fabrication and DIY, and the communities of interest around them. Travelling from London, FRANK WASSER’s explorations of contemporary storytelling ask questions of and challenge conventional notions about authorship, authority and social structures. Making a journey from Mexico City, SANTIAGO BORJA’s artworks exist on the intersection of art, anthropology and architecture, creating installations and architectural interventions that blur cultural boundaries and contrast traditional crafts with contemporary theory and design.


THROUGHOUT WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
VARIOUS LOCATIONS TBA

DAVID BEATTIE’s Remnants is an ongoing series of artworks examining mythology, folklore and oral history in the age of digital reproduction and algorithmic narratives, made during a long-term residency now unfolding at Askeaton Contemporary Arts.

Following extensive fieldwork around sites of ancient ritual at nearby Lough Gur and Grange stone circle, Remnants now reimagines Askeaton itself as the centre of a new solar alignment; for the duration of Welcome to the Neighbourhood, a stone and wooden marker will be positioned at specific points of solar alignment in Askeaton, encouraging everyone to seek out moments of midsummer reflection between the hours of 10–11pm.

For exact locations and updated information keep checking our website and social media, alongside a presentation during OPEN DAY events on 29 June.


PUBLICATIONS: NOW AVAILABLE

JES FERNIE’s Things left undone unsaid uncelebrated unplanned unfinished is, in her own words, ‘a selection of mad, frayed, totally normal stories about undone, uncelebrated, abandoned things. They are spectacular, strange, problematic, hurtful, funny, ludicrous tales. They tell a bigger, messier story, rather than one that has been honed or finely crafted.’ Realised through her 2022 residency in Askeaton, Jes’ book features Flemish-Irish artist Lily Van Oost, filmmaker Bob Quinn, the adventures of American artists Lawrence Weiner, Richard Serra and James Turrell in Ireland, sculptor Eilis O’Connell and writer Maeve Brennan.


FURTHER AFIELD

Askeaton Contemporary Arts partner throughout 2024 and 2025 with London’s FLAT TIME HOUSE, together co-organising an artist residency, public programme and first UK solo exhibition of artist LYÓNN WOLF, known for their expansive and queer approach to exhibition making and publishing. Flat Time House was the studio and home of John Latham (1921–2006), recognised as one of the most significant and influential post-war artists of Britain. In 2003, Latham declared the house a living sculpture – in this spirit FLAT TIME HOUSE continues as a gallery with a programme of exhibitions and events, and place of alternative learning.


ONLINE from FRIDAY 28 JUNE

Watch MICHAEL HOLLY’s Pass Me, For I Am Strange at Askeaton Contemporary Arts’ Only in Askeaton media channel.


EAT AND DRINK

Cagney’s Bar, East Square
Top of the Town, Main Street


TOUR

Askeaton Franciscan Friary Tours
Contact Anthony Sheehy at 086 085 0174


ACCOMMODATION

Coolrahnee House
Reservations 061 398 883

Whitethorn B&B
Reservations 087 220 4483


VISITING ASKEATON

Car: 25 minutes from Limerick City on N69

Bus: Bus Éireann route 314 from Limerick City. Everyday with a regular service

Air: 40 minutes from Shannon Airport