The Ride Away from the Storm, an exhibition of artworks made by young people in Oberstown, was shown at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) in Kilmainham, Dublin from 26 April to 8 May 2022.
The exhibition set out to highlight the positive value of engagement in the arts and shared creative processes for young people, and to give voice to their experiences. It came about through a collaboration between the Engagement and Learning Programme at IMMA, Gaisce – The President’s Award and Oberstown.
Nine young people created eleven paintings in the art room in Oberstown over six months as part of the Community Involvement challenge of their Gaisce Award. The process saw the young people work with their art teachers on a citizen curation programme as part of IMMA’s contribution to SPICE, a European research project that supports communities who lack access to the museum to share their perspectives on art. For Oberstown’s young artists, this meant viewing the online IMMA catalogue in facilitated sessions and choosing works that they felt were in tune with their own approach.
At the exhibition, the Oberstown artworks was displayed with explanatory note by each young person describing their work. These notes are shown as the captions to the works on the images here. A dedicated page on IMMA’s website included a downloadable exhibition guide showing all the works at the exhibition alongside the young artists’ choices from the IMMA collection.
Roderic O’Gorman, Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth officially opened the exhibition at IMMA on 26 April 2022. During the exhibition, Oberstown Activities Coordinator, John Smith, took part in a panel discussion ‘Exploring Youth Voice in Art and Culture’ at IMMA.
Later in 2022 the paintings were exhibited at the Lusk Community Cultural Centre in an exhibition called Art Connects which took place as part of Fingal County Council’s Inclusion Week.
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Art Connects – Oberstown artworks in Lusk Community Cultural Centre