Workshop: Memory of a Free Festival

On Saturday, 13 June at 12-2pm and 3-5pm as part of the Memory of a Free Festival program, Ormston House will collaborate with Limerick Printmakers on two free printmaking workshop that explores the signs and symbols of multiple important causes and movements in recent history, leaving space for individual interpretations and the creation of unique handmade artworks, be they protest posters, or more subtle explorations of texture, pattern and text.

Tickets are sold out for the 12-2pm workshop. Tickets are available for the second workshop at 3-5pm on Limerick Printmakers eventbrite here.

Participants will engage directly with silkscreen printmaking, while incorporating tactile techniques such as collage and hand stamped block lettering, in homage to the grassroots, DIY ethos of protest imagery and its means of disseminating information. Limerick Printmakers facilitators will support all participants in developing artwork rooted in and informed by the visual language of protest, with outcomes unique to each person.

Conceived by Ormston House, Memory of a Free Festival responds to the Carnsore Point anti-nuclear festivals that took place in Wexford between 1978 and 1981. Organised by a coalition of groups, the festivals were attended by thousands of people. These legions were unified by their shared opposition to what would have been the first nuclear power plant to be built in Ireland. Unprecedented in the cultural and political history of the nation, these festivals were a testament to the potential of people power and music as catalysts for social change, as they encompassed musical entertainment, lectures, workshops and exhibitions.

Organised by Ormston House with funding from the Arts Council of Ireland through the Touring of Work Scheme.

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