Dublin Street – A promenade of New Gallery Spaces and Cultural Shops
funded by CARLOW ENTERPRISE BOARD and in association with CARLOW TOWN COUNCIL
Marja van Kampen Gallery
Marja van Kampen is a painter and printmaker, born in The Netherlands but resident in Ireland since 1982. She is a co-founder of Artspace Studios (Galway), before setting up her own studio.
Siobhan Jordan Gallery
Carlow-based artist and designer Siobhan Jordan is widely known for her works that evoke childhood memories. Her work evolves from play; from a world of possibility and freedom. Siobhan Loves: Other peoples notes on poetry and prose, pattern, song lyrics, rhythm, process and ritual, nature, truth, animals, LOVE, laughter, hot air balloons, dots, drawing, painting, the smell of oil paint, freshly baked bread, running down hills (not so much running up hills) eating fresh home grown veggies and drawing birds.
Soul Trader
The trail-blazer of pop-up shops, this uber-cool retro institution is a vinyl nirvana but also purveyors of comics, vintage furniture and home fittings – and one of the most stylish and hip shops in Ireland – shame on you if you haven’t fallen under its spell.
Bastille
Hand-picking her favourite clothing from around the world, Michelle Hayden’s online clothing boutique dips it’s toes in the water with a bricks and mortar venture.
Impressions
A traditional gallery of canvas-based works from one of the largest and longest-running artist’s collective in Ireland. Sixty artists will provide oils, watercolours, pastels and drawings to this gallery. Celebrating its 40-year anniversary,
Exposure
Carlow’s first dedicated commercial photographic gallery, managed by Austin Kinsella and the Carlow Photographic Society, this venue will exhibit photographs taken by forty-five photographers based in and around County Carlow. This gallery will also present a Portrait Studio, where professional photographers will be on hand to take studio portraits of friend and relations on a pop-in basis. Practical Demonstrations by Fine Framers and Sam McCauleys, as well as workshops by Podge Kelly and Liam Beattie, A.I.P.F,. will be on offer to members of the public. A reading area and photography bookshop will also be on offer.
Bea Deas
Rebecca Smyth’s BEE HAPPY shop charmed its way into Carlow’s psyche with its cocktail of fresh ground coffee and cake, its spontaneous arts classes, and its random acts of candle-making and perfumed soaps. Rebecca returns with a new concept.
The Make Shop
Trinity College’s Science Gallery is behind this spectacular make-shift retail experience. The Make Shop opens its first bricks and mortar facility outside Dublin and fills its with a drop in clinic for kids to come and lose themselves in the culture of science, whether chemistry, electronics, engineering or physics. We’re not talking The Periodic Table here—we are making robotic spiders from bananas and electrodes.
TBA
To be announced; To Be Arranged; Time-based Art; Tremendous Bordeaux Available; There’s Beer Also
Experimental and developmental audio, music, performance, video, and work of emerging artists will predominate.
Bake Shop
Specializing in afternoon teas, this cafe opens at the top of Dublin Street to offer scrumptious lunches and old school tea and cakes from an emerging new talent on our foodie landscape….. All will be revealed
Bagenal Court Antique
One of Carlow’s last remaining antique and vintage interior stores, this is a browsers paradise.
Before and After
Upcycling of furniture using specialist paints and techniques, from interior designer Kay O’Shaughnessy.
Delta Street Centre Hangings
Bunting, street hangings, pom-poms and festoon will adorn the full length of Dublin Street. The brilliant folk at the Delta Centre, assisted by leading festival stylist Emperors Robes, worked throughout April and May to create this work for Carlow Arts Festival.
Stiletto Sprint
Sunday 16th June at 3pm in Dublin Street
Three local charities come together – Carlow Mental Health Association, Asante Eye Charity Kenya and Chic & Cheerful (supporting women and children’s projects in Kenya and Ethiopia) – to challenge 100 gentlemen to take part in an elegant dash down Dublin Street in stilettos! The aim of the event is to encourage the whole community to become involved in a laughter-fuelled athletic spectacle without recourse to first aid. Shoes can be provided! Prizes will be awarded for the fastest runner to complete the circuit, the most fabulous shoe-and-ankle match, and costume of finest artistic merit. To register, please go to www.carlowstilettosprint.com or call Emma on 086 8114133. We look forward to seeing you there!
We acknowledge the inspiring presence of shop-keepers who do business on Dublin Street every day of the week with such panache, not least Jenning’s Opticians, Connie Byrne Hyland, Cafe Formenti, Brennans Butchers, Kehoe’s, Southerns, McDermotts, and Byrnes Estate agents, O’Loughlin’s Public House, and others.