Louise Walsh
Louise Walsh
loulouwa
Sweets and Snails
Sweets and Snails (Sugar and Spice). 1999.
Bronze, Street Signs and Ramp.
Walsh was asked to make an artwork that would serve as a traffic calming feature/ramp in Saint Finian’s housing estate, Lucan. While researching the site and talking to residents, Walsh realised that their concerns centered on the speed of traffic in relation to the safety of the children playing around the area.
Walsh devised a project that had a sculptural element and ran art workshops for local children to participate in the process of making images to go on signs in the area. This was intended to create an opportunity for local children to have a creative input into the piece.
On weekend art workshops Walsh instituted a road safety awareness element into the proceedings, and the children were encouraged to make images and texts that would send messages to drivers about the presence of children in the area. Four of the paintings were translated into reflective signs.
To insure that all the artwork made by the children was celebrated, and not just the ones chosen for the signs, an art exhibition of all the paintings done by the young people was held in the Town Hall in Tallaght. A bus brought the residents and children to the opening of the exhibition, this event was organised by Gina Kelly, the arts officer for South Dublin County Council.
Walsh installed two childlike figures in bronze (with their head gear referencing the children’s rhyme ‘What are little boys/girls made of’) to stand under the signs. The figures are positioned on the ramp just past the entrance into St Finian’s estate. Somehow through the process the pieces got named locally as ‘Sugar’ and ‘Spice’.
Commissioned by South Dublin County Council as part of In “Contexts 1”, in association with Artworking.
Bronze, Street Signs and Ramp.
Walsh was asked to make an artwork that would serve as a traffic calming feature/ramp in Saint Finian’s housing estate, Lucan. While researching the site and talking to residents, Walsh realised that their concerns centered on the speed of traffic in relation to the safety of the children playing around the area.
Walsh devised a project that had a sculptural element and ran art workshops for local children to participate in the process of making images to go on signs in the area. This was intended to create an opportunity for local children to have a creative input into the piece.
On weekend art workshops Walsh instituted a road safety awareness element into the proceedings, and the children were encouraged to make images and texts that would send messages to drivers about the presence of children in the area. Four of the paintings were translated into reflective signs.
To insure that all the artwork made by the children was celebrated, and not just the ones chosen for the signs, an art exhibition of all the paintings done by the young people was held in the Town Hall in Tallaght. A bus brought the residents and children to the opening of the exhibition, this event was organised by Gina Kelly, the arts officer for South Dublin County Council.
Walsh installed two childlike figures in bronze (with their head gear referencing the children’s rhyme ‘What are little boys/girls made of’) to stand under the signs. The figures are positioned on the ramp just past the entrance into St Finian’s estate. Somehow through the process the pieces got named locally as ‘Sugar’ and ‘Spice’.
Commissioned by South Dublin County Council as part of In “Contexts 1”, in association with Artworking.
View of the work on site
In the foundry before installation
Paintings made into signs
Art workshops
Some paintings by the children
Louise Walsh
loulouwa
