Arts Trail and Open Submission exhibition launch kicks off Vintage Week in Birr

THE launch of annual Open Submission exhibition of Birr Vintage Week & Arts Festival Visual Arts Trail took place at The Max on Main Street on Friday evening.

The event marks the start of the annual Vintage festival and as such usually attracts a large and enthusiastic crowd and this year was no different.

The theme of the Open Submission exhibition this year is 'A Place in only a Place?' and is curated by Rowena Keaveny.

Over 50 works of art were on display in the venue, which proved to be an ideal choice for the exhibition. It is a large space and allowed plenty of room for all the exhibits to be displayed. Those works of art came from a variety of local and visiting artists and the quality of the work impressed those who attended the launch on Friday evening.

Chair of the Festival Committee and Visual Arts Co-ordinator, Caroline Conway welcomed everyone “to a beautiful venue for the Open Submission exhibition for the launch of the Arts Trail. We had a lot of people doing a lot of scrubbing and now it looks like a gallery,” she added.

“I would like to thank all the people who make Vintage Week happen year on year on year, all the sponsors around the town, our public funders, the volunteers – and we have a volunteer manager this year, Rachel Alexander - all doing a fantastic job. Our committee also works so hard to get everything ready,” she said.

“This is a beautiful exhibition, curated by Rowena, and I think we have some really lovely work in here and we hope that you might buy some as it's very reasonably priced. We have all the local artists and also artists from all over the country.”

Caroline also pointed out the “absolutely fabulous model of Oxmantown Mall, made by Oxmantown National School”, which is displayed at the back on the venue and which drew a lot of praise.

Caroline noted that as well as the launch of Open Submission exhibition, it was also the launch of the Arts Trail and she invited those present to go and visit some of the other venues afterwards.

“Next door in Mary's Flowers we have some of our local artists, a few doors down in Jerro's we have the Press Photographers Association and upstairs we have Birr Art Group. We have here tonight from the PPAI Brenda Fitzsimons, a former president and Photographer of the Year and former picture editor of the Irish Times and she will be in the venue in Jerros to say a few words,” said Caroline.

She also said that Birr Lions Club are doing an art auction and they had a preview that evening in Hoctor Smyth. The auction will take place in Craughwells on Friday September 27^th with proceeds going to October Breast Cancer Awareness Month and November Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.

The Arts Trail launch finished at the old cinema where “our friends from Longford, Steph and Kevin Hanlon, will be there with an amazing installation”, which is entitled 'Underwater World'.

Concluding Caroline said “in this Open Submission we have a prize for a solo show for the following year, so 2025, and we would like to award this to Louise Reid and we would like to give a Highly Commended to Chritina Hall.”

Rowena Keaveny said she would like to say “Thank you to Caroline and Vintage Week for asking me to curate this year's Open Submission exhibition. I have worked on the Open Submission for the last nine years and curated for eight years across five venues, featuring hundreds of artists and thousands of art works.

“What I love about the Open Submission exhibition is that it is an opportunity for artists of various ages or stages of their career to come together, from artists beginning their career to older more established artists, to those returning after taking a break or those taking up a new activity later in life.There is space for all of them. This year's theme is 'place' and the variety of work is a diverse showcase of what makes the place important, be that natural, personal or structural.

“As Caroline said, exhibitions and indeed festivals, require many hands to bring them together. Over the year I got a lot of help and support,” she said and thanked all those who had helped out in making the exhibition possible.

“Finally I would like to dedicate tonight's launch to art Frankie Gallagher and to let Dympna know that we are thinking of her,” said Rowena, remembering the Birr artist whose art work featured in exhibitions in Vintage Week for many years and who sadly passed away in recent months.