REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE EXHIBITION ‘STITCHES AND DITCHES’
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE EXHIBITION ‘STITCHES AND DITCHES’ CARRICK-ON-SHANNON, LEITRIM
Tá áthas orm bheith anseo i bhur measc inniú. Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iul daoibh as ucht bhur bhfáilte chaoin.
I am delighted to have this opportunity to visit Carrick- on-Shannon again, to renew old and enduring friendships and to launch this unique millennium cross border visual arts exhibition. I would like to thank Terre Duffy and Leitrim County Council for the kind invitation.
I have just had the opportunity to view this wonderful exhibition and I would like to congratulate the group of Leitrim and Fermanagh women who took up the challenging task of working with the Irish Museum of Modern Art to curate their own exhibition from the Gallery’s permanent collection. For all of the women involved, this was a completely new experience and I am sure you were initially apprehensive at the prospect of working on this project given that you did not have any previous expertise in contemporary or modern art. As ordinary mortals we can look at paintings and know what instinctively appeals to us but we can feel a little lost when we don’t have the formal background or training in the subject. Through your tremendous efforts in curating this exhibition you have demonstrated that all too often it is our own doubts about our ability or lack of training and experience that confine us. When we take our courage in our hands we can be truly astonished by how much we innately know and how much we can achieve.
The philosopher, Joseph Campbell makes the point in his book ‘The Power of Myth’ ‘I’ve always felt uncomfortable’, he says, ‘when people speak of ordinary mortals because I have never met an ordinary man, woman or child.. Everybody has his own possibility of rapture in the experience of life. All he has to do is recognise it, cultivate it, and get going with it..’ You clearly got going with it and this final personal selection of work has produced a balanced, ambitious and dynamic exhibition. By involving yourselves fully in the curatorial process you have given yourselves the opportunity to unlock your own creativity and imagination, to form personal and confident opinions and to release your own emotional and intellectual responses to an extensive collection of art.
The result of this process can be seen today in the broad spectrum of formal and subjective pieces on exhibition which range from abstract pieces to fluid expressionistic works full of romance and emotion.
I would like to pay tribute to all involved with this project. It is a successful union of true cross–border co-operation and cross community partnership, involving both Leitrim County Council and Fermanagh District Council, Leitrim Irish Country Women’s Association and the Fermanagh Women’s Network and the Women’s Institute Fermanagh.
The team work which produced this project is an important story in itself. It tells us how much we can accomplish when we pool our interests and our talents, when we allow ourselves to use our imaginations. It tells us how friendships grow, how respect for each other’s talents and opinions grow, how we grow in understanding that each brings his or her unique gifts and talents and out of the mix comes something much greater than the sum of the parts, but something each can own and feel proud of. It could be a metaphor for the future we all wish for on this island - a place where talent and energy is released into a common pool, a resource put at the service of all our people, to feed a shared future we can all take pride in.
I must say I was somewhat intrigued by the title chosen for the exhibition – Stitches and Ditches – I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to view! It obviously has a very particular meaning for the people of this area in that the landscape all around us is marked and differentiated by hedges and ditches – each a careful, protective testimony to the uniqueness of each place and the individuals in it. The ditches in the title speak of boundary of separation which can be sewn together to form a rich tapestry of shared lives and experiences.
I would like to thank the Irish Museum of Modern Art for their assistance in this imaginative initiative. They hold in trust collections of both contemporary and modern art which belongs to all of us and which should be enjoyed by the broadest possible audience. This project has succeeded in giving the people of both Leitrim and Fermanagh the opportunity to experience the best in visual art on their own doorstep.
Great thanks is due to the community based company Management Resources Development, who are the developers of the Market House Centre which houses the exhibition. I would like also to congratulate everyone who has brought this wonderful exhibition to fruition and I have no doubt that the exhibition will be enjoyed by the people in Leitrim and Fermanagh.
I am delighted to declare the exhibition open.