Rhizome Residency: Talk & Walk

Join us for a Talk & Walk with artist Gareth Kennedy as part of his Rhizome residency, enabled by the Kilkenny Arts Office exploring potentials for novel green spaces and citizen based ecological practice and climate action in Kilkenny. 

The day will begin with an artist talk by Gareth at the Butler Gallery, sharing his research into urban green spaces and their civic userships. Gareth will focus on the NCAD FIELD project as a functioning and sustained example of where art and design learning intersects with community, ecology, climate action and heritage. He will also discuss a partnership with a Growing Story in Belfast and his Superprojects Microforest Project which is now in its 4th year.

Following the talk and discussion, curator Rachel Botha will introduce the Tea Houses and her approach to programming in this novel and new Kilkenny space. Please bring a keep cup for a hot beverage.

The day will continue down the River Nore, along the Abbey Quarter, mapping the old brewery site and musing its nature-culture-climate-social potentials. 

This event is an opportunity for artist Gareth Kennedy to share his findings and thinking in reference to this area, while collectively exploring its potential for civic engagement. 

The Rhizome residency is part of Roots for The Future, a national project that is working towards creating a Climate Art Assembly where artists will interface with local authorities across the island to explore how cultural processes can create more resilient and abundant ecological futures.

Gareth Kennedy is a Kilkenny based artist and lecturer at the NCAD in Dublin. His work has been produced and exhibited nationally and internationally and includes exhibitions, public art projects and publications. He is course leader of the undergraduate Studio+ NCAD FIELD project, and co-leader on the CFA Postgraduate diploma in Art & Ecology in the college. As well as Roots for the Future he is involved in two other international research projects: L’Internationale’s Museum of the Commons, and MSCA SpaceX Rise Research Action.

The Rhizome Residency is funded by the Kilkenny Arts Office, this event is supported by Butler Gallery and the Tea Houses programme.