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The Cloudlands Gallery is a dedicated online space which brings together the collaborative work of teenagers and artists participating in Helium’s Cloudlands Project at three Irish hospitals: Temple Street Children’s University Hospital, University Hospital Galway and Cork University Hospital. Through the Cloudlands Project, artists in residence work with chronically ill teenagers to facilitate their active participation in the design and delivery of a multi-media, arts and technology project through which they create, perform, and exchange their stories. The Cloudlands artists are Rachel Tynan (Temple Street), Emma Fisher (UHG) and Eszter Nemethi (CUH).
Each digital exhibition is curated by Katy Fitzpatrick, and is selected with a variety of curatorial frameworks, which include:
• representing a snapshot of a particular period or duration
• showcasing themes that emerge from the stories and creative collaborations with the young people
• and illustrating the work made by the artists in response to their experience of the project overall.
‘It was a pleasure to work on the development and curation of the Cloudlands Gallery, an important next step for this wonderful and worthwhile arts and health project, as this public element makes the work that the artists and children are producing in collaboration visible. In considering the function of the online space, it was important that the site allowed us to show visually a number of exhibitions, and that it allowed for all types of media, from sound to painting, side by side – not an easy task we soon found out! In terms of a curatorial framework, the stars and galaxies exhibit represents the first, of hopefully many exhibits, that represent themes that emerge from the collaborative work (sometimes by chance) across the hospitals, and other frameworks do or could include representing the work of the teenagers over a time period or one body of work by a teen, the media and materials being used, and how the ideas spread beyond the hospital walls through the teens, artists, families, friends and even the President (!).’ – Curator Katy Fitzpatrick
The Cloudlands Gallery was launched at Helium’s annual film screening by Helen O’Donoghue, Senior Curator: Head of Education and Community Programmes at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
Visit the Cloudlands Gallery here: http://cloudlandsgallery.helium.ie/cloudlandsgallery
