prismatic Perspectives a Big Hit!

3 days ago

9 min read

We have been getting some fabulous feedback about the exhibition in the Imagine Arts Festival hub on O'Connell Street in Waterford City. Come and take a look before it disappears on Sunday evening the 25th of October.

The Waterford Creatives Network was launched officially last Monday night, the 19th of October, by Mayor Liam Brazil at the opening of the 25th Imagine Arts Festival. We have been invited to take part in the festival going forward which is a big win for the network and we are excited for next year's community art project. Members are encouraged to stay tuned for more information on that. We begin planning as soon as we know the festival theme for 2027.

Back to the Exhibition... This collaborative community art installation was inspired by the childhood memories of St. Joseph’s Nursing Home Residents and the art resulting from those memories by multigenerational, multicultural, multiracial and multilevel creatives in Waterford. It is a reflection of memories and experiences passed down and seen from new perspectives.

Our goal is in this exhibition is to awaken memories and get people talking and sharing. By sharing our experiences and knowledge with each other and listening to each other, our wonderfully diverse communities grow together. There have been so many memories shared already, it's been a great success.

Here is a final list of who took part (19 of whom were WCN members). Gallery of images below.

Participants:

St. Joseph’s Nursing Home, Ferrybank

Rose Murphy Duggan, Facilitator

Kathleen Kennedy, Storyteller

Sr. Rita, Storyteller

Joan Sinnott, Storyteller

Anne Drohan, Storyteller

Sr. Mary, Storyteller

Nancy Kennedy, Storyteller

Noreen Walsh, Storyteller

Sr. Teresa, Storyteller

Briget Rea, Storyteller

St. Angela’s Ursuline Secondary School

Anne Mulhall, Facilitator

Isla O’Connor, Student

Yasmine Tayeh, Student

Anum Siddiqui, Student

3 Sisters Women’s Shed

Jane Fraher, Facilitator

Tanya Ashton, Artist

Lily Webber, Artist

Vicky McIlfatrick Wall, Artist

Lucy Mann, Artist

Merisauh Gamble, Artist

Luana Marinho Espíndola Silva, Artist

Tetiana Lysenko, Artist

Coralie Dalton, Artist

Other WCN Members

Niamh Ni Chearbhaill, Facilitator, Artist

TheresaPio Lucey, Artist

Sarah Roberts, Invigilator

Rosemary Dulson Garvey, Artist

Maria Luiza Espíndola Molena, Artist

Anastasia Orlova, Artist

Special Mentions

A big thank you to our supporters, sponsors and funders: Imagine Festival, Creative Waterford, Waterford Arts Council, Louis Quinlan and Tory Services, Luke Currall, Thomas Dowling, James Sinnott Technical Services, the Irish Handmade Glass Company and last but not least our families and friends who have supported us.

Gallery

St. Joseph’s Nursing Home Residents Tell Their Stories

Facilitated by Rose Murphy Duggan

A listening piece.

“The Leader of the Pack”

Joan Sinnott, Storyteller

Vicky McIlfatrick Wall, Artist

The familiar childhood rhyme, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," becomes a contradiction within this piece. While physical wounds may heal, the emotional impact of words, bullying and not being believed can remain long into adulthood. This sculpture portrays a young child chained to an older adult, symbolising how childhood trauma can be carried throughout life. It also explores the different perspectives surrounding bullying, particularly the rose-tinted view of parents who may refuse to believe their own child could cause harm.

“Bringing the Ducks to Market”

Noreen Walsh, Storyteller

Isla O’Connor, Student Artist

“First Communion Dress Turns Green”

Sr. Rita, Storyteller

Lily Webber, Artist

“Love Story”

Kathleen Kennedy, Storyteller

Tanya Ashton, Artist

“Going to the Shop”

Briget Rea, Storyteller

Yasmine Tayeh, Student Artist

“Connected Relations”

Anne Drohan, Storyteller

Lucy Mann, Merisauh Gamble, Artists

“The Doll and Pram”

Nancy Kennedy, Storyteller

Tetiana Lysenko, Artist

“The Last Dance”

Sr. Teresa, Storyteller

Anum Siddiqui, Student Artist

“The House Fire”

Sr. Mary, Storyteller

Luana Marinho Espíndola Silva, Artist

“Time Turns to Rust”

Lily Webber

Time turns to rust, to fading embers, to glittering gold,

yet the stories we inherit never truly grow old.

Passed from hand to hand, heart to heart,

are the treasured tales that time cannot withhold.

The words become our windows to a world we might not know,

a glimpse of life that came before, whose roots we now help grow.

Through every tale, a thread is spun, connecting then and now,

a living life of love, of why, of when, of how.

And so the years keep turning, like the pages of a book,

with every note – a legacy, with every sentence – a look

at those who walked before us, who laughed and loved and cried,

whose hopes and dreams and quiet truths walk beside us in the light.

For time may fade the photograph, may rust the garden gate,

and take the hands that held us close, however long we wait.

And though time may rust those things we hold,

and turn our summers into gold,

but what was shared, so rich, so true,

will forever live in every shade and hue.

So, let the years roll on and part,

let the stories settle in our hearts.

And when my tales are all but told,

when youth has fled, and my hands grow old,

I'll smile at all the things I've known,

of all the love and truth I've sown,

and watch my stories, "Oh! On they go!",

like seeds upon the wind to grow.

For this, at last, I know is true:

Even when the skies fade from gold to blue,

and time turns to rust, through and through,

Trust in me, life still yet blooms.

“Tankardstown – Echoes in the Fading Light”

Anastasia Orlova

This watercolour depicts the Tankardstown mine ruins on County Waterford’s Copper Coast, a landscape shaped by nineteenth-century copper mining. Mining activity moved from nearby Knockmahon to Tankardstown around 1850, and the surviving Cornish-style engine houses once contained powerful machinery used to pump water from underground and raise ore to the surface. At its height, the mining operation employed around 1,200 people, before declining in the later nineteenth century.

As part of Prismatic Perspectives, the painting looks beyond the ruins themselves, exploring the landscape through light, colour, time and memory. The transparent watercolour gradually fades and dissolves, while the old stone structures hold the warm glow of sunset. This fading colour becomes a metaphor for memory—what is now silent was once filled with voices, machinery, footsteps and everyday life.

The sunset seems to bring the ruins briefly back to life, connecting past and present. Like light passing through a prism, the landscape reveals different perspectives: beauty and hardship, presence and absence, industry and nature, history and memory.

The ruins remain as quiet witnesses to the people who once lived and worked here, reminding us that although a place may fall silent, its stories do not entirely disappear.

“Public Participation I”

Niamh Ni Chearbhaill

Take a sharpie marker from the nearby bedside locker and share your answers with us. Your participation completes the artwork.

“The Spinning Wheel”

Rosemary Dulson Garvey

A listening piece, please use the headphones provided.

“What We Carry”

Vicky McIlfatrick Wall, Camilla Clark

Memories, Perspectives and the Passage of Time – This collection explores the memories we gather throughout our lives, the different ways we experience them and how they continue to shape us as we grow older.

Four vessels represent the changing seasons through natural materials: dried flowers, beach fragments, conkers and dried oranges. Each contains fragments of nature that may awaken different memories in different people. For some, these objects may bring back feelings of happiness, childhood adventures, family traditions or nostalgia. For others, the same objects may carry entirely different associations.

The fifth jar, containing sticks and stones, connects to my earlier sculptural work inspired by a storyteller's recollection of childhood bullying in 1948 (See no. 2). Through the theme of Prismatic, I explore how one experience can be viewed through many perspectives. The child, the parent, the bully and the adult remembering the event may each see it differently.

The seasonal vessels offer another perspective on memory, reminding us that life is made up of both joyful and painful experiences.

Together, these works reflect the passing of time and the invisible things we carry with us. Time moves forward, seasons change, but some memories remain with us for a lifetime.

“If A Cup of Tea Had Ears, The Stories It Could Tell”

Rosemary Dulson Garvey

Wedding photo transferred from a photocopy with cellulose thinners. The flowers in single tea cup represent all the memories shared between my parents and my family and my mother becoming a widow. The other fabric flowers represent all the love in the generations to come. A lone lady’s shoe from my parents wedding cake represents the memories of my mother and father and the 31 years my mother has lived as a widow. The thin veil depicts how memories become hazy but still exist in an altered state. “Love” made from tea leaves, the universal liquid 'If A Tea Cup Had Ears', the ceremony of tea and all the emotions – happy, sad, relaxed, etc. we feel when drinking a cup of tea and sharing the experience.

“Public Participation II”

Niamh Ni Chearbhaill

Come play on the floor in front of the TV with me. Take a piece of brown modelling clay and make a little figure – something you saw on a journey or in a dream. Your participation completes the artwork.

“Public Participation III”

TheresaPio Lucey, Niamh Ni Chearbhaill, Luana Marinho Espindola Silva

Make up a story about a shepherd and a sheep and stage a puppet show. Your participation completes the artwork.

“Memory of a Chest of Drawers”

Luana Marinho Espíndola Silva

“Oh, To Be Young Again”

Niamh Ni Chearbhaill

A man dreams of swinging, wind flowing around him, legs up and and down, higher and higher, free.

“Drowning Memories”

Maria Luiza Espíndola Molena

With sparks in his blue eyes, his old brush and sixty shades of blue, he drew a few more lines across the canvas. The curtains fluttered by the window, breathing like lungs, while he could only whisper half of the song whose title he failed to remember. And if I were just clay, could I become something real?

The immense ocean that came to life was his sober delirium: a mermaid beneath the waves, and behind her, a portrait of a sinking ship. Perhaps, if you squinted, you could even see the same mad captain who plotted his own death in his pursuit of a terrible white beast.

The cold was almost killing me. I was the result of rags that had once been a white dress, a last-minute borrowed coat and teeth chattering behind purple lips.

“What’s your name?” some voice asked from within the crowd. “What were you looking for in the ocean?” Everyone around me was asking questions. Every single moment, I wished I could answer. But the answers slipped from my tongue.

“Where are my wings?” That was all I had the strength to answer. “Can someone see them?”

Laughs. “A dragonfly without its wings has no worth”.

“Could you make me fly again?” I asked him, as I stepped into his decadent studio. The air smelled of acrylic, and the mess around him resembled a war zone, a minefield of drafts of the same leviathan that the obsessed captain had been hunting.

That painting was now resting on an easel. The more that monster in the water stared at me, the more I realised it wasn't a mermaid. No, it was something more. Even more than the salt water, even more than the monochromatism.

“As I said, when I finish this sculpture, you will be able to fly again,” said his voice, the only voice that truly believed.

I could feel my untouchable dream sitting on my back. As he molded the wax to suit me, I knew they were more than metal frames and joints. Those feathers were more than what had once belonged to birds. They were part of my body, and I was reborn as something whose name others could remember.

“In my mythology, we call you an angel” He didn't say anything. I heard his thoughts.

So I flew high. I flew as long as someone could believe I was real. Beyond the preternatural. Inverossímil.

“But what if my heaven is not the same as the one in your mythology?”

“Then I would beg God to let me into your heaven.”

All the art galleries felt the same. I lost my mind somewhere there. Triangles and abstract forms. My blind eyes couldn’t see anything but that blue light.

I ran between the paintings, but none of them were his art. I jumped from one canvas to another, portraits and gardens painted in oil. I was a painting by an unknown artist, torn from its context, dissonant.

I was no longer a muse. My legs weren’t made for running and my wings were disappearing by the minute. Like raw clay, a mug without its wings.

Sea. Darkness. The mute flash of lightning hurled by a god drunk by ambrosia. The enormous can of scarlet ink he kept on the shelf, splattered across the perfect picture of the creature slithering through the water. A crime scene.

“I'm sorry, I was just trying to fly!” I said, as my wings failed.

“It’s okay. That was the colour I was searching for.”

The birth of a new thing. He smiled. But he knew that our world would not be the same for much longer than one more breath, while he watched me dissolving into the crimson ink

Like a comet, I cut through the atmosphere. Like moonlight, that eye was shining, abyssal. Like a stupid dragonfly, I was attracted by that blue moon reflected on the water like a painting. I submerged and then I realised what had attached me to water: sparkling blue eyes.