Documentation of curation work at Livestock Music & Arts Festival 2022

by Ingela Stenberg

Livestock Music and Arts Festival 2022

Throughout the year of 2022 I have been engaged with the music festival Livestock in Aughrim outside of Galway. I planned and curated the art show 'And This Is Where We Meet', a group exhibition consisting of 12 artists exhibiting paintings, photographs, short films and performance art.

It was a long journey and quite challenging at times but an absolute success and a great seed planted for coming years. I started off by contacting different artists I thought would be a good addition, I looked for a certain style of art and while it varied and it was a lovely mix of work; there was themes like nature, the body, people and character studies as well as storytelling that brought the artists work together. The festival is very much a back to the land, and connection between people/nature type of festival so I wanted the art to relate to that.

While most of the artists are based in Ireland I had a performer coming form Italy for this occasion, she performed a lovely interpretative dance piece with her creative partner and they had help from an violinist they met in Dingle on the way to the festival. That was a lovely addition to the event; how it had spontaneity and how it connected people, created new ideas with that sense of a community feel.

The exhibition area was nestled into a quiet corner of the festival, an oak tree oasis with a beautiful vibrant path way down away from the hustle and bustle. I had two pavilions set up for the physical art pieces and one tent for the short films, and the performance art piece took place twice on the second day. It has been a great learning experience and I am very much looking forward to next year when we will do this again, on a bigger scale and all the details and components refined.

Artists who exhibited:

Darren Ryan, Limerick

Michal Lubinski, Poland

Ilaria Delcane, Italy

Silke Michels, Dingle

Jarlath Slattery, Limerick

Senan O'Connor, Cork

Temmuz Sureyya, Galway

Sabina Niguez, Galway

Dawid Piotr Szlaga, New Zeeland

Catherine Fleming, Galway

Saoirse Tshepho Godfrey, Dublin