Covid caution pays off for Arts Festival

The Mirror Pavilion art installation which was visited by over 120,000 people when it was displayed at the Claddagh during Galway International Arts Festival’s autumn programme will not be moving out to a Connemara location this month, despite earlier plans that it would.

The striking structure by world-renowned artist, John Gerrard, was due to be located at Derrigimlagh Bog outside Clifden in October but that plan has now been shelved until March, due to current Covid 19 restrictions.

The shiny cube which depicts an image on an LED wall 24 hours a day was a popular attraction while it was exhibited at Claddagh Quay last month. Images of it were circulated around the world, mostly on various social media platforms.

It was dismantled after September 26 and was due to move to Connemara, to the site where Alcock and Brown completed the first trans-Atlantic flight in 1919 and also the transmission site for the first trans-Atlantic radio signal from the Marconi station in 1907.

The installation, which was commissioned especially for Galway’s European Capital of Culture 2020 programme, was to be situated in Connemara for most of this month.

However, the Artistic Director of GIAF, Paul Fahy, told The Connacht Tribune that, some weeks ago, the Festival organisers had discussed the possibility of postponing it because of rising Covid-19 cases at home and abroad

“There was no point in going ahead with the Connemara installation in light of us going into Level 3, when the country’s population was in lockdown and couldn’t come into the county to see it, not to mention travel restrictions on other countries stopping them coming to Ireland,” he said.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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